• davemeech@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    So I have YouTube premium but also have ad-blocker, for the first time yesterday I was noticing absolutely abysmal speeds on YouTube and I suspect this is why. I thought my computer was starting to shit the bed initially it was so brutal.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I was wondering if this was coming. I don’t use YouTube in-browser much if at all, so I don’t see this. But I am not surprised. The fact that they’re slowing down people who pay for premium is kind of an act of war. It shouldn’t be a thing, and the fact that it’s happening at all is a misstep on Google’s part. Not that the whole slowing down people who use ad blockers isn’t. But this will detrimentally affect adoption of premium subscribers which I thought was the last thing they’d want. Because they obviously don’t make enough off ad revenue to support the platform. That’s part of why they push premium so hard. They need more premium subscribers. This is idiocy.

      • davemeech@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        I can’t remember what video I watched that talked about the unsustainabilty and likely the late stages of an ad revenue driven internet content model, and this situation reeks of that.

        I don’t know what new paradigm might replace it if this is the case, but the current model feels like it’s absolutely failing.

    • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I have premium, uBlock Origin, and Mullvad VPN. In Firefox the other day, the stream was dying every 10-30 seconds. Like it would just stop and give me a spinner. I would have to “Copy URL at current time”, open a new tab, and paste it in to get it to go any further. I do have bad internet, but this was nuts. And then I gave up and used Duck, and it played flawlessly in their embedded player.

      Good job, Google.

      If it happens again, I’ll try disabling uBlock Origin on YouTube and see if it improves.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      After getting premium I just switched the adblocker off for YouTube. Premium would be far too expensive if it didn’t also include YouTube Music :-/

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        uBlock Origin works on YouTube Music, too.

        If you want to throw a few bucks at the people providing you a service, then donate to an ad blocker for helping make the Internet a safer, better, and more user-friendly place. …not the big fuckers like YouTube who are contributing to the enshitification of the entire web.

          • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            While uBlock would be most deserving of a donation imo, there are others that do accept. Even if it’s an ad blocker you don’t actively use, you’d still be supporting a developer who’s using their time and skills to improve the web.

            Donating to no one would be better than paying YouTube.

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          YouTube already has ways to block users with adblock. They just haven’t fully rolled it out yet.

          Lately they blocked playing videos when I had uBlock Origin running, but it was just a warning I could click away. They might also slow down page loading and playback.

          YouTube has the ability to lock users with adblock out, they are just very careful about using it. Mostly starting with trials in smaller countries and getting more bold over time.