YouTube pushing non-skippable ads
YouTube revealed in a new video for content creators recently that it plans to push unskippable video ads on the video hosting site.
The video "Want to earn more money from ad revenue?" was published on the official Creator Insider channel on YouTube.
All publishers on YouTube that may monetize videos on the site will get options to run unskippable ads on their channels.
Non-skippable video advertisements were only available to select partners up to this point. The change unlocks the monetization option for all publishers on the site and enables the new ad format automatically on videos that are monetized using the "skip after 5 seconds" ad format.
YouTube's default ad format, which displays video ads that users may skip after 5 seconds of playtime will remain available on the site. The new maximum length for unskippable video ads is 15 to 20 seconds depending on the location of the viewer.
Video content that is already monetized on YouTube will have the ad format switched on as well so that non-skippable ads may be played to viewers automatically as well. Publishers and content creators who don't want to display unskippable ads on their channel need to change the default or make changes to ad settings for individual videos.
YouTube claims that unskippable advertisement yields a higher revenue than skippable advertisements on the site. Not all creators seem to be onboard with the new default ad type on YouTube; some voiced concern that unskippable advertisement would worsen the user experience, that some users would stop playback if they can't skip the video, and that YouTube's claim that revenue would rise was not true in all cases.
Here is the video that YouTube published recently:
Google plans to roll out the feature in the next days to all publishes who participate in the partner program. Creators will get a notification in Creator Studio that informs them about the availability of the new monetization option.
Creators will be able to track the performance of skippable and non-skippable ads on YouTube.
Closing Words
The number of videos with unskippable advertisement will certainly increase as a consequence of the change. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing for creators remains to be seen; what is clear, however, is that the change will fuel the use of content blockers even more. Extensions like uBlock Origin take care of ads on YouTube so that neither Google nor the publisher will earn any money.
Now You: What is your take on the announcement?
Stinks, if I’m forced to watch those ads, just no, will surf elsewhere.
that’s why you use hooktube or invidious
its like they want more people to start using ad-block or something
on mobile you could use this .pac (.js) file i have created to block (almost) all youtube ads!
https://gist.github.com/lukanz
Ads on YouTube when I have adblock? lololololol…
How about making an add-on that jumps you past each ad? It would have to be for Firefox since Google probably wouldn’t allow it in the Chrome Web Store.
“i like simple things; like the middle between extremes; like things that work. i am not a nerd.”
The middle needs extremes to survive, without extremes no middle. Not so simple.
“The middle needs extremes to survive, without extremes no middle. Not so simple.”
And the extremes need each other. The ancient Greek philosophers evoked “the reciprocal necessity of opposites”.
In fact there are connections between all but no synthesis would have any sense without a thesis and an anti-thesis.
Everything in life is inter-dependent, this is what is so fascinating. Even techies need philosophers as these need techies :=)
For “français d’en bas”, “connards”, “hommes de rien”, “fainéants”, “sans dents” or “gaulois réfractaires”, philosophes should know that “grosses bourdes” in communication will don’t help them to keep their privileges also.
@noemata: about Google Search “no comparison to qualitatively inferior results per duckduckgo”
I did not know that censorship could be a guarantee of a superior quality, thanks.
@ anonymous ..in context and in my german mother language, this can have a different meaning than your fundamentalist – interpretation. don’t worry. doesn’t mean anything evil.
Why people (except I suppose those wanting to make money?) are still using Google tube is a mystery for me.
Because, we all like BIG THINGS, we don’t let the small or new guy compete… we just love supporting the already GIANT guy — and then cry in misery when things go sour.. but hey, next day is just another day hooking with the same big fella! Cuz we like big things! 🌚
@AAA
i like simple things; like the middle between extremes; like things that work. i am not a nerd.
i like my yt-channels. my important sources of information do not have a vimeo (et cetera) – account.
i like google – search results. no comparison to qualitatively inferior results per duckduckgo, quant & co. . especially if you’re mainly looking for medical and physics topics. one must face the truth and then just initiate the necessary securtiy-steps.
i like twitter. great newsfeed. sempervideo, ghacks, f… trump, great patrick stewart lol .. .. .. – perfect overviev, immediate informative news .. and interesting garbage too.
i like cloudflare as my dns – provider (much more than my isp or google). perfect infrastructure. all over the world. no censorship (hey kinox.to & co & my isp). no other provider can currently compete with cl – if an european provider with similar features (dnssec, DoH, ect.) & great infrastructure comes along, i like to change. but far and wide _only crap_ (currently).
ah, and i like openvpn. especially after this message (discovered on .. twitter, of course): https://twitter.com/airvpn/status/1034520485344813060 .
black/white, 0/1 – thinking, nope. heise – niveau (again).
Invidous – Alternative front-end to YouTube
Since Hooktube went down, I’ve been using invidio.us together with Redirector Firefox addon (also available for chrome, opera).
https://invidio.us/
No ads
Embed support
Reddit comments under videos instead of YouTube’s (similar to AlienTube)
Adds ability to listen only to audio
No need for YouTube app in order to listen to videos on mobile
No need to “ding” bell, just being subscribed is enough to receive all notifications
No age-gate
Dark mode (although YouTube has this now too)
A couple extra analytics under videos: rating, engagement %, Wilson Score
https://old.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/8wvazc/invidous_alternative_frontend_to_youtube/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/
http://einaregilsson.com/redirector/
Add the below to Redirector, to redirect Youtube links to Invidous.
Description: YouTube to Invidious
Example URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1234
Include pattern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=*
Redirect to: https://invidio.us//watch?v=$1
Pattern type: Wildcard
There’s also dedicated FF addons available to perform the same task.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?platform=windows&q=Invidious
@ruan oh, i followed your last link (dedicated ff addons) and found the better addon, thx: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hooktube-redirect/ . needs just one permission and if you call youtube.com, you will be redirected _directly_ to invidious. this behavior did not work with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/alternate-tube-redirector/ & co. . and of course, no peerblock warning/blocking at all.
@ruan i think it is much less complicated with the addon recommended on the project – site on github: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/alternate-tube-redirector/. this has the further advantage that you can activate autoplay. but also via userscript (see corresponding github page), everything is very easy to handle.
although the last update of the script was in july – and .. if this userscript is used .. sometimes you have to reload the youtube page to get to invidious.
anyway, invidious is a great option, i’m really happy about this project. thx@omarroth if you read this.
@Ruan, if you think you’re not being tracked by Google when using Invidous rather than YouTube : forget it.
I run a software called PeerBlock which handles IP ranges, mainly to block them.
I have 7 Google DoubleClick IP ranges :
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:173.194.0.0-173.194.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:209.85.128.0-209.85.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:64.233.160.0-64.233.191.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:66.249.64.0-66.249.95.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:72.14.192.0-72.14.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:74.125.0.0-74.125.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS6432:216.73.80.0-216.73.95.255
Now, opening a video on Invidous is blocked with the information:
“The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.”
I then have a look at PeerBlock’s log and notice that 173.194.185.199 has just been blocked.
173.194.185.199 is in the range Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:173.194.0.0-173.194.255.255
I’ve noticed PeerBlock blocking several connections to DoubleClick but seemingly (no site issue) except for VirusTotal (Google owned) for which I must make an exception rule for 74.125.34.46
So, we have connections to DoubleClick “under the hood” (via IP) which bypass of course all doucleclick url filters (i.e. the user’s HOST file);
So we have a Website, Invidous, which nevertheless triggers a connection to DoubleClick because it calls YouTube links.
When opening the video on YouTube none of my PeerBlock DoubleClick filters popup, which means that YouTube initiates a connection to YouTube on some or all of its embedded videos.
EDIT:
“When opening the video on YouTube none of my PeerBlock DoubleClick filters popup, which means that YouTube initiates a connection to *YouTube* on some or all of its embedded videos”
DoubleClick, not *YouTube* of course
ps @tom: i have doubleclick in my peerblock filter. range: 195.198.203.96 – 195.198.203.111 . no warning, no blocking, with every possible variation & the tracking blocker off. the other/longer article still has to be approved by martin. pps: and wow, i can download every video per right click :).
ppps: i updated my list on peerblock and did some more search for “doubleklick” – entries in peerblock 1.2. . extract:
213.86.246.0 – 255
213.53.154.160 – 191
212.208.36.192 – 223
212.172.60.0 – 255
211.171.44.64 – 127
62.38.182.128 – 191
62.161.141.96 – 127
62.161.191.64 – 95
62.221.2.56 – 59
64.124.17.160 – 167
64.236.123.0 – 255
193.41.225.0 – 255
194.237.107.0 – 255
205.150.6.0 – 255
205.150.79.64 – 191
211.119.102.224 – 255
4.79.208.56 – 59
12.45.120.0 – 255
12.47.30.0 – 63
12.158.89.0 – 255
61.103.220.128 – 159
..
..
no match with your posted ip-ranges. same procedure on youtube and invidious like last night: tracking protection off, no peerblock warning, no peerblock blocking, no doubleclick (or any other threat) at all.
@noemata, PeerBlock only considers ranges of the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx-xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
213.86.246.0 – 255 won’t be handled by PeerBlock but 213.86.246.0-213.86.246.255 will
If you have ranges with a netmask and wish too add them to PeerBlock you may translate them here : http://jodies.de/ipcalc
@tom thanks for the important link. but that was just my abbreviated spelling (i was tired & don’t have much time). the expression “213.86.246.0 – 255” means: “213.86.246.0 – 213-86.246.255” . + that doesn’t change the simple fact that i haven’t received any warnings/blockings from peerblock 1.2 . no doubleclick, no threat. not even when i added additional lists to the existing peerblock lists (from http://www.peerblocklist.com/ ). i do not know why you have your problems/warnings/blockages. but it seems, this is not the fault of invidio.us .
maybe someone else here could do a test too. peerblock itself is available for free. try it. do it. on my part, i’ve taken care of your results and made sure myself that there is no danger. that’s enough for me.
@noemata said on August 30, 2018 at 2:39 pm,
I don’t have problems, IP blocking is not a problem it’s a safety.
I won’t explain for the 3rd time why I’ve had connections blocked by PeerBlock and not you. Please read my above comments/explanations/guide carefully.
@noemata, your range for DoubleClick, as you write it, is 195.198.203.96-195.198.203.111
My range, among the 6 other DoubleClick ranges, is 173.194.0.0-173.194.255.255
As I mentioned above, the blocked IP at Invidous was 173.194.185.199
173.194.185.199 is in my range, not in yours. No surprise.
Moreover, I don’t know where you got that 195.198.203.96-195.198.203.111 but it has nothing to do with DoubleClick but rather with ‘Telia Company AB’ : https://dnslytics.com/ip/195.198.203.96
@tom .. 195.198.203.96-195.198.203.111 .. maybe another open tab. i was tired.
but that does not relativize the other results.
the very simple point is – i have no warning, no blocking, no doubleclick, no threat at all. to the rest (+bigger range), see my other post that still needs to be approved. no blocking, no warning, no harm.
i have peerblock 1.2 too, use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/alternate-tube-redirector/ . default lists activated. every 4 . i visit https://invidio.us/ . 165.227.255.23 : https://ipinfo.io/165.227.255.23 . no warning/blocking. i open a video in invideo.us): https://ipinfo.io/74.125.110.105 & https://ipinfo.io/74.125.110.105 & https://ipinfo.io/216.58.207.129 & so on. another video direct on invidious:https://ipinfo.io/173.194.164.152 . no warning/blocking. google everywhere. but this is clear. another try. i go to youtube: https://ipinfo.io/172.217.23.174 . i open a video on youtube: redirect: https://ipinfo.io/74.125.13.231 . i play the video: https://ipinfo.io/74.125.13.231 & https://ipinfo.io/74.125.13.231 .. .. . google everywhere. no warning/blocking. i go on:https://www.blairwitch.de/news/bad-times-at-the-el-royale-neuer-trailer-65784/ . i open the embedded video in a new tab per right klick on the movie-title. redirect: https://ipinfo.io/173.194.185.134 . i play the video: https://ipinfo.io/172.217.23.161 & https://ipinfo.io/173.194.187.6 .. .. google everywhere. no warning/blocking.
yes, one is tracked by google, the videos are hosted by google. do you have any additional filter? have you tried your experiment with invidio.us embed: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/370442-invidious-embed .
i cannot see any difference between youtube and invideo in this context, that’s right. indeed, one is be tracked when you’re defenseless. but we have our weapons. i know your guns, you know my guns. personally, i’m not afraid of cross-site / long-term – tracking anymore. they can’t follow me anymore.
i have a big advantage with invidio: i do not want to set cookies/site data on google. i do not allow this per default .. only have my little cookie/site data whitelist ( & there is no google or youtube in there). because of that, every time i visit youtube, an overlay appears, which no addon can get rid of: “YouTube Privacy Statement”. on invideo i have my peace and a cleared up surface. the rest is done by the guns. like before on youtube itself and like on every other website.
@noemata, I have many more filters than PeerBlock’s default ones, some added right from https://www.iblocklist.com/ (I’m registered so I have access to all filters), some others home-made.
The 7 above mentioned DoubleClick IP ranges (which blocked ‘Invidous’) are home-made, and were found inadvertently within a HOSTS file as comments (HOSTS doesn’t manage IPs and even less IP ranges as we know).
The HOSTS file is this one : https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/alternates/social/hosts
The HOSTS’ developer homepage is this one : https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
If you have a llok at this file you’ll find several interesting IP ranges of which the seven DoubleClick ones. They are mentioned for information only and shouldn’t be considered as IP ranges to be added as such to a whatever blocking application. Many IPs in those ranges are valid.
Now, if I decided to include the DoubleClick ranges it is because
– basically DoubleClick is not required to surf the Web,
– I assumed the author of the list knows what he’s doing/writing. I do NOT know how/where he managed to spot those IP ranges as being those specific to DoubleClick given the fact Google has millions of IPs and that determining those specific to whatever of their services seems to me as a tough challenge. I’m testing these DoubleClick ranges and encounter no issues in sites’ rendering even when PeerBlock blocks a DoubleClick IP…. except for VirusTotal as I mentioned above (for which I made a PeerBlock exception) and ‘Invidous’. I cannot certify that the blocked IP is that of DoubleClick, because DoubleClick is concerned only if the developer of the above mentioned HOSTS file is right in assuming the IP range is that of DoubleClick.
What I can say as well is that I’ve encountered no IP blocking when visiting other sites with YouTube embedded, and ‘HookTube’ in particular (similar to ‘Invidous’) works perfectly.
That’s my experience at this time.
@tom ahh, thx!
ok, i give up and begin to understand. ignore my not yet approved post – partly. so these are your sources. so i have to trust the author of this hosts file, or not.. .. .
as i already wrote in the mentioned article, even on youtube, every video is blocked by this homemade – list based on the hosts file. also embedded youtube videos are blocked.
with this list, “doubleclick” seems to be always to 100% associated with youtube/google resp. videos hosted on google servers (and thus invidious).
if this list/hosts file/guy is right – _and i’m really not sure if he is right_ – of course there is no additional privacy – feature when you use invidious. exactly what you wrote in your opening post. youtube, invidious = the same shoe in privacy/tracking – matters.
but whatever. cross-site-tracking/long-term-tracking ect. is not possible in my case. so I’m not worried and still have 3 advantages over youtube (as mentioned yesterday) with invidious.
on the weekend, when i finally have enough time, i will contact the developer and draw his attention to the fact that additional privacy features could certainly upgrade the project.
ps: hooktube is dead :( . no longer under development.
pps: thanks for your patience. even if this is still a matter of faith/trust. do you have another source that confirms this doubleclick ip-range?
@noemata, I understand the confusion caused by your posts not immediately published, causing misunderstanding.
OK, now we join our thoughts, you got the idea.
Concerning Hooktube, it’s still there and its videos are not blocked by those DoubleClick Peerblock filters, but I read you when you write that the site is no longer under development, which doesn’t surprise me given its video download feature is no longer available from Hooktube itself (shows links to download via other dedicated sites, not interesting.
I’ll stick with YouTube, no account, cookies blocked, assited with one userscript, ‘Youtube No Autoplay – “Up Next” Disabled’ and one userstyle, ‘YouTube DeepDark Material’ to have the dark background given YouTube seems to block that option now for non registered users. Otherwise, YouTube opens quickly and videos run swiftly, no ads and no in-video ads… until those ‘non-skippable’ ads appear: we’ll see then if there is a workaround. If not I’ll systematically boycott and those videos and their authors.
OK :=)
@noemata,
OOps, forgot to answer to your p.s. : “do you have another source that confirms this doubleclick ip-range?”
Unfortunately, no. As I said I’m testing, those filters may always be disabled/removed or an exception made for a given site (such as VirsTotal).
@tom okay, i got some time now, breakfast. my latest contribution to this topic:
so it cannot be 100% verified that these are doubleclick ip-ranges. but i also understand that this would be a difficult undertaking. assuming these are doubleclick ip-ranges, it makes no difference, because even when i use youtube instead invidious, “doubleclick” is always with me; which is not a tracking risk with my configuration.
remember my problem with yt (modified quote): i do not want to set cookies/site data on google. i do not allow this per default .. only have my little cookie/site data whitelist ( & there is no google or youtube in there). because of that, every time i visit youtube, an overlay appears, which no addon can get rid of: “youtube privacy statementâ€. on invideo i have my peace and a cleared up surface. the rest is done by the “guns”. like before on youtube itself and like on every other website.
additional: of course i also tried to accept youtube/google cookies/site data to send this “youtube privacy statement” to nirvana. after that it was gone, but i could not log in to youtube anymore. i assumed that youtube/google now has a problem with my privacy.firstparty.isolate and/or resist.fingerprinting and/or network.http.referer.XOriginPolicy, network.http.referer.trimmingPolicy, network.http.referer.XOriginTrimmingPolicy (all = 2) settings and/or disabled webgl. i really don’t know.
on top of that, the new yt-layout took _a long time to load_ (which could be moved to the old layout = faster (via web developer – storage inspector – cookies – another value).
but the f.. youtube privacy statement “overlay” remained (despite attempts with umatrix, ublock origin, mwb – browser extension).
so i was sick and tired of yt .
and right now the surprise.: yesterday i have deleted the needed modified youtube-cookie for the old design. because i intended to switch to invidious. and right now, as i was writing these lines, i visited youtube again.
and look: the new design appears again, but it loads much FAST(er). the _current_ firefox beta 62 seems to have finally solved this problem ( https://uk.pcmag.com/news/116571/mozilla-developer-claims-google-is-slowing-youtube-on-firefo ) to some extent. another plus: no youtube privacy statement “overlay” again (on the new layout).
so, if I hadn’t intended to switch to invidious, i wouldn’t have deleted the modified cookie and the old problems would have remained.
everything has its sense, even if our communication here has partly degenerated into pure chaos, because i did not understand initially that you use a special, modified peerblock – list and because my contributions appear delayed.
problem has solved by itself. partially. ;) thx 4your patience.
OK :=) (sempervideo sends his regards).
@noemata, after having read my above post (August 30, 2018 at 10:23 am) and if you wish to test those DoubleClick IP ranges within PeerBlock, here’s how to do it :
1- Copy the following to a txt file and name it i.e DoubleClick.txt :
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:173.194.0.0-173.194.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:209.85.128.0-209.85.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:64.233.160.0-64.233.191.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:66.249.64.0-66.249.95.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:72.14.192.0-72.14.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS15169:74.125.0.0-74.125.255.255
Google / DoubleClick|AS6432:216.73.80.0-216.73.95.255
2- Open PeerBlock, click ‘List Manager’, then at the bottom-right click ‘Add’,
In ‘Description’ give a name, i.e. DoubleClick
In ‘Add file’ browse for the file you previously saved (i.e. DoubleClick.txt’
Check if ‘Type’ at the bottom-left is ‘Block’ (it is by default), and finish with ‘OK’
3- Now, go to ‘Invidous’, choose a video and run it : that video is now blocked.
4- Open PeerBlock and you’ll see that so-denominated DoubleClick connections have been just blocked by PeerBlock
5- If you wish to keep the DoubleClick IP ranges you just installed but nevertheless have access to Invidous videos, then in PeerBlock’s main page, over the blocked IP, right-click and set this IP to be accepted (15 minutes or always).
Et voila.
@tom ah ok. right. now, everything is blocked. on invidious _AND on youtube per se_ .
but now, this behavior is obviously homemade (because of this list). therefore:
why are these ranges not in the default (or other) list(s)?
can you give me an external, trusted source hat identifies your ranges as “doubleclick”?
if yes and verifiable by an external source, does this have any effect on cross-site/long-term tracking if you have a strict user.pref (including firstparty.isolate) and – as in my case – per default no cookies and site-data allowed? and if your specified range is correct, isn’t youtube/google the culprit?
if so, invidious is in no way an additional security measure. you would be right with your initial note. but that was clear from the beginning. the videos are hosted on google’s servers.
if so, invidious is in no way an additional security measure, of course. you would be right with your initial note. but that was clear from the beginning. the videos are hosted on google’s servers, not on invidious.
what was/would be new to me is this doubleclick-thing. plz give me a external reference to your posted range. i am interested and would like to learn something new, if i was mistaken.
@noemata, you write,
“can you give me an external, trusted source hat identifies your ranges as “doubleclickâ€?”
I already did but seems you haven’t read me. I explained exactly the details :
See : Tom Hawack said on August 30, 2018 at 10:23 am
@tom ( august 30, 2018 at 4:23 pm) .. i didn’t have much time yesterday, so i missed this post. now see my post below (august 30, 2018 at 5:42 pm). ps: i’m still sceptical about your source. more about that in the corresponding article.
but I’ve also _seen_ your answer/post from august 30, 2018 at 6:00 pm (not yet read). i only have time to deal with it in the evening. a nice day until then (and also afterwards).
I got an iPad 3; still rocking beautifully with iOS9. Great battery life too. I use it for Netflix, youtube, surfing and casting “free movies” to Apple TV. I had been observing how YouTube was playing tricks… I thought it was my iPad that couldn’t keep up with the playing ad and the skip button tapping…
Gladly, I hooked my baby to the PC and installed YouTube 10.1. Such clean layout. Fast like really fast!!! And guess what? No ads in between…. seriously, how come no ads in between! The start and end ones do appear, but the middle whole play bar is squeaky clean!
I can post screen shots if you like.
YouTube 10.1 has everything except chat service. Comments, Personal profile, notifications, nice big readable clean layout…
The new app they keep on improving, used to kill my poor iBaby 😩
youtube is dead for me. i use: https://invidio.us/ . https://github.com/omarroth/invidious + https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/370461-invidious-redirect .
youtube can charge a small fee for ad-free viewing
I use “YouTube Vanced”. So I don’t give a f about crazy YouTube ads.
Any adblock on pc, Youtube Vanced on Android. Such stupid practices should encourage everyone to block ads. Can’t serve content without annoying ads? Well, go bankrupt, there are at least 10 similar/better services without them.
I miss the 90’s and early 00’s internet when most of sites served free content just for fun and to benefit the society, not for profit like now.
There’s an old saying Google have either forgotten or never knew.
Something to do with geese and golden eggs?
I believe it will be better to install “Download Flash and Video” app for your browser. It takes just a few seconds or slightly longer for larger sized Videos to copy to your download file, watch several times, or once… then delete.
The question is, what does non-skippable mean? Because if it means that the ad have been “fixed” into the video (need an expert here) then the downloaded video will have those ads sort of built-into the video. I’d really like to know more about that.
That is a good question, Tom.
I guess it is wait-and-see if the video download includes ad migration. Maybe I am able to download without ads currently, thanks to the assistance of uBO.
Tom, it means that users can’t click on “skip” after 5 seconds but have to watch the video ad for up to 20 seconds before the actual video starts.
OK, Martin, that’s for the effect. What i’m actually wondering about is what defines technically the specificity of non-skippable ads, how are they built, are they digitally added (“pasted”) to the original video, are they called from a server … in fact depending on the answer i’d keep or not hope in a work-around.
Usually the ads just put before the actual video. Adblockers worked by activating the ‘url’ on the ‘skip’ button, if they hide the ‘url’, the ads would be unskippable.
Easy example would be link redirects like bitly, when you open the bitly link, there’s a link that will get you to the actual content. If bitly decides to hide the actual link until you watch the ads in bitly page, you need to wait for xx seconds to get to the actual content.
I think it’s impossible for Google to insert the ads directly to the actual videos. Ads need to be dynamic not static.
@Anonymous, now that I can understand (I mean the process, not its legitimacy). I “conceptualize”!
I will never endure an ad for the sake of whatever can be. At this time I encounter not one ad on YouTube nor on its videos. Should I discover a “non-skippable ad” that I’d terminate the video immediately. I have already some experience with several Web sites which require a drop of certain of my uBO filters in order to display their videos : no exception here, I just skip the video as i would with YouTube’s announced fantasy. Even YouTube as a whole if all ads ever happen to be non-skippable would become a no-man’s site in my policy. It’s as simple as that.
Doesn’t affect me as I use uBlock Origin.
Does Youtube realize that the more aggressive they get with ads, the more people will adopt ad blockers?
It is kind of like the game companies and their obsession with implementing ever more intrusive malware into games every year. First, it was “put the game disk in to play” (good luck doing that when a modern computer doesn’t have an optical drive). Today it’s “connect to the Internet, give us a bunch of personal info and ask for permission to play the game you bought (good luck doing *that* when they don’t feel like running the online service anymore).
And much like the games industry, Youtube is not going to win this. If they push consumers too far, people like me will just stop supporting/using their services entirely, just like I’ve stopped supporting game companies and I now regret ever doing so in the first place due to the way they treat paying gamers.
@John; “And much like the games industry, Youtube is not going to win this”
Umm… I think the videogames industry did win this, though. Gamers whine and complain a lot, but they don’t seem to have done the only thing that would cause game developers to change their behavior: stop playing the offending games.
A pirated game works better than the original one due to that all bloated BS are removed from them. Sure, You have to use other game servers for these games if You want to play multiplayer games. I am the one that doesn’t trust the game manufacturers or these “pirate” game servers so i always stay offline.
Game industry has won NOTHING ! Absolutely nothing !
@stefann
The fact that the games industry is a multi-billion dollar one that is larger than even the movie industry — and growing — hints otherwise.
Good Lord, her voice is annoying.
Women on the far left seem to have this glass-breaking squeaky voice superpower 😂
Not only her voice : her enthusiasm to announce a new ad-tsunami as if it where the best thing invented since the wheel.
Funny how the ad business is progressively trying to include lambda users of the Web in the ad arena, in the pure spirit of dividing to better conquer : “you dislike ads? That’s because you ain’t in the big ad family! Come and join us and make your smart buck on the back of all those fools”. Vicious.
Sometimes I use FreeTube
open source desktop YouTube player built with privacy in mind. Use YouTube without advertisments and prevent Google tracking from you with their cookies and JavaScript. Available for Windows, Mac & Linux thanks to Electron
The only way youtube can make ads unskippable that even ublock orign won’t able to block is if they encode ads in the video itself but that would be huge double edged sword.
Many producers do this already. For example Linux Tech Tips does it. I don’t mind, really. They’re short and still manage to be unintrusive.
Plus, those ads can’t spy on you.
Never do I see ads on Youtube. Ublock Origin in medium mode takes care of it. Privacy Possum, ClearURLs and Trace for added tracking protection.
I’m wondering when this silly advertisement business will finally come to an end. Who the heck is still paying attention to it in a world of excessive overstimulation.
@Col44: “Who the heck is still paying attention to it in a world of excessive overstimulation.”
Advertisers.
Advertisers… and their customers who dispatch fortunes eagerly running after the best ROI. Together with consumers they are the big losers of a system where the profit is only in the hands of advertisers. it could be different, less in quantity, better in quantity hence less expensive and a better ROI because many consumers to imagine a “new deal” with the ad business starting the point they’s be informed and not force-fed. It’s for the advantage of everyone … except of the advertisers. They don’t want to change, they consider the anti-ad proliferation as a challenge and considering they’ve got half of their brains between their legs they’ll advance in the war area raping and killing rather than getting the populations on their side. Vicious. The economy’s Black-Water.
If I had to sit through ads in order to see YouTube videos, I’d stop watching YouTube videos.
Barbara should try decaf. When I encounter an unskippable ad, the only thing I look at is the countdown for the instant I can turn off the ad. They’re good for improving your reflexes. Does anyone ever click on an ad?
This sort of stuff seems to go in waves; lately there’s been a huge guilt push at ad blocker users. For some reason, I don’t think content creators will share much in the extra revenue google may generate in this monetizationiabilifyity initiative.
My guess is this is aimed at punishing mobile and tv viewers more than anything. I think Google realizes desktop is increasingly a lost game due to extensions like uBlock Origin. On mobile, system wide blockers are extremely niche and the same is true on the YouTube apps on Xbox or PlayStation. That is where users are essentially”forced” to watch ads or pony up $12/month or a YouTube Premium subscription. Me? I just watch less YouTube.
greedy youtubers
There are some other videos sites with the same or even more quality and less advertising by the way, like Dailymotion, Vimeo or Metacafe. Martin, it should be a good idea an article about Youtube alternatives according to some valuable criteria for the user and the uploader. Thanks.
I second that.
I’d love to take down my youtube channel, they’ve junked it up so badly, even logged in, I can’t find half the controls for all the prompts to take it commercial and thumbnails of moronic videos. It’s skijoring, horse jumping, bike riding, tennis and other stuff almost no one but friends care about anyway, leave me alone!
So, where do we go?
Feeling conflicted since Ads are obviously annoying as hell. I also like to support certain content creators…I guess we’ll see.
@Kofi
Since YouTube has seriously restricted monetization, it seems that most YouTubers have a Patreon account these days (at least, 100% of the ones I follow do). You can support them that way. And/or you can sign up for the pay version of YouTube. Personally, I do both.
Ah well, if you have a YT channel which you monetize this is definitely a very effective way of forcing your entire audience to use an adblocker.
This is pretty much what killed television btw; Titanic lasting five hours with ads in between is definitely what did it. I honestly can’t think of anything on YT worth my time waiting for an ad to finish so I can watch it.
If ever I see an adstart to appear, I just skip a few seconds of video by dragging the red playback bar further along to the right.
Hah. Sitting back and watching YouTube run itself into the ground is entertainment in and of itself.
Mark my words: One day you’ll go to YouTube, click on a video, and be redirected to a page saying:
“In order to see this video you must complete three of the following surveys. Also, you must agree to opt-in to receiving email, phone calls, and snail mail from all our affiliates. After doing so, the link to the video will be sent to you via email.”
I don’t disagree, but we need a new platform to take Youtube’s place. This is one of the nicest things about Linux. If one flavor starts going down the toilet (ads, spyware, etc), pick another one, or even start one yourself.
There is an alternative, which is bitchute.com. If you are not aware because of the massive censorship, they demonized Alex Jones and erased him from every platform except twitter, and almost there too.
Things are getting really ugly for the content creators, the ones that got youtube where it is now in the first place. I urge everyone who uploads content on youtube to mirror it to bitchute. The process is automated and easy to set up.
Martin, I wonder if you can check the site out and make a review. Things are always better when there is an alternative. Also, check out minds.com, as an alternative to facebook and gab.ai as alternative to twitter.
There is a war on information, but the censorship along with those that put it in place will be gone!
I’m afraid the AJ was just them testing the water since to many, he was a bit too over the top. However, he IS satire. The message is that SARCASM may get you “erased”.
The precedent has been set. The powers that be have their censorship proxy tested and working
While I like your humorous take on it I’m afraid what’s going to happen is some other big company will buy Youtube if it reaches the state you mentioned. And they will “adjust” some things to keep the data-collecting (aka Evil Things) and using it to sell us to advertisers in a more subtle way.