• Joelk111@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    If this goes live, I’m out. YT premium is my most expensive subscription, but I watch enough YouTube that I’m OK with it, especially considering that it supports creators more than ad viewers. If I still get ads? Nah dawg. I’ll divy up that money amongst patreons or whatever, and install add blockers.

    • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      If your main reason for paying premium is for ad blocking, I’d suggest just cancelling it now and using ad blockers. If you want to support creators, I’d say that it’s better to cancel and subscribe to a few patreons - I’d pick some of the smaller creators you like, to spread some of that support around a bit.

      If you use iOS devices for watching YouTube, look into side-loading uYou+, it’s basically an edited YouTube app that removes most of the ads. You can stream from your phone to the apple TV, too, also without ads.

      Not sure what the android equivalent is, but someone else will know - hopefully they will share in the comments also.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Why don’t you just cancel it now and use ad blockers?

        Joel explains this in the second sentence: “I’m OK with it, especially considering that it supports creators more than ad viewers”

        • freeman@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          I mean you can probably support all the creators you like in other ways: Buying merch, donating onetime, signing up for a patreon, subscribing to nebula (if they are on there), …

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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            1 month ago

            Buying merch

            don’t create waste… unless you will actually use this “merch” just give them cash if you really care.

            why do people need to involve some third party. you like their work, pay them cash money.

            reminds of boomers with their “gift” cards lol

        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          Ah, sorry, that’ll teach me to read more carefully. Thanks for pointing it out <3

      • Sprucie@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        ReVanced is great on Android, it also enables other YouTube premium features such as picture-in-picure mode.

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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          1 month ago

          I used to use Vanced but switched to Newpipe, as it is noticeably lighter (also at least for me, downloads did not properly work while they were fine on Newpipe).

      • puntyyoke@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Reasonable advice, but I’d note that I pay for premium and patreon specifically because I can only afford patreon for a few creators. I’d rather pay everyone I watch. While YouTube isn’t perfect, I like the service enough that I don’t mind paying for it.

        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          Yeah, of course - you should do what you think is best. I was thinking that if everyone cancels their YT Premium and signs up for a few Patreons, distributed as randomly as possible (which is why I said to go for the smaller creators) then overall creators would get more money, while we’d still be paying less. Everyone wins - except Google, but fuck Google!

        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          I stopped using streaming platforms personally and just went back to pirating music. Personally I don’t want to support Spotify because they continue to support far-right ideology with their podcasts, but that’s a completely personal decision.

      • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        You’re suggesting turning a $15 or so YouTube bill into a $50+ Patreon bill depending on what creators they watch

        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          Since at least a couple of years ago - it requires a bit of jumping through hoops, but it’s 100% worth it to get ad-free YouTube on iPhone!

          You can do it in any country as far as I know, it’s not EU-only.

          • rowdyrockets@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            You can on any iOS device without jailbreaking. Look into AltStore or Sidestore. The caveat is that you can only sign 3 apps at a time, and must resign these apps every week - which is done over your WiFi to a PC running AltStore server.

            If you have a $99/year Apple developer account, you can use AltStore to sign as many apps as you like, and you only need to resign once per year.

          • extremeboredom@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I’m trying to imagine voluntarily buying a device that all but prohibits you from choosing the software you run on it. A limit of 2-3 apps, which have to be re-signed weekly by a desktop server, to me that doesn’t count as “supporting sideloading.” Maybe technically. What a joke.

          • madjo@feddit.nl
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            1 month ago

            But that version of alt store does not support installing uyouplus. At least I have not been able to add the repo.

  • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    u/Dangerous-Pizza7054 from the article,

    Seems like the user tracking “special promotion” overrides the premium. They don’t even say whether it’s expected or not. But my take away is that paying for premium may or may not show you ads, but you are definitely tracked and harvested for data. (Maybe even more so, since, well, you are more valuable to them.)

    • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I got the same Sunday banner in the middle of the screen similar to where shorts show up. Never in my life have I watched or cared for American football. Clearly a waste of money for the advertising company since I just closed it by pressing the x same as shorts on desktop.

    • TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      That has been my specific issue with paying for any Google product always. I understand when I am using a product for free that I am not necessarily the customer and that money has to be made off of me or the users more generally somehow. That’s “fine” (ish, not really, but that has more to do with issues of security than anything).

      However when I pay for a product or service, I want to now be the customer and I want to be in control of my data and have the company cater to me. If, when paying for a Google service, there was some legally relevant things in place that insured I was no longer being tracked and used to generate revenue via third parties I would gladly pay. Probably more than they are charging now, but instead they want to have it both ways which is just not OK with me.

    • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      At least a subscription includes YouTube music? Isn’t that interesting and relevant.

      • alphabethunter@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That part of the support email almost made me puke of how fucking awful it was. “Why complain about ads when you get YouTube Music for free by paying us money”

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        I would cancel that subscription SOOO FAST.

        I’d argue that YTMusic is a superior product to YT, but both put together aren’t worth anywhere near the cost. You can get a premium TV/Movie service for that price with family access.

    • doughless@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Wait, I haven’t seen ads on YouTube Premium (yet), and I’m just now realizing this could very likely be because Google knows my wife and I don’t watch sports.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      “With YouTube Premium, enjoy ad-free access, downloads, and background play on YouTube and YouTube Music.”

      In Australia, if they reneg on this headline promise, doesn’t matter what’s in the fine print, this would be refundable under Australian Consumer Law (not a lawyer).

      What bullshit, and how silly on their part, since it’s just so much more convenient to block ads instead of paying

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I’d bet that channel “members” don’t get ads for that channel regardless of premium status.

    IMO, Google made premium, almost nobody bought it. So they went after adblockers, hoping that people would get premium to get rid of the ads. People most just Adblock harder.

    While this is happening, one exec is peering over the fence at twitch. Where they only way to get away from ads without a pretty good Adblock, is to subscribe to the individual creator.

    So they make “memberships” to channels a thing.

    Almost nobody buys that either. So they go… What if, even if someone is premium, we give them ads, unless they’re a channel member.

    Genius.

    Paying to block ads per creator/channel/whatever, is a special level of bullshit that twitch has always had.

    The system is working as expected. The companies are trying to find the best way to extract the most value from you using their platform.

    • bokherif@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      You do see ads, you just don’t realize it. There are multiple 1-2 minute videos on your feed usually with the title “Introducing [insert product]” and these are product placements that YouTube is very well aware of. They also had the audacity to tell me that these are ads but they don’t “interfere” with me watching videos. So, they are injecting ads into premium subscriber feeds already. Disgusting company.

  • blindbunny@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    This is why I stopped paying them. Fuck them, you’re just an source of income to them.

  • scripthook@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I use New Pipe for android and Freetube for desktop. I have all the YouTube premium features at $0 cost and no ads hehe

  • YogurtDoes@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Yeah I stopped paying for premium once I’d figured out using Safari on my phone with an ad blocker works with YouTube still lol

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    It is just YT testing new exciting features, nothing to worry about.

  • Drathro@dormi.zone
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    1 month ago

    Grayjay on Android has been working damn near flawlessly for me. No clue if the parent company is to be trusted at this point or not- but I cannot argue with the results.

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    One of my biggest issues with the ads is that they’re mostly scams. I just get ads for shit I know isn’t real

    • Mistic@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      My tipping point was YouTube serving the same one ad months on end to me.

      I was fine with ads a decade ago. I tolerated them increasing the amount five-fold over the years. But that was borderline torture, and getting an adblock was the only working solution.