401–410 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just pay for Premium... No one's forcing you to do anything.
Wait until Google shows ads in premium too. Paid-for cable TV did the same rugpull decades ago.
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
I'm sorry, but Youtube got to keep its servers up somehow and pay the content creators. This means ads. If you don't like them, then pay for Youtube Premium and you can get ad-free experience. Although if it's not available in your country, then adblocking is a reasonable approach.
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
> we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting This is one of the things that kills me. Even in broadcasting TV, you get typical :15, :30, :60 ads with the occasional :45 or longer :90. The ad pods are also defined so that you get a set number say something like 3:00 max. YT has scammy ads where if you are just trying to let something stream in the background while you…
You are absolutely on to something. I think the seemingly random length of ads makes them feel somewhat more jarring to me. I also hate how sometimes the ads are just randomly interjected into a video. I know creators can control this to some degree, but older videos seem to suffer more.
I have had ads on Youtube that were hours long. Obviously, at that length, they can be skipped. I know have some kind of 'trauma response' that when I watch Youtube on a computer while laying down, AFK, I have to have my wireless mouse in close proximity in case one those long ads appears. If I could predict the intervals in which the ads occurred and for how long, then I would probably just let them run and tune them out of my mind.
Regardless, I swear Youtube serves me such long ass ads as a punishment sometimes. Sadly, my suspicion is supported by extremely weak evidence and confirmation bias. I'll just say this... Sometimes when I get served the same ad too many times, I report the ad for something like being offensive, inappropriate, or whatever. The ads seem to never come back, but I swear within a day or two, I start getting longer ads -- even movie-length ads. I have also reported ads if they happen to be something like +30s and unskippable. This makes the ad instantly dismiss (or it used to, at least).
What’s worse is the privacy side. Discord apparently leaves the microphone open even when you’re using push-to-talk. There’s been anecdotal evidence from users monitoring their network traffic that mic input is still active in the background, likely being piped to local buffers or held in memory under the guise of latency reduction. That might sound innocent, but the distinction between “open but not recording” and “recording” is razor thin when the user has explicitly told the app not to listen until a key is pressed. At minimum, it’s a trust violation — at worst, it’s surveillance theater.
This is the standard bait-and-switch. Build a good product, earn user trust, then slowly degrade it with tracking, telemetry, ads, and manipulative UX until it’s barely recognizable. Discord used to be a breath of fresh air compared to Skype or Teamspeak, and now it’s another data-harvesting machine with a gamer paint job. It’s telling that more users are looking into self-hosted options or jumping to alternatives like Matrix or Mumble. Discord doesn’t have ads yet, but all the groundwork is being laid — and people are right to be wary.
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
Or, you could just honor the terms you clearly understand the content is being offered under, and just not use the service. Not as fun to write about as coercion is, though.
I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform…
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
people deserve to get paid for the work they put into creating content and building platforms, no? books, movies, tv shows, news, etc, are all distributed in some way or another that costs the consumer either money or their time viewing advertising. if you don't want to watch ads, pay YouTube for a subscription.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you do with all the extra time? How do you keep from sliding back?
Top tip from using only high-latency satellite internet for long periods: add a significant delay to every request to problematic sites. As soon as the dopamine loop is broken, you'll find the wait so frustrating that you won't bother.
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
It’s absolutely #%^*ing insane how bad and often inappropriate the ads are, to the point that I swear YouTube is in growth trouble. It feels like there’s just management layers who need their bonus or promotion, driven by some percent growth or some KPI so their standards are at the floorboards. I’ve seen porn in the still frame ads on mobile once (much worse than Evony Online if you remember those ads…)
The still frame ads are always NSFW games or ads for viagra-like products. In shorts, the ads are always scams of some kind. Usually deepfakes of elon musk “giving investment advice” but also “medical experts” recommending likely dangerous scams, or “free money the government isnt telling you about” if you give them all your information, or weird ai generated videos advertising mystery products that certainly don’t actually exist.
In front of (and in the middle of) actual videos, it’s a mix of the all the scams, plus the occasional ad for a legitimate product, but rarely in my native language. Usually Spectrum internet ads exclusively in spanish.
I got a gun ad a few times several months ago. Advertising features such as “no license required” and “easy to sneak through security”. As blatantly illegal as it was, the ad ran for at least a full month. I reported it every time I saw it, but I’m convinced those reports aren’t ever viewed by anyone.
I continue blocking these ads on my desktop without remorse. I only encounter the ads on my iPhone.
Thank you for your important work fighting this battle, it must be exhausting. The more Google insists on forcing advertising on us, the more we should look closely at the wildly inappropriate and downright scammy ads they are hosting. If they can't leave well enough alone and look the other way on ad blocking, (which is the only way to avoid exposing myself and family to these dangerous ads), they need to be under a…
Or just pay for Premium... No one's forcing you to do anything.