Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

In a statement, Google did not provide specifics but also did not deny implementing an artificial wait time. “To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience, the spokesperson said. “Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.”

  • conciselyverbose
    0•7 months ago

    I want to sympathize with the idea of “we need to get paid for the service” because the reality is that video hosting isn’t cheap.

    But they somehow manage to be a way worse ad experience than the other platforms while also giving fuckall to the creators. So fuck 'em.

    • FreeBooteR69
      1•7 months ago

      I got YouTube premium, honestly i use YT quite a bit so a hundred bucks for a year isn’t that big a deal for me to get rid of annoying ads.

    • Ganondorf
      1•7 months ago

      Watching 4 ads in a video under 6 minutes is bad design.

      • taanegl
        1•7 months ago

        Also, over saturating the web with ads, effectively devaluing web ad space might also be the dumbest move we ever made regarding monetising the web… say, who did that again?