YouTube might slow down your videos if you block ads

I was paying for a whole family (premium). But I will not pay and send money to a fascist state. We've cancelled all our us based services.

I never paid and have been using NewPipe for the past 6+ years.

Only thing I'm getring at the moment is waiting up to like 30s until the video starts, I'il take that over an ad that long any day.

Nebula's getting better and I spend more time there now than on YouTube. Happy that YouTube is working hard to encourage this transition.

I'll never go there. Paid is a no way situation.

meh, its still not inconvenient enough to pay 10+ dollars a month. The state of adverts online is so egregious that I would probably sooner stop watching Youtube than pay or put up with ads.

Dang, thanks. I read the post, thought it wasn't happening to me, and I just realized that the start of some videos is being throttled. The more ya know 🌈

Don't care, still better than the ads.

I'll sit for 2 minutes in front of a black screen and it'll still be better than 45 seconds of ads.

Did exactly that early days of hulu.
- Same. That ole "You seem to be using a proxy service" text served as a nice break 🙌

They will never be happy with how much money they squeeze out of it. When people are watching videos that are 99% ads and the content is limited to two alternating pixels they will still find a way to further optimize their profit-taking. Nothing is ever good enough for the hyper-capitalist; product managers are a disease.

Eventually they'll start demanding you run their crypto-miners in order to watch a video.

Not only that but the bit-rate as of late seems horrendous, 1080 looks more like 720 or lower with artifacts all over the place.

Yes, some video have a 1080p Premium high nitrate quality option that you need to pay for. It's just the standard quality, but the free 1080p is now shitty.
It's very sad there isn't anything that can even remotely compare to YouTube at this time. All the content is there, can't get it elsewhere. At least with Firefox, ublock and SponsorBlock, it's bearable.
Oh, did you not pay for YouTube Extra Premium Plus for the enhanced bit rate?
Bloody peasant...
- And really you're just paying extra for the original 1080 bitrate. What a fucking scam, like I'd pay for that crap.
Artificial scarcity so you'll pay their dumb subscription fee

Reminder, Newgrounds is still here.

and i might just stop using youtube. does youtube think there aren't other options?

What options? Where can I find stuff about fixing my motorcycle? Oceanliners? Deep Space documentaries? Fixing dieselinjectors in my car etc?
- Most of those things are better without videos anyways. So much wasted time to get to the point.
  As for documentaries... Are good ones actually on YouTube?

That’s great! I spend too much time on yt, it’ll break me of my addiction and I’ll do something else besides passive consumption.

Jokes on you, I already watch them at 0.5x speed

"Might"... it's introducing an artificial delay when loading videos.

That explains the "are you experiencing interruptions" message I keep getting these days, though I kinda expected this.

If you press on the "learn more" button, it brings you to a page that ends with "try disabling extensions, such as adblockers".

Oh no! You are going to make your platform work like ass? And you expect us to do mental gymnastics in such a way that instead of blaming you (you know the one that has control over the platform) we blame uBlock? The same uBlock that has made using your platform bearable for many years, to the point that I will sit in silence with the screen off instead of watch with ads?

I think even if you make us wait a min before playing the video most would take that over an ad.

I would prefer an ad 🤷 if it doesn’t last a stupid amount of time
- That's what they're banking on, but we know that eventually they will f*** it up and lose everyone.

Please support peertube sites - here's a list of instances to find something matching your interests: https://joinpeertube.org/instances

Relevant as well:
They've added two more days to the current donation request https://support.joinpeertube.org/en/

Stop feeding me dog shit AI videos about a condom delivery boy who has to deliver some to a hotel only to find his girlfriend cheating on him and maybe I’ll stop blocking ads you fuck sticks

Condom delivery service you say? 🤔
Seems like a great ad

Ads on youtube are getting even more stupid. Does anyone get those ads about "procastinations" and "ADHD"? It starts off with some songs like "Procastination isnt your fault....." and some dolls dancing? So annoying

Haven't seen ads in 10 years, people actually use the internet without ublock?
So annoying
Those two words describe about every ad on youtube.

YouTube was lagging to play vids the other day now i wonder if it was A B testing. screw off YouTube. 10 ads for a 20 minute video isn't normal and never will be. also the ads pause if you aren't watching them. wtf? as always I expect uBlock Origin to get around this

they also slow down videos if I use Firefox.

YouTube can eat my ass.

Youtube works a lot better for me after switching from Firefox to Librewolf.
Really? Guess it hasn’t hit me yet. I use Firefox and haven’t noticed any slowdowns.
- I use an old outdated version of FF because the new v3 google bullshit isn't supported for my os version.
  it was working fine one day and then a week after the official "cut off" it just slowed down and dropped quality.
  it's ok though. I don't mind switching the quality and waiting for videos to buffer.

If it takes too long to load I just use yt-dlp to download the video or whole playlist and watch it later. Do I care that it's putting additional strain on YouTube's servers? Indeed, I'm devastated and overtaken with guilt 😂 These are tears of regret, I swear 😂

yt-dlp is fucking awesome and it will be a sad day if it ever gets taken down or blocked.

we live in a neoliberal gorgon dystopia

You said it hombre😅

"Might"? They're already doing it.

YouTube in Firefox with Ublock Origin is getting throttled down to 1500kbps. I can't watch anything above 720p on my desktop anymore (with gigabit internet).

YouTube ReVanced on mobile and SmartTube Next on the TV still thankfully work without issues.

where do you get your YT Revanced from?
- https://revanced.app/ is the only official source (along with the GitHub, of course.)
I was watching 4k yesterday. 🤞 Ublock has it sorted by the time they find me.
This does not happen on my Firefox. 4k no problemo with 3rd world country internet.
- They do it to groups of people at a time to prevent mass anger and hysteria. Don't worry you'll eventually get throttled too.

They've already tried this.

We've already sidestepped it.

It's just going to keep on going like this till a viable alternative shows up.

How? I've been noticing buffering the last few days with 1080p60 videos and up even using the suggested app version in Revanced.

How desperate can you be to put yourself out of business?

We need to find ways to pressurize the content creators to upload to alternative platforms like Odysee, Rumble, Nebula, Peertube, Misskey etc...

Nebula is an invite basis
- Wait what ?? Damn

YouTube might just go fuck itself!

YouTube can die in a fire and take its fucking premium with it.

I mean if they get forced ads I would understand, but at the current state I would say there are too many.
If YouTube premium was less expensive it would be a great in-between
I personally use YT premium and music by faking my country. Getting it for like 3.50€/month feels like a great deal

If you are a content creator please consider upload your content on other video platforms too.

The trouble with that is that there is barely any money outside of YouTube.
- I read somewhere that nebula was paying a good bit more per view, and paid per minute watched
- They can upload to multiple platforms at once and still keep their YouTube money + grow an audience on a different website??
Idk how one gets content on Nebula, but I wish more creators would join. Ik nebula isn’t Fediverse like PeerTube, but I still really like it and think it’s worth the $30/year to not get ads.
- Being a majority artist owned co-op is in the fedi spirit. I know Rebecca Watson is crushing it on Mastodon, are there any other nebula/fedi crossover creators you’d recommend?
- Then support them monetarilly
Bro those Mf should’ve started doing that YEARS ago like…

Thanks uBO team I don't even know yt is trying anything

It’s the people that make blocking lists that we should thank. I don’t think uBO makes anything themselves
Using uBO, but have noticed a slightly longer delay of a few seconds between hitting play and the video starting, but I can deal with that over being forced to watch 30s of ads.
- Honestly it just felt like youtube's servers were shittimg themselves again, so I baely even register it as a real interruption.
There have been periods where one of my accounts was getting an ad-length black screen with buffering throbber (I hate that name) and, the most recent time, it was accompanied by a pop-up asking me if I'd like to find out why that was happening. Yeah. I know why that's happening, thanks.
Then that stopped happening again. Either they gave up or UBo have worked around it somehow. Never ending arms race.
- This happens to me too, especially when it’s a computer that I haven’t used in a while, which makes me think that yeah it’s the arms race. It stops once my browser is open long enough for uBO to update

And i stop using youtube when my adblock doesnt work. fuck em

YouTube might bite me

Youtube acting like it has anything to offer aside slop and people who think they're philosopher kings because they play video games.

there's tons on there, just because you haven't found it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
- The amount of people in this thread willing to go to bat for a corporate-owned entity is fucking weird.
Youtube acting like it has anything to offer
This is weapons-grade copium, there is no other platform with even 1% of the content on YouTube.
Stop using it completely then, and we’ll see if that’s the case
Ai slop and right wing propaganda, copaganda and military propaganda . The MSMs are considered rw propaganda
Sounds like projection but hey, you do you, it's not as if we can learn from video games right

Google will never get a cent out of me, willingly.

If it gets annoying enough, and FreeTube stops working, I'll find something better to do with my time.

I have already started finding peertube replacement channels.
- Please share!
  I’m happy I am finding some people on Nebula but being a payed service, it’s doomed to eventually show ads.
  I now watch Climate Town and City Nerds on Nebula. I wish Dr Becky would move. I love her videos.
Maybe people will start torrenting youtube rips if they somehow manage to kill ad blockers.
I have already started finding peertube replacement channels.
- Any recommendations?
Yep, lol. Same mindset here. Although I doubt YouTube will ever do a hard cut on piracy. That would lead to a major decline in viewership and wouldn't look good to shareholders.

Can't slow down videos I've downloaded to my Plex server. 👍🏽

No, but Plex can. I'd migrate to Jellyfin if you can as Plex is paywalling more of their services.
- As it currently stands, my Plex setup costs me nothing because all I do it stream from my server to my Apple TV. So it works well enough for me.
- Never used Plex, but as a proprietary software aren't they just requesting money for functionality and usage of servers/traffic? Isn't it just normal business practice?

For about the last 3 years I've been hearing about YouTube cracking down on ad blockers. Not once has it affected my. Ublock still stops ads on the browser. Revanced stops em on the phone.

Their attacks are never a global rollout, you somehow dodged them all! Lucky.
I've been getting them over the last week or so on both Chrome at work (Ublock lite) and Firefox at home (UBlock Origin). It's just a popup telling me adblockers aren't allowed and then a second smaller popup saying something to the effect of "loading issues?" with a link as the video delays playing for a few seconds.
FWIW, I've been using ublock origin, too, and it's mostly worked fine.
Until a few days ago, when Youtube started detecting it and showing down the site and telling me I can only watch 3 more videos before it cuts me off. That hasn't happened yet, but I definitely feel the slowdown. I'm hoping a ublock upgrade will fix it soon.

makertube.net, youtube is mask off at this point

There will be a solution for the adblocking side, there always is

They've been doing this for close to 20 years. Ever since shortly after google bought them.

You know the people who created youtube are all part of the same OG corp/group that gave rise to the monsters who have created the hell we currently live in.
The PayPal mafia.
Thiel, musk, howry, Chen(yt), wong(reddit),Hoffman(LinkedIn)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia

The banned my ip. Been looking at alternatives

How they ban you? They aren't like reddit Nazis
- Must have been temporary. Pipepipe displayed a message saying ~"youtube has blocked this ip", but it's working now.
- They probably overused yt-dlp and are now required to fill a captcha + log in to an account.

If they know I’m blocking their ads, why wouldn’t they just block the video altogether? That’s what they currently do.

If it’s already blocked, slowing it down to “blocked… but slower” seems rather pointless?

It's a tarpit. If they simply displayed a blocked "no vids for u" message, you'd get outraged, go complain online, look for workarounds, and eventually find a bypass. If everything still works but poorly, you get annoyed, turn off your adblocker to troubleshoot, possibly blame the adblocker for being "buggy" and keep it off. Their help page solution implies they are hoping for just that. There is no "smoking gun" blocked message to go complain online about, even though it is indeed their servers that are degrading your connection on purpose in secret. Or maybe you give up and leave their ecosystem entirely, which is no big loss for them.
The proper solution is to develop an adblock that they cannot detect is blocking ads. This may require actually downloading the ad video in background, and then lying that the video has played.
- I’d be more likely to just assume delivery quality was going downhill and look for another streaming video hoster/provider. Why would someone link slow speeds to a plugin that filters out the stuff you don’t want?
- I've been wondering about that, also perhaps a browser where your mouse position has seperate client and software side states? I know a lot of data can be gleaned from mouse movements so if the browser only updated its internal cursor position when you actually clicked that would potentially cut out that source of information?
- I actually wouldn’t mind that. An ad blocking method that just plays ads in the background with the sound muted and not visible on screen.
  If google only lets me stream the content I want when I stream content I don’t want, that’s fine, I just don’t want to watch it as it’s my eye balls, not theirs so it’s my choice at the end of the day
They are probably trying to find that spot where it's just slightly more annoying to block ads than leave them unblocked.
- Currently blocking ads consists of keeping uBlock Origin up to date. Not blocking ads generally means going to a different platform after a single ad roll.
  I have no issues with pre-roll ads; it’s the interstitial ones that drive me away.
If they give you what you want, but harass you enough, you may just stop using an ad blocker to watch the video and might just forget to turn it back once you are done.
If you had to unlock your bathroom door to enter or exit, you will either put forth effort to correct the problem or you will take the lazy route and just prop the door open.
If you went somewhere else their competition is winning (directly as another video site and indirectly as anything else you would do with your time).
So you don't find something else to do.
i have been blocking them fro 10+years with none other than UBO. only recently i added more adblockers, to block other stuff the ubo wouldnt.
- That's probably a bad idea, as it makes it more likely YouTube will detect the ad-blocking. Better to add your own custom rules to UBO instead.

That's a lot of effort for a website that mostly offers background noise.

I mean, when I want to watch TV or Movies, I load it into my torrent program 🏴‍☠️ and let it download in the background. I could do the same with youtube videos.

I already do this. There are several apps for it but I really like Pinchflat because it has metadata settings for Jellyfin.
All I have to do is add a video to a playlist and it gets automatically downloaded. I use it for archival but there's nothing stopping you from making it the only way you consume YouTube content.
I had a time, when i had frequent internet disconnections, and connection speed was slow in general, so while i had the internet connection, i just downloaded a bunch of videos, to then watch offline. Suprisingly, downloading video even with slow internet is faster than streaming it, despite when streaming it, videos was always buffering. Now i have stable internet and i can just stream videos without the problem, even by using third party app with no ads and without account.
Yeah, I download whatever I want to watch and fire up vlc. 0 ads, 0 buffering.
- Technically that's 100% buffering.
Wait, you think all YouTube content is available in torrents?
- I mean like the downloading aspect. There are a lot of youtube downloading tools available for practically every OS desktop or mobile (well except iOS)

And this is different from the usual YouTube jank how, exactly? I can't block ads on the YouTube TV app and it's a buggy mess and I have no idea why one of the major tech companies in the world allowed that to happen.

You can block ad on tv by side loading smarttube
- On LG WebOS, the Homebrew Store has an Ad-free YouTube app that works well too.

Jokes on them, I already watch videos at 0.5x

Thats a good one for 0.5x (soup store)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fNcYtcVn-8k
- how did you turn those anime boys into New York City grandpas, that was amazing

I'm trying very, VERY hard to pound the correct knowledge into my brain to be able to switch my freelance business services away from Google to something like Proton Unlimited.

Leaving the Google ecosystem will literally make me lose work, but man, this shit has gotta stop

The problem is, nothing short of NA and EU governmental intervention will force Google to stop being such a nefarious, monopolistic, antitrust piece of shit. They're just so utterly ubiquitous for Western businesses. You cannot have a small business* and hope to be successful without partaking in either Google or Facebook/Meta's ad services. TikTok was becoming a huge threat to both those companies and look how viciously they were attacked.
The whole thing is beyond fucked, man. Kudos to you for trying to break free for your business, but I feel like you'll just be fucking yourself in the long run.
Edit in advance: I should clarify that there will of course be exceptions where a small business can be successful just fine without advertising, but for those that rely on being discovered on a larger scale versus purely local, it is essential.
- Agree with this. For my business, and most customer facing ones honestly, Google is how people discover you. They are the modern day Yellow Pages. You don’t exist on Google and you may as well not exist. It sucks but they have that much of a stranglehold. This is why everyone is shitting themselves over Google using AI (it’s harder/unknown how to game).
FYI: Depending on your politics, you may also want to avoid Proton.
Depending on which services you want to replace, Nextcloud might also be worth a look. There are quite a few hosted options available by Hetzner and others.

Oh they already do as of this week. But I am sure it‘s only temporary like last time and even then it‘s better than being served an ad. Google won‘t win this feud.

Time to pin Odysee and Peertube in my browser even though I pay for YT Premium (only $2 per month here in BD).

Holy crap that’s cheap! Honestly, I’d pay that.
- Yeah. Spotify also has similar pricing. I bought YT Premium as it includes both YouTube and YouTube Music.

it already happened, it takes few seconds to star the video, a popup comes upa nd says, "whats slowing your video down"

But I don't have adblockers installed and I still get told to turn my blocker off. I have no extensions and YouTube randomly stops my video to tell me I'm doing it wrong.

Edit: I guess this is the result when dealing with the kind of users who refuse to watch ads, but also can't fuck off like decent human beings. Just millions of people who will climb your fence, pick your locks, smash your window, because they deserve to watch content, but they won't pay or watch ads.

Haha, I would see Youtube go bankrupt before I ever watch a single ad or pay for it. Stay mad. Google is a massive corp, I owe them nothing.
Umm.... Maybe. Let's take a look.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue-of-google/:
In the first quarter of 2025, Google's revenue amounted to over 89.52 billion U.S. dollars, up from the 79.97 billion U.S. dollars registered in the same quarter a year prior.
... They'll survive.
I guess the content creators take the hit when users block ads or refuse to use premium.
Edit: your addendum is false. Technically YouTube freely delivers (answers http gets and posts), the user just refuses to watch all of their content or take part in the tracking. No broken windows or climbed fences.
- It’s the same mentality of, we shouldn’t mute ads or go to the bathroom when they come on. That’s the advertising businesses problem, not mine. They haven’t made life better for most of us and I refuse to feel guilty of depriving them of money.
- If I thought that way about YouTube, why not just be a sovcit about laws in general? I don't want to cherry pick philosophy. Let's go all in on technicalities and loopholes and definitions and wording. Life is a video game where X leads to Y because that's the rules. YouTube is merely answering requests, and I'm merely watching a curated selection of data. They have a TOS but I never agreed to it. For I'm not a user or customer, but a Netizen, and we have rights.