Facebook still exists, so I'm not so sure

Yes. I was searching for a video about a panda refusing to bathe on YouTube app of a friend’s phone.

The first 4-6 results were Shorts, and I had no way of knowing if they were what I wanted apart from the thumbnails, since the titles were truncated. The next four were only semi-related videos, in the sense it was about a panda.

The rest of the videos that followed were absolutely bonkers. From Minecraft clips to random mobile arcade games I have never heard of, and many, many, MANY AI generated Chinese videos featuring a baby doing farm work, masonry, or other kinds of labor.

In a way, it felt like a display of arrogance. In the sense that YouTube was confident it had already served me what I was looking for in the first 10 results, and then said: “Now that you have seen what you searched for, why not watch this crap?”

I blocked YouTube. No ads.

it’s getting hard to keep up with the changes YT does and especially as an ios uYou+ or ytLite user (like me) as now you need a jailbroken device that needs to be on an ios version that support the last youtube app version and decrypt and build the modded app with this whole workflow…

Before you ask I’m ios because reasons and need to be on it until apple drops support for my iphone 12 pro. I miss Android…

I'm not going to disable my VPN, I'll try again later to see if it's fixed.

It's an arms race. And when Google stops me from downloading videos to avoid ads, YouTube's videos will be replaced with other content. I mean, the videos are convenient, but there's absolutely enough content to avoid them. Plus, I can develop new hobbies.

If you have access to a command line, yt-dlp.

Look, there's people who host videos that we must watch at any cost. But not really any cost, because we don't feel we should pay, or watch ads... or anything, really. But we deserve to watch these videos. It's our right. We're entitled damn it!

So we're going to barge into this place and watch videos while blocking ads. We're going to use tools to watch through the windows. We're going to smuggle content out of the building.

Because we need these videos. We'll modify our browsers, install new apps, change our habits, fight pointless fights, get accounts terminated...

But we're not going to pay a dime. It's not like Youtube means anything to us. Gross! We'd just leave if there was no choice. We'd just go to... somewhere else. These guys don't have a hold on us.

Devil's advocate: if you do things the legit way, absorb the ads or go for the pay tiers, do you think there's ever a point the advertisers and platforms say "this is the right amount of ads." ? Seems like it's an infinite process of cramming in more garbage. Personally I'm happy to engage in the arms race because it's not bothersome to me personally, and I'm fine with some "theft" as long as I'm paying back into the creators by whatever their preferred support structure is.

Imagine going through the interview process, like 10 rounds or whatever leetcode bullshit, and being told you are going to be working on /blocking Ads-Blocker users/...

Fuck it, I am out of here!

Just curious, why are you resistant to turn off your VPN?

I keep mine off most of the time & only rev it up when I feel like I really want or need the anonymity.

1. I watched YouTube ads.

2. When they got to be too much I stopped watching.

3. Then I added uBlock Origin and NoScript (even on YouTube I block some scripts) and went back to watching.

4. When bazillions of content creators started over-creating content just for revenue, and not to provide value, I started watching less and less.

5. Now content creators are producing even more garbage via AI, and now I only watch a very few real-world content creators and videos more than 2 years old. Everything else I watch on other sites. If a content creator also posts to other sites, I watch them there and not on YT.

Why not just use Brave, which blocks ads and allows for picture-in-picture and background play?

Do you need to download for offline play or similar?

I started using adblockers when I got tired of scraping my PC clean of malware every week, but kept YouTube whitelisted.
The third time they tried to show me a 27 minute ad I gave up and blocked them too.

What other sites can you recommend?

How can you have no access to a command line? Also yt-dlp has lots of UI frontends.

Add in sponsorblock as well. Its an extension that autoskips "inline" ads that creators do in video. It uses community input to know when to skip, and is excellent. You can also submit ad time stamps very easily to help out millions of people.

Imagine applying to work on the youtube team because you enjoy watching videos and then you are expected to make it worse for everyone including yourself.

100%

People love to discuss these fantasy realms where ad-free decentralized content forms some kind of Utopia that we all enjoy.

I'm a former content creator with millions and millions of hours of (e watched hours of) video. I have answered hundreds of comments from people who would like to suggest that my mic is better, or I use a better video camera, better lighting...

When I say hey I'd love to, can you donate a dollar so I can buy them... Crickets.

I can honestly say I never made a fucking sent on YouTube and it's the users that are to blame. They view it as this free thing that they should be entitled. Contribute nothing willingly.

There is a huge difference between the ethical stance people portray in their online comments, and people's in real life behavior.

I paid the one for the FUTO Keyboard, is that the same? Anywho, great job on both apps🤟