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Comment by alickz | Hacker News Reader

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alickz

I purposely look away when YouTube starts playing ads.

It's silly I know, but I get a tiny amount of satisfaction from not letting them advertise to me.

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I don't get the hate on Youtube TBH, when they provide youtube premium.

Yeah, I want an ads-free music streaming service so getting YouTube ads free is just the icing on the cake.

If one is unwilling to pay for a service but still use it one needs to realize some other form of monetization will be required.

Personally I'm torn between wanting to pay for a useful service and not wanting to reward YouTube for intentionally degrading their free service.

I don't understand this stance. They intentionally degrade the service to make it profitable. Video serving is incredibly expensive and YouTube is no charity. They have a premium tier at a very competitive price so what's the issue?

That's an interesting question. I had been under the impression that they were profitable even before they started doing that, but it would change my calculus if that were true.

With the combination of Firefox, Ublock Origin, and Sponsor Block on desktop, and Vanced on Android, I never see youtube ads. I find it very satisfying.

(Sadly, google shut down Vanced, but you can still find it if you go looking and ReVanced is coming along nicely.)

Until they require video to be allowed for eye tracking so they can stop playing and force you to look at the ad while it's playing.

As in Black Mirror's 15 Million Merits.

Pay for YouTube Premium?

Can't you still hear them?

Technically yes. If you block them through your system volume settings, then YouTube will be none the wiser. If you mute them through YouTube, then they'll probably save that into analytics.

It will still be time and bandwidth lost.

I simply use an ad blocker. Blocks all the annoying YouTube videos

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