UPDATE 2 It seems that starting today, uBlock Origin is working to combat this Youtube Block. Mine started working again! Lets all thank the devs of UBO for fighting this fight!

UPDATE So as new info comes out, I'll be posting it here. It seems as if this Rollout Has Several Parts.

Part 1

You get a popup message over top of your video, blocking the screen: *removed externally hosted image*

  • This is the first sign. If you see this popup AND are logged into a YouTube account, your account has been selected.
  • At this stage you can likely close or block these messages with an adblocker.

Part 2

This message will change, indicating that you have 3 remaining videos to watch without ads.

Will insert photo once one has been found

  • At this stage your adblocker will imminently stop working in 3 videos time.
  • Personally using Firefox + uBlock Origin and tweaking filters and updates does not even fix it.

Part 3

None of the video loads now, everything looks blank.

*removed externally hosted image*

  • At this stage you must tred new ground to avoid ads. I have posted methods in the comments. If you want to bypass this end page, read down there.

End of Update


YouTube has started rolling out anti-adblock to users inside the United States, which means that they are preparing to roll this out to the entire country. Personally, I have been blocked already. I want to gauge how common this occurrence is.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
    ·
    10 months ago

    This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

    If this is the change that really sets them financially straight, then I would say they have a failing business model.

    • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
      ·
      10 months ago

      This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

      Making their service more attractive to customers is precicesly what they're trying to do.

      It's just that an advertising agency's customers are not the folk who watch, read or hear the ads, it's the folk who pay for the ads.

        • machinya [it/its, fae/faer]
          ·
          10 months ago

          capitalism (or at least the weird version of it used in the tech world) is about short term profit. if they get good numbers from this, they can make future projections of an imaginary increase over the years and make the ad companies happy for a while. they do not care about breaking the product in the long term

          • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
            ·
            10 months ago

            I know. This was just the intelligent person view. In reality, as you said, they only care about short term profit, and can you blame them? Things can change overnight in the tech world. Google (as a product) was undisputed until ChatGPT was released and integrated into Bing, now Alphabet is falling vehind and losing its dominance on the market.

    • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
      ·
      10 months ago

      If premium cost $5per month I'd pay for it, u use YouTube all the time

      No way in hell it's worth $15 a month though, their pricing is completely brwindead

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
        ·
        10 months ago

        Just make a (digital) trip to India and get family of 5 accounts for about 1$ a month per account. This the way I did it.

      • charles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
        ·
        10 months ago

        It's $25/mo for family. I hate that I pay for it, but I use music, and I mostly watch YouTube on a streaming device, so I've never been able to use ad blockers. $15 for the fam felt worth it, but $25 has me rethinking. Maybe I can configure YT-DL to get the shows I care about on my Plex

      • IIIIII@sh.itjust.works
        ·
        10 months ago

        I agree. It’s around $22 NZD and that is just too steep. They have a slightly cheaper one but you can’t background play with it. I’m sick of being nickel and dimed at every possible opportunity and then hearing about how these companies are making record profits.