Ask HN: Has your YouTube usage decreased?

[wonderingyogi]

With YouTube blocking adblockers, I found myself using YT a lot less. Every time I click on a video, it gets blocked. Then I realize I didn't really care about watching the video. It felt like I caught myself before lighting the cigarette. I welcome the change and it has helped free up my mental space for other stuff.

[wolrah]

I've had Youtube Premium since it was Google Play Music All Access, so I'm happily paying the $7.99 grandfathered rate to not even have ads to block, plus I get music along with it.

Multiple creators I follow have confirmed that YTP views are worth more to them than ad-supported views so it's a win-win in my book, the cost of one single strong drink at the bar per month to not see ads while also better supporting the people creating the stuff I want to watch.

[milsorgen]

For me Premium is worth it for ytmusic alone. I have discovered so much new music it's been a new personal golden age, like I'm in high school again. I think its due to at least in part its ability to integrate my many years of YouTube history and playlists. Now to be fair I have read others saying the exact opposite in terms of music discovery, all I know is I find a great new song or album at least once a week and that is something I could never say about Amazon, Tidal or Spotify.

[nickthegreek]

Are you sure you are still on the $7.99 rate? I was on that grandfathered plan but it was eventually raised to $10.73. I am in the USA.

[wolrah]

I could have sworn it had gone up somewhat recently as well, but I checked my Google payment history while making that post and it's still showing $7.99 as of this month's billing cycle.

Either way, even the current new user rate of $13.99/mo would still be worth it to me because of how much I watch Youtube on devices like my TV which can't run advanced ad blockers, it's still cheaper than some drinks I've ordered this month, but I'm certainly not going to complain about still having the discount.

[keiferski]

No, I signed up for premium a few months ago and happily pay the $20/month. YouTube has literally millions of hours of high-quality interviews, lectures, courses, etc. and paying is worth every penny.

If you find yourself watching low-quality videos, that’s a problem with your selection of content, not the platform itself.

[effingwewt]

Ah yes, it's the consumer's fault for no longer being able to use the up/down ratio to tell if a video is clickbait or low quality.

Not because google took it away to protect that sweet advertising money.

The amount of ppl shamelessly stanning for companies has just gotten ridiculous.

[keiferski]

I don’t particularly like Google and have been slowly trying to move my accounts away from them.

Paying a small fee for a superior service is common sense and has nothing to with “stanning” for companies.

I also don’t even pay attention to upvotes 99% of the time, as it’s pretty unlikely that an old lecture about Hegel hosted on a philosophy channel is going to be clickbait. The clickbait stuff is almost always immediately obvious just from the title and thumbnail image alone.

[Wurdan]

People have different strategies for discovering new content, I guess. It’s rare for me to watch stuff from creators I don’t know, so I’m not usually surprised by the quality of them.

But if any kind of sponsorship of a video counts as “shameless stanning” to you then yeah the whole concept of YT is just not going to be your jam.

[somenameforme]

The overwhelming majority of the stuff you mentioned was put up for free with 0 monetization intent. Is Google also putting ads into non-monetized content as well?

[keiferski]

It’s been awhile, so I don’t remember exactly, but I’m fairly certain that an ad is played in front of every video, even the obscure philosophy lecture ones. There are definitely ads for Masterclass, etc. in front of the more modern educational podcasts and shows.

I assume it isn’t free to stream a four hour lecture to my device, so I don’t have an issue paying a small fee to do so. $20/month is nothing compared to the value I get from it.

[nickthegreek]

Pretty sure it’s only monitized content unless it has copyright issue (music). Then ad is shown to pay artist. Demonetized videos might also still have ads I think.

[phito]

Bandwidth and storage aren't free.

[JCharante]

Same here, I think my YT usage is actually increasing

[cmod]

YouTube Premium has to be the best pay-for deal of any service. I'm frankly surprised by how much adblocking talk there is when YouTube comes up on HN. YouTube is doing what I want all services to do: total elimination of ads as part of Premium. The result is it's one of my favorite spaces online, and feels miraculous in the quality and quantity of content (docs, interviews, how-tos, history, music, archival footage).

Grateful for YouTube and enthusiastic to pay for premium.

[colanderman]

Yes, but not due to adblocking -- I keep history off, and the recent change to show a blank homepage when history is disabled has caused me to simply turn away from the homepage rather than mindlessly clicking links from there. (My homepage actually used to be decent before, since the suggestions were based on my likes. No longer, oh well, helped me kick the habit.)

[bavell]

Idk if I'm special but I only saw the adblocker warning twice 2-3 weeks ago and haven't seen it since. My adblocker (ublock origin iirc) is working fine and I still haven't seen any ads yet. I did subscribe to premium once around a year ago but only briefly.

[LewisVerstappen]

I ended up replacing my YouTube time with more Hacker News, so I'm really hoping dang decides he wants a Ferrari and starts to put some ads on HN.

[hooloovoo_zoo]

I suspect the ad-block usage of hacker news visitors would force him to settle for a used pair of crocs.

[ksherlock]

Yep... part of it is the blocking^2 but also I feel like their recommendations took a nose dive a few months back... The front page used to be things I wanted to watch; now it's either things I've already seen or things I want to do-not-recommend.

[menshiki]

I subscribed to premium a few months ago. I personally don't think YouTube has negative impact on my mental. Twitter and IG definitely did and I deleted my accounts there.

[throwaway318]

I started watching YouTube less when the content shifted to longer 10+ minute videos and shorts. It's harder to just browse. So now only via specific search. However that's got worse as noise increasingly outpaces signal. I also don't log in, clear cookies, or subscribe to anything though do have a mental note of some channels. Adblockers are not a problem as I surf from Germany, Sweden or Denmark via VPN - perhaps some content just gets not shown.

I get that I'm not YouTube's target captive audience. Perhaps you aren't any more either.

[droptablemain]

I've never actually encountered the issue of YT blocking ad-blockers. Currently running Chromium 119 on Pop OS. I don't subscribe to premium or anything like that.

[somenameforme]

They seem to be rolling it out by region. In my region there was a brief complaint about ad-blockers, once, and nothing since. It could also be that Brave is successfully winning the game of cat and mouse.

[somenameforme]

I decided to check this out with Google Trends, out of curiosity. The answer [1] is surprising. Over the past 5 years there's been a quite substantial downward trend in interest in YouTube, at least as far as what people search for.

Though that page probably also answers why, somewhat amusingly. Swap the related queries to sort by "top" instead of "rising" and 3 of the top YouTube related queries are: "mp3 youtube" "youtube download" and "youtube to mp3".

[1] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

[greenyoda]

> Over the past 5 years there's been a quite substantial downward trend in interest in YouTube

This may also be due to competition from TikTok, which became available outside of China 5 years ago.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

[chairmanwow1]

No. I have premium so never noticed.

[campbel]

I also have premium. I went the route of Youtube music + premium a while back instead of doing Spotify. I might be missing out, but been working for me. I probably use Youtube more than any other streaming service.

[phito]

Same here, I'm happy to pay for premium as long as the price stays decent...

[chrsw]

Me too. YouTube has tons of content I can't find anywhere else. Talks, lectures, how-to's on all kinds of stuff. And sometimes it's very easy for me interact with the creators.

[EvanAnderson]

Nope. Not logged-on to a Google account, no persistent cookies and restart the browser fairly frequently, and the particular concoction of ad blockers I'm using (and reluctant to share) is still working well.

[whatwhaaaaat]

Yes but not because of the ad blocking but because of the actual content of the ads. I’m not under any circumstance having the option of dead bodies appearing on my tv when a 4yo runs into my office so my time is limited to when he won’t. The kids already were severely restricted but now it’s over - no google products at all for them for now.

I’m taking the power in to my own hands like my parents did with me owning distribution and storage. Seeing these dreadful ads played on children shows has made me realize these people have hostile intentions.

[washadjeffmad]

It has, but not because of ads or watch history. At some point over the past five years, the accuracy and immediacy of Google's search became a factor in the political stability of the US, and YouTube and Google search have been aggressively reduced to serving inert, ahistorical, commercially safe results. No monthly fee will fix that.

Non-English language search was largely unaffected until a year or two ago, but I guess tokenization has improved their ability to filter anything not on an allowlist to trend.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Yes, though it's been a while now; I was getting into consuming a lot of content off YT, but massively cut back when I first started to hear that they were going to try and force ads. Since then I had a partial relapse in the form of YT on a smart TV, but eventually it got to be too much - I think the last straw was when I tried to watch a medium length video (~15-20m?) and had... I think it was the third ad break that made me close out and go watch HBO ("Max") instead.

[theGeatZhopa]

Use a tool like vanced or other alternatives. I use YouTube mobile app only if I want to get angry. For my daily consumption, newpipe is my choice. Of course, no account management possible by that - but, I'm even better off and get interesting suggestions instead of the dully sh*t suggested when I'm logged in.

Wherever possible I try to minimize my digital footprint, just because of profiling and the algorithms assuming you want to see that and not that.

[superkuh]

I watch the same amount. I've never seen youtube complain about my javascript protection and accessability extensions like NoScript or uBlock Origin. From all the people I've helped install or update Ublock Origin it seems pretty common though. If it happens I'll just update my blocklist files or wait a day and update my blocklist files. I moved all my important stuff (like email) off google a decade ago so they can ban my 2006 youtube account if they want. But they can't stop me from displaying public data they put out in public in the way I want on my computer (not theirs). If it's private put it behind DRM like the rest. That's what the compromise was with the W3C approving it. They don't get to make the entire web browser their controlled black box too.

I am using youtube less as a video host for videos on my websites though. I don't need to "scale" so a VPS nginx webserver does fine. Their embeds are getting worse and it's simple enough to embed a video file in html now.

[deadlast2]

For me my usage has decreased a lot. I used to keep current with my subscriptions. I do check youtube often to see if there is anything I want to watch but I don't think I have watch anything in weeks. Since this addblock thing started I find the site off-putting.

[frogulis]

A friend showed me a trick, where telling youtube not to track your watch history results in no homepage suggestions. In my case that's resulted in massively decreased usage - I basically only watch my subscribed channels, and videos that I specifically search for.

[irjustin]

No, I purchase premium for the family and my daughters to have no ads and music.

I like the platform and being able to get high quality long form content for my hobbies- coffee and particular streamers for a game I play.

[n8cpdx]

Baking Soda/Vinegar still work on Safari. Still no ads. There’s some evidence they’re attempting to block them maybe once every ten plays, but I just hit refresh and it works.

[solatic]

No, I signed up for Google Play Music back in the day for $8/month, which has turned into YouTube Music + ad-free YouTube at that same rate. I'm happy with that price, but if they meaningfully increased it then I'd probably cancel, switch to Spotify, and cut my YouTube usage. There's already enough advertising on YouTube as it is, with creators embedding sponsor endorsements, to add platform ads on top.

[gavinhoward]

Yes, absolutely.

But this is intentional avoidance on my part. I don't want Google to ban my Google account because I use an adblocker on YouTube.

[Euphorbium]

I browse on my account, copy the link and then jump to another browser with integrated adblocker to watch. This small step limits the addiction.

[skytbest]

Has that been happening?

[gavinhoward]

I don't think so, but I don't want to risk it in case it does start happening.

[whatwhaaaaat]

Sounds like it’s time to start diversifying. How is it acceptable that one company could have that sort of control over you?

[gavinhoward]

I am diversifying. But I'm still trying to mitigate the risk on this end too.

Besides, I waste less time now.

[throwaway318]

If you're that worried about that, it might be time to mitigate the risk anyhow and move from Google as a single critical dependence.

[gavinhoward]

I am. My email is with someone else, and I am trying to move everything else.

[swader999]

Yes, quite a lot less. With their excessive ads and censorship I'm only going there to see a couple of regular contributors.

[themadturk]

I don't YT that much anyway, but I just tell my blocker (1Blocker on Safari) to let it through. YT still complains, I acknowledge the message and refresh the page and it lets me right in after that. I don't seem to see any more or fewer ads than I did before I stopped blocking YT, but as I said, I don't use it that much.

[strzibny]

Nope, I bought Premium and it's one of my fav subscriptions (comes with music, too). However, maybe I should watch less.

[belinder]

Haven't noticed issues with ad blocking on laptop nor desktop, using chrome for both. On phone I use YouTube revanced and have no issues either. Logged in to an account on the chrome ones whereas revanced is not logged in. I wonder if this anti ad block is a staggered roll out

[voussoir]

No, it seems the adblock-blocker has not started affecting their embedded video player yet, which is my primary viewing method.

In a sense, it has increased my usage, because I've started archiving a whole bunch of videos with youtube-dl so I don't lose them when this clock runs out.

[squigz]

uBlock Origin is still managing to block ads

[wenc]

No, my YouTube usage as stayed the same.

I pay $15.40/month for YouTube Premium and it's a very good investment (better than Netflix, Max or Amazon Prime -- two of those I get for free). There's so much more independent content (not movies or TV shows) on YouTube on subject matters that I'm actually interested in. Also I get to download videos without using YT downloaders.

The biggest use case for me is actually music streaming on my phone in the background. I don't have a separate Spotify account because all the music I actually listen to is on YouTube.

That said, I can see why folks using the free tier might watch less YouTube less.

[sebazzz]

My adblockers work successfully, still. Maybe it helps I also consume YouTube via the official TV app from time to time.

Reddit usage however, that has decreased a lot for me.

[catlover76]

They intermittently remove the blocks for me every 20 or so clicks. Haven't seen an ad or the ad blocker blocker in over a week now.

[lacrimacida]

Yes. Want to spend more time reading and there was never a better opportunity than the great enshitification of youtube. I’ll still be following some niche channels with less frequency as well as archive as much as stuff I want to have offline without all the dark patterns and distractions.

[helij]

Yes, I give up once I get two ads in the space of 30s or when I can't properly skip the video to nth minute.

[stop50]

It hasn't changed. Im mostly watching with newpipe and it wasn't affected at all by this adblock-blocking.

[smitty1e]

No, I mainly go to YT for specific song URLs to share on X, or personalities like Rick Beato.

[bavell]

+1 for Rick Beato, great content. Elizabeth Zharoff over at The Charismatic Voice is another lovely YT music personality.

[smitty1e]

Virgin Rock is also fun.

[paulpauper]

I keep dozens of music tabs that i periodically replay. like a jukebox of sorts

[thanhhaimai]

I paid for YT Premium for my whole family. It's the only subscription I paid for that I felt totally worth it. Our usage didn't change because we don't see ads.

[ls612]

I get $8/month for YouTube Premium Student and will have 2 more years, so hopefully by then the YouTube-Adblock wars will subside like they did for Twitch.

[richiezc]

no, i have YT premium via a family plan i share with 5 friends. so < $4 a month per person

[iowemoretohim]

No. My usage remains the same.

[jes5199]

I mostly watch tiktok

[coffeedan]

No: 0 -> 0

[timeon]

I visit YouTube only when someone posts the link. Ads are one thing. But the recommendations next to the video can ruin the experience. I used to use YT also for music, but algorithm was gradually bringing more mediocre stuff. Another example, if I watched video made in my country, it always recommended some crazy conspiracy videos or misinformation channels. I know this speaks more about the country than YT, but still - I do not want to taint my days with constant BS.

Most of store-front internet seems to be anti-procrastination. At first it looks like it want's to hook you, ie. there is click-bait title of the article. But when you open it there is GDPR pop-up and one has opportunity to pause and realize that viewing that content is not really necessary.

HN on the other hand is just text, moderation, no pop-ups. So it is easy to get hooked.