This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful 4.5K I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol 1.5K I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason 2.6K Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol. 562
It certainly sounds a lot more believable as a meeting than the obvious voice acting on https://iminafleeting.com
For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.
I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.
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Why not just block ads?
1. YouTube is my primary entertainment so I don’t mind paying for it in lieu of Netflix or Hulu or whatever
2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch
3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)
4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes
5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently
7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first
Reg. point 2, creators get a fraction of a cent for your view. Just send them a dollar once a year, and they will benefit more. Then install adblocker.
Fwiw, creators get much more for views with Premium than for ad views. Still not a lot though. I think it was Linus Tech Tips who said that you buying one item of their merch gives them more money than watching every single video on their channel combined.
>moral high ground
Depends who you ask. Many would say supporting companies that are so anti consumer is in a meaningful way contributing to the problem.
Many would argue using "free" media sources is more moral since you're not supporting what many consider to be evil companies.
> It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
The thing with paying for YouTube is that you’re giving Google money for them to get more data on you. Logically that seems like a bad deal. I get that you probably don’t mind it, but other people rightfully do.
> Can download video on most (all?) devices
Is that download as in “they are available offline in the app” or as in “you get an MP4 that you can watch in your preferred player”?
It is "they are available offline in the app". They do not give you an MP4 export.
just curious - so is YT Premium really ad-free on mobile? I've been burned by streaming services taking my money and still pushing ads in my face. that's the main reason I haven't signed up for YT Premium.
It's really ad-free everywhere EXCEPT for those sponsor segments that the video authors themselves add to their own videos. In those cases, YT premium usually shows a "skip this segment" button.
Whereas alternate YouTube clients that implement sponsorblock can skip those automatically
How does it give you a moral or logical high ground?
By arbitrary moral systems, same as everyone else.
For example, it's a counter to the standard argument that "you claim you're against obtrusive ads yet you're unwilling to pay to remove them, you want everything to be given to you for free!", etc.
This is not moral. You're in fact encouraging intrusive ads by paying to remove them.
It's very immoral from that perspective.
You might disagree with it, or you might consider it counterproductive, but it's a moral stance that acts as a counterpoint to the other, also moral, criticism.
At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.
Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug
Why? Much like with the person who mentioned YouTube is their primary online entertainment, it also is for me. And I'm using my phone in more situations than my laptop, e.g. when doing the dishes or some chore.
I don't watch ragebait videos either, I watch either music videos, or stuff about my hobbies.
Ads would kill either. I hate random ads popping up.
Had they done that from day 1 you woulf have a point but it sounds like extorsion to me given youtube got rid of most of its competition and established its casi monopolistic position being adfree.
That is not what extortion means
If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber you actually do get a button that skips in-video sponsor ads.
NewPipe is the way to do that on android...
Smarttube on Android TV's works exceptionally well, too. I've seen people recommend Tizentube over it because it's nearly indistinguishable from the standard YouTube app, but with adblocking--but I actually prefer the more minimalist UI of Smarttube.
is there something for IOS?
My solution is to watch YouTube on brave browser.
Yup. Astounding how many tech people just fork over money to an evil company instead though.
I've been using YT on my FF mobile browser with an ad block and it's been working great.
They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.
Because there's so much more value to YT premium (including YT music) that goes beyond merely blocking ads. It's really a no-brainer if you watch YT often.
There is YouTube Premium Lite now which gets you ad-free long form videos. It’s decoupled from YouTube Music
Or, you know, you could just pay for a service that you enjoy. I watch a lot more YouTube and see a bigger need to keep it alive than Netflix, HBO and co for which I am paying good money already, why should YouTube be exempt from that? Also if Netflix goes away tomorrow, you’ll find their content on torrents easily, but if YouTube goes away, we will lose decades of videos that no one has backups of. Expecting them to offer this service for free and without ads is crazy.
Well some people are in the massive minority that despises modern youtube, even if its ad free.
Look at it through a few different lenses and you'll find plenty of reasons to think youtube is overall bad. People seem to love to retreat to the dishwasher repair instructions for some random old model, to try to defend modern youtube. those videos were all over youtube before it became a vile ad infested infinite scroll attention demanding app, and the product has been on a steep decline since the perverse incentives to chase attention by any means have been added.
The core of modern youtube in 2026, is a bunch of "creators" pumping out x amount of minutes per week or as often as per day, of low quality content dressed up in a video format to disguise how low quality it is, to their viewers that will click it and not realize how poorly crafted it is because its their main feed of information and that is their baseline. You can deflect this and say there is some high quality stuff, sure, but there is no way you can possibly say that the vast majority isn't absolute garbage, and that youtube isn't incentivized to keep people watching for as long as possible with no regard for which level of quality content they are watching.
Literally everyone i've talked to that defends youtube, accepts that they watch some absolute garbage at times, and deem it worthwhile for some reason. I have no understanding for why so many people are just content burning time watching actual garbage, when there is so much high quality stuff elsewhere.
Sure, it's not for everyone. But if you're someone who's blocking ads to view YouTube comment, then that doesn't apply. Which is the context of this subthread.
The context of the subthread was how lack of adblock would ruin the illusion of a meeting, which pivoted into what i view as a weird defense of youtube as a product, i pivoted back towards more things that ads potentially ruin about youtube, if anything despite the amount of replies, the defense of youtube's structure as a product is imo the bigger tangent.
The percent of people who know how to install an adblocker out of the global YouTube audience is so minuscule.
I don't block ads because stealing ad revenue from companies is unethical. These companies have workers who have families that they need to feed. They provide a service for free, so it's the least I can do. I watch every ad in full.
My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.
It isn’t unethical to block ads; the norm on the internet has always been that senders send any not-actively-malicious bits we want and the recipient renders them however they want (including not).
That said I’m also worried about getting banned for blocking too many YouTube ads (Google doesn’t have any obligation to send me emails after all) so I… just don’t go there.
Stealing my data bandwidth by sending me unsolicited ads is also unethical. Profiling my online behavior and monetizing it is also unethical. YouTube doesn't seem to be bothered with compensating me for that. Why should I care about them?
> I watch every ad in full.
Same here. When I am watching an ad on my phone, I make sure to smile and nod REAL big at the screen-side camera - sometimes throwing in a big thumbs-up - because I need these corporations to know that I love everything they do and stand for.
Sometimes I wish that YouTube was just 100% ads. Been ostracized at more than one party for saying that, though.
This is the society we live in folks. We have no choice but to accept it. Might as well stop and smell the roses - or in this case, LOL at the LiMu Emu.
> Sometimes I wish that YouTube was just 100% ads.
This is the way. Remember Bitcoin faucets? Watch an ad and get 0.000000xx BTC?
A YouTube consisting of 100% advertisements that pays viewers pennies per watched ad will turn all the time people spend doomscrolling into a positive economic engine.
You're right, I didn't think about the thousands left destitute by them using UBlock Origin to play a fake meeting video
Corporate psy-op
The mafia is also made of hard working people with families to feed. Sometimes industries deserve to die. Even if the people working in them don't deserve to lose their jobs. That's life in a free market.
There's nothing more "free market" than ads. Ads literally cost you no money (free), and you don't even have to buy the product they're advertising (freedom from market if desired). If I know I'm not going to buy the product in question, I use the time to meditate, or take a moment to enjoy a cool, crisp sip of Kool-Aid. It's delicious when prepared according to the instructions. Oh Yeah!
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There's nothing more free market than an ad blocker. Alice agreed to provide a service to Bob for and bundled in ads, Bob accepted the service and declined to run that JavaScript or render those images when Alice passed them along. If I drive past a billboard or accept a flyer on the street, no one would suggest I'm obligated to look at it.
IMHO it's more ethical to block ads than not to block them because if you don't block them you're supporting unethical business models such as massive privacy invasions by collecting and selling user data, ad-based malware delivery, and scams.
i mostly watch YT via the apple tv app where you can't
YouTube inserts server-side artificial 5- or 30-second delays before streaming can start in order to force you to waste the time that would be taken up by the ad either way.
Because with google it's an unwinnable arms race.
I have never run into issues
AppleTV
I've been a YouTube premium member twice. Both times, a few months in they start showing ads anyway. Fewer, but still not none.
100% agree. I likely would have stuck with adblockers but watching on TV(s) is worth the monthly fee alone. Also you can "watch" (ie listen) in the background on the mobile app too.
I watch YouTube alot btw. :D
The basic install of Kodi on LibreELEC blocks the ads on YouTube. I left Roku after using it for a long time, and the experience with Kodi is far better. Simple setup, too.
For mobile, I use NewPipe which allows background YouTube as well.
Might not work for everyone but I never see an ad on YouTube.
One of the best products ever created, and they deserve the dough for serving me all the gigabytes. Fast, reliable, and one product not headed for KilledByGoogle. (Did I jinx it? “We’re transitioning to a vertical-video only platform to meet our billion users where they are…”)
[dead]
What a miserable piece of software. We don't go a day without cursing it at my company. Jira was dog slow but it mostly worked, ClickUp is incredibly buggy and trying to be an "Everything app" while failing at basic tasks.
- A very dissatisfied user
I’ll disable ads! Apologies :)
I don't think there is a human left without an ad blocker at this point. Am I wrong, or are people still clueless?
Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!
Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?
You try ignoring when the family helpdesk is called. You never hear the end of it.
You have way bigger problems, if a text message about the same thing is not enough. They think that you lie to them... and you do.
People take offense.
I think a good rule of thumb is to avoid people who have this level of lack of empathy. I can be on the toilet, running, on a roller coaster, or at a myriad of different places where I don't or even can't have my phone with me. If they think, that I avoid them because of them, then that's on them, and I cannot care less. I avoid such Mexican soap opera generator people like plague.
Sometimes it's not a choice who is hired and kept as your coworker. Complain and be considered difficult to work with or not a team player.
In other words, toxic work environment. But of course, lying won't help with that at all.
So?
You would not know as you declined?
> People take offense.
Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say
Yes. These tools are for them. If you're high on the ladder you can play Solitaire openly.