
YouTube’s annoying Premium spam - laurentdc
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/23/20946114/google-youtube-premium-subscription-ads-pop-ups-spam-rant
======
izacus
YouTube Premium is literally the service HN wants: honest payment to support a
Google service costs and creators publishing on it. It's a sustainable service
which actually earns more for creators than ads and data mining (at least
according to last CPC values I've seen for video ads).

And yet, it seems like the author of this piece still feels entitled to
complain about being asked to pay the price of service and these comments are
full of people advertising products that still use the service without paying
the asking price. It's like demanding that music authors just send you MP3s
for free without paying for it at all.

I personally hope that more companies allow me to pay for their services
instead of being plagued by behavioural ad tracking.

~~~
danShumway
It's the opposite for me. I've been paying for Youtube Premium since back when
they were calling it Youtube Red, and the nag screens haven't gone away. When
I'm signed in, Youtube still sticks up banners that remind me that I have
exclusive content I don't care about. I still get reminders about all of the
"cool" features I don't want. I still have to jump through hoops to archive
content that I care about. I'm paying money for exactly 2 reasons:

\- I want to support creators.

\- I want to watch #%!@X videos without distractions.

Youtube Red only helps me with the first point -- I can support creators, but
it's even questionable there whether I'd be having a bigger impact by directly
giving money on Patreon. In the meantime, I'm still paying money for Youtube
Premium right now and I've gotten to the point where I _don 't use it_,
because the experience with an adblocker and proxies is better than the
experience I pay for.

At some point, when someone is paying money for a service and then going out
of their way to avoid signing into their account or using the thing they pay
for, you have to question whether the service is designed well.

~~~
viraptor
> and the nag screens haven't gone away

I'm also there since Youtube Red and I'm not sure what you mean. I've never
seen a nag screen so far. I wonder if it's some bug, or some kind of targeting
failure?

~~~
danShumway
From what I'm hearing, it seems to vary a lot from person to person. I would
see a lot of popups on the official Youtube App for Android. Youtube was also
really interested in getting me to install the Youtube Music app, even though
one of the big benefits of Youtube Red in the first place was supposed to be
background listening. Youtube Kids was advertised a lot, I didn't understand
how I fit the target demographic for that one.

I also saw a lot of advertisements for addons or benefits (here's a Youtube
Red exclusive video from some random B-list celebrity that doesn't belong in
your recommendations). And I got a lot of tutorials and tips, like popups for
how to subscribe to channels. That always felt weird to me, because even if I
didn't pay for Youtube Red, surely after a while Youtube would figure out that
I knew how to subscribe to channels.

Maybe it's gotten better. Like I hinted at above, I rarely sign into Youtube
(I hope they're still distributing the money I give them at least somewhat
fairly to creators I like). I'm now paying for Youtube, and separately using a
combination of Youtube-DL, NewPipe, Invidious, and proxies/adblockers to build
an experience that I consider tolerable. So maybe the notifications have
gotten better and I haven't noticed because I haven't checked back recently?

------
monkeyfacebag
I pay for YouTube premium but I'm still subjected to ads in the majority of
videos I watch: the kind that are embedded by the creator directly in the
video, eg, a one minute sponsored by Squarespace segment. I don't know how
Google is framing YouTube premium (I get it through my Google play music
subscription) but it is most assuredly not an ad-free experience.

~~~
izacus
What would a good solution for this be? Ask that creators upload a separate
premium version of a video with no ads and with bigger payout for views?

~~~
monkeyfacebag
I doubt there's a definition of "ad" that would be feasible target on a
platform like Youtube. A trailer, for example, is an ad for a movie, but I
think Youtube would be harmed if all of the upcoming movie trailers were
removed.

As a consumer, I find it pretty easy to distinguish between a "wanted" ad and
an "annoying" ad, but I don't think there's a way to enforce rules based on
user value systems if for no other reason than every user's value system is
going to be distinct.

------
Hokusai
Welcome to the future:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3GzYcb1g8)

Tech companies are an oligopoly with a few actors. Competitions do not offer
enough pressure to make them change. Regulation is the only way forward if we
do not want to end in a dystopia.

~~~
ianai
Agree. We need some old school style trustbusting.

~~~
izacus
How would antitrust here look like? It's a subscription for a direct
service... what's the monopoly solution here? Ordering Google to store and
serve videos for free?

~~~
bogwog
How about breaking up Google? Seems like that'd solve a lot more problems than
it'd create.

~~~
izacus
Which problems mentioned in the original article would that solve? Concretely?
Would stand alone YouTube not want payment for their service?

~~~
bogwog
If YouTube were an independent company, they would have less leverage in the
marketplace overall since they no longer are backed by Google's resources, no
longer a part of Google's walled garden. Google will no longer have reason to
give YouTube preferential treatment in ranking, advertising, etc. There's a
lot of foundational things that will be shaken up, things which will force
YouTube to actually be competitive, and actually provide value to users.
Competitors will actually have a chance to dethrone them, and then the
competitive forces of the marketplace, much like evolution, will lead to the
crappiest business practices (like this premium spam) dying off and the market
power shifting over to the users/customers.

That's of course assuming there's sufficient competition, and the power
doesn't just shift over to Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft or some other anti-
competitive giants.

~~~
ianai
Which is why you can’t just break up one component of an oligopoly.

------
Waterluvian
Dunno if it's a regional thing or what but the last month of Android YouTube
has been just _insane_ with ads. I used to only get video ads, then earlier
this year got a little banner below the video that was about the ad that
played before the video.

But now I have entire blocks of totally unrelated traditional-style ads for
nothing YouTube or video related (like women's shoes) in the suggestions
section.

~~~
jorvi
Nope, same here. They used to have either one 5s ad or a skippable 20s+ ad. At
some point they've started to roll two 5-10s ads back to back, or unskippable
10-30s ads, and only the 30s+ are skippable. The topmost video in the app is
always an ad as well, in addition to all the text ads you mentioned. I get
that video hosting costs beaucoup bucks but the amount of ads is getting
ridiculous..

Its happening on other sites in other ways as well (either dark patterns or
vast amounts of ads) and it has gotten me to the point where I actively take
pleasure in extracting the maximum value for me as customer (so blocking ads,
using VPN to pay in rubles or rupees, etc) as most companies these days see
you as nothing but entities to suck as much profit out of as possible, with no
regard for a reasonable middle ground. Sucks for them, that's a two-way
street.

~~~
lokedhs
It's gotten so bad that I installed Newpipe instead.

Basically I tolerated Youtube ads up to a point, but now that I'm using
Newpipe instead, neither Youtube nor the creators get anything.

I wish there was a better way, since it's not pracitcal to contribute to all
channel's patreons.

~~~
warp
Subscribe to Youtube premium?

~~~
phaus
Like many others mentioned, they don't completely stop nagging you simply
because you subscribe.

------
astral303
The author throws Apple under the bus pointing out a forced full screen modal
message advertising Apple TV+. IMO this is an unfair comparison, because the
Apple TV+ modal ad came up exactly once and never again (once per Apple TV
device). Whereas YouTube is nagging and interrupting the author every day,
multiple times a day.

I wish there was a YouTube alternative. I dislike their Apple TV YouTube app
enough that I loathe to explore videos. Yet the content creators I watch only
distribute on YouTube. I won’t pay for YouTube Premium because I know the
quality of the app is still the poor same.

~~~
SebastianKra
I use RSS to keep track of my subscriptions and Invidio.us to watch them.

RSS is IMO waaay better than the sub-box because they are in the same place as
all my other news.

Invidio.us doesn't have the best interface, but it offers all the necessary
features and let's me do picture-in-picture on iPad.

------
RKearney
Even if you pay for YouTube Premium you’ll then get reoccurring pop-ups to
sign up and pay for YouTube TV.

~~~
faeyanpiraat
Yo’ve pulled out your wallet. Perfect time for a neat upsell.

------
perl4ever
I can't remember if it was on YouTube or not, but the other day, I wanted to
watch a video about an Acura concept car, and it forced me to watch a Honda
ad. I quit in disgust. People insist that online advertising works, but it's
just too much to swallow any more.

~~~
alexis_fr
4 ads every 12 minutes was quite common on TV. I’ve always thought Youtube
would ramp it up to this level one day. It’s only a matter of time until VoD
does it too (Netflix? for 7$?).

~~~
wazoox
It was quite common _in the US_. We Europeans always considered US TV as
totally unwatchable, because of the horrible, constant ad interruption.

~~~
perl4ever
I'm not sure it was _always_ common in the US, I'm sure I heard a rumor that
in olden days, cable didn't have ads, or had fewer ads because you paid for
it. Some places in Europe pay for OTA TV so that could be connected with the
quantity of ads, rather than the inherent superiority of the citizenry in all
respects.

~~~
wazoox
I think this has more to do with inherent superiority of the consumer defence
laws.

BTW ads are an almost unmitigated nuisance: when France banned ads after 8PM
on its public channels, their audience numbers soared (so the project which
was an obvious gift from Sarkozy to his media mogul friends, badly backfired).

~~~
perl4ever
Banning ads was a failure, because it harmed the media? I thought the media
was who sold ads.

Also, public television in the US doesn't have the same level of ads as other
channels.

~~~
wazoox
The idea was to ban ads on public TV to augment the price of ads for the
private channels by reducing the market size. But instead people watched the
no-ads channels more, so the price of ads on the private channels didn't soar
but fell instead.

------
frou_dh
Someone not spending money and being indignant at the same time is generally
not too interesting. Ask any business operator.

------
drewg123
If you want to get rid of pop-ups, ads, and other annoyances, try Newpipe on
Android, and SmartYouTubeTV on FireTV / Android TV

[https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe](https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe)

[https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/](https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/)

~~~
jackjeff
I’d kill for a YouTube client for AppleTV or to go back to the old one before
Google decide to trash the UI with immaterial design everywhere. YouTube has
the worst UI on AppleTV by far.

~~~
tehwebguy
Yes, literally only useable because of the voice input on the remote / mobile
app

------
Jagat
"It’s a pointless subscription that Google is trying to lazily ram down my
throat instead of improving its offering,.."

It's now fashionable to shit on google on HN, but Youtube premium is one of
the best investments I've made, and I'm glad google is giving that choice. How
many times have I not read comments like 'give me an option to pay instead of
showing me ads' on HN.

There are tons of videos on youtube that I listen to as podcasts while
commuting (and there aren't enough good podcasts in that sector).

------
nerdponx
I actually disagree with this. I am being provided 1080P video streaming into
my house 24/7 with virtually no interruption. If they want to spam their
premium stuff at me, that's a small price to pay.

I will complain to high heaven about misuse of personal data, but it is
perfectly within their right to show pop up ads for their own premium product
on the free version. I would be a lifelong subscriber if I didn't think they
were abusing my data in the first place.

If there's anything I would complain about, is that the ads don't have enough
variety. I see the same damn advertisements over and over. This is part of why
I can't stand TV advertising either. Yes, it's patronizing and intrusive in my
show, but but it's also repetitive. At least keep it interesting and tell me
about some different products...

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Same here, would buy a in a second if I believed it would make me the
customer.

------
czottmann
I ditched the YT iOS app last night as the web interface is finally quite
usable in Safari (iPad). Fullscreen works fine, quality and speed settings
work fine, PIP mode works out of the box…

Both on my Pi-hole-powered internal network and my nextdns.io based mobile
setup the experience is so. much. calmer. I recommend giving it a shot. If pi-
hole is not an option for you, check out NextDNS. Solid tracker & ad blocking
either way.

~~~
kibwen
Seconded. I've never seen a single one of the popups from the OP myself, which
I thought was curious until the author mentioned they were using the Android
app, whereas on mobile I only use Youtube from within Firefox, which is
perfectly serviceable (and apparently less annoying).

~~~
czottmann
Well, I got rid of the native iOS app because the modal nag dialogs had become
so annoying that I didn't want to put up with it anymore.

------
jandeboevrie
YouTube Vanced or Peertube don't show ads. They do show stories, which are
stupid as well. Just as the recommendations are shit lately. Just more of the
same instead of new interesting things.

If I can't block ads then I'll stop using YouTube. Did for half a year when I
was on ios where adblock in the app didn't work.

------
wazoox
I use NewPipe on mobile. No nagging pop-ups, background play, free software.

------
monkeycantype
The edge YT has over its competitor music streaming providers is that I get
access to both licensed and blatantly pirated material. I’ve been listening to
70s Japanese Rock, Apple Music has v little, YT has everything, none of what
I’m listening to is licensed.

------
guu
For those annoyed by the YouTube app or website bloat:
[https://invidio.us](https://invidio.us) is an AGPL alternative front end for
YouTube that truly feels premium. It doesn’t have pop up ads and even plays
videos without javascript.

Source is here:
[https://github.com/omarroth/invidious](https://github.com/omarroth/invidious)

------
htk
I’m a premium subscriber but I do agree that the pop-ups on non-paying users
are too much. It’s a poor proposition to make users subscribe to your service
to get rid of annoying pop-ups. It’s like an airline company telling customers
to pay a fee to get rid of spikes on their seats.

But I also think the shrill tone of the article diminishes the message.

~~~
chihuahua
I'm using Youtube via Chrome browser with UBlock Origin. I can't remember
seeing even a single ad in several years. I'm amazed that Youtube has not
figured out how to prevent this, but at the moment it's a fantastic
experience.

------
robbrown451
I've had YouTube Premium/Red for years (the only thing I pay for to watch
video content), but I'm about to cancel it because they now show ads on videos
if those videos are embedded in other web sites. Most of the content I watch
is on other web sites that curate content, and now the benefit of YouTube
Premium is gone.

~~~
tehwebguy
Can the embed detect your logged in state? Privacy settings may have changed
in the browser.

~~~
robbrown451
Yes I am starting to suspect it has to do with changes in Chrome. I can't find
out how to modify site settings to make it work though.

~~~
michaelt
I believe the setting you're looking for is called 'uBlock Origin'

~~~
chihuahua
Indeed. Chrome + uBlock Origin = 0 ads on Youtube over the past several years.

------
fwxwi
ublock origin on desktop, youtube vanced on android.

------
martin1b
I agree with every word in this article. I understand adverts but being hit on
the head with the google advertising tack hammer at every view is annoying.
Makes me want to look for a new platform.

------
TacoToni
I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but I would pay for YouTube premium
at a lower price just to remove ads. I have no interest in their music
service.

~~~
jsnell
That's what YouTube Red was. Did you subscribe to it?

If you did, why aren't you now grandfathered into YouTube Premium at that old
price?

If you didn't, why not? It was after all exactly the product you now claim to
have wanted.

~~~
Marsymars
> If you didn't, why not?

Not the poster you asked the question to originally, but YouTube Red was never
available in Canada.

------
CraneWorm
> Get background play with YouTube Premium.

Are you shitting me? I get background play with Firefox...

Also, I value my mobile transfer limits so... youtuble-dl it is.

------
abraxas
To each their own but YouTube premium is one of the few subscription services
where I feel I get my money's worth. YouTube's content library drawfs everyone
else's and I use it a ton for education as well as entertainment. So much so I
think I'm going to cancel Netflix as it gets too little use to justify its
price in my house. YouTube on the other hand is wildly more popular in my
family.

------
equalunique
YouTube Premium is worth it IMO. No adds, the ability to minimize, and
downloading videos locally, _all within the same app_ are killer features.

~~~
Nextgrid
> the ability to minimize

It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege
people need to pay for.

~~~
izacus
> It's sad that a basic element of computing is now considered a privilege
> people need to pay for.

Just like it's sad that being asked to pay the creator and service provider is
now something we need to write whole articles to whine about.

How do you thing we'll get rid of personal data tracking and collection if you
don't even want to pay a pittance for service you're using?

~~~
Nextgrid
My problem is not with paying. My problem is that I am being asked to pay not
for the content itself, but to remove bullshit limitations that shouldn't be
there in the first place.

Also, it's very naive to think Google will suddenly stop tracking you just
because you're paying for Premium... quite the opposite actually, as you've
now given them a valid credit card and billing address.

~~~
izacus
Everything a paid service doesn't give you until you pay is a "bullshit
limitation" right? Is all always arbitrary. Why do you refuse to pay for the
features if you want them? Why do you feel they should serve you for free?

~~~
Nextgrid
There’s a difference between a service not giving me something and a service
explicitly breaking platform conventions.

When I open a browser tab with audio in it I expect to be able to switch to a
different app and the audio keeps playing. YouTube explicitly uses hacks to
break that on mobile. I consider it very nasty to get out of your way and
interfere with browser & OS features like that.

------
NoblePublius
YouTube Premium is the best $ I pay for streaming. YouTube has incredible inde
music and background play makes consuming it possible.

------
mitfahrener
Got youtube premium so I can watch videos on my commute. NYC subway, no wifi,
no 2g,3g,4g or 5g

~~~
gruez
...or use youtube-dl (or newpipe on your phone), which does the same for free

~~~
Jonnax
Yeah there's a cheaper way. But like using Spotify versus ripping CDs or
piracy, the convenience of the tool is the value.

~~~
catalogia
Convenience seems to be a slippery concept. From my perspective, the
convenience of mpv+youtube-dl cannot be beat. Neither the official web player
nor the official mobile applications have the features I expect or desire.

For instance, I use text-to-speech to read aloud the subtitles of foreign
language content. With mpv that's straight forward, but I wouldn't even know
where to start with getting that to work using any of the official frontends
of youtube.

