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  • 2 months

    there’s no point. I tried the free trial of youtube premium cause i’m on Qutebrowser and the adblocking isn’t the greatest. even with Premium i’d still randomly get ads every now and then. IF i were paying for it I’d be pissed.

    Now I circumvent this by just opening all the videos in MPV.

    • 2 months

      I’ve never gotten an ad with premium. Been subscribed for about 5 years.

    • 2 months

      With respect, I don’t believe you. I paid for Premium for half a decade and never saw a single ad. I stopped my sub and will advise people against it going forward, but your claim is highly suspect to me.

      • These kinds of things are often A B testing to see what they can get away with - especially in countries like the US where consumer protection laws basically don’t matter. It’s kinda like when they raise subscription prices in one country but not another, but with showing some people in that country a certain amount of ads per watch time vs another group with a different amount of ads. They see how much they can get away with before people start complaining, and then what they can get away with before people start cancelling.

        I watched a video just this morning talking about how YouTube has built-in systems for similar A B testing with video thumbnails to tell creators which gets more watch time. You give it 2 thumbnails and it randomizes which one people see, and then tracks click-through rates and watch time percentages before giving you a result of which one performs better.

        • 2 months

          There’s a difference between AB testing, and fraud. Charging someone a sub cost to not see ads, and then AB testing if you can get away with still showing them ads, is fraud. If they saw ads with Premium, it’s a million times more likely it was an error, but I frankly just don’t believe it. That’s just my opinion.

          • 2 months

            Have you been paying like… literally any attention to US corpo activities lately? Fraud is not only not being punished, but actively rewarded, so long as you bend the knee to Trump, which Google has.

      • 2 months

        I didn’t say it was constant. I only said every now and again on the free trial I’d get an ad. Maybe it’s because I only used it with Qutebrowser. I don’t know. but I know that sometimes I would get an ad on a video.

      • 2 months

        my folks pay for premium, and i have to sit through constant tide or liberty mutual commercials surrounding every video when i visit. i asked why they pay for premium and they say it’s worse without it

            • 2 months

              A cheaper tier than Premium that offers fewer features. Along with this, there’s still some ads.

                • 2 months

                  I actually think there is some value in the way YT is trying to do it versus other streamer sites. Most are not available to you at all for free, even with ads. And then you can pay, but get ads, or you can pay more to get no ads (or still get some, in the case of like Prime Video that serves ads for their own shows but don’t call those ads for some reason).

                  This is not a recommendation for it, to be clear.