this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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YouTube is blaming that Firefox delay people been talking about on adblockers. (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This delay isn't exclusive to Firefox, it's in any browser where a user has enabled adblockers including in Chrome. Disable the adblocker and this delay magically go away. This was done on purpose.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 11 months ago (2 children)

To say the quiet part out loud: Bullshit

Google may find that their only option is to paywall YouTube. Too many of us will prefer to pay creators directly rather than letting Google take a cut. And YouTube is not the only game in town.

I admit that I’m pretty much done with YouTube anyway. Their unskippable mid roll ads that interrupt videos mid-word have become obnoxious enough that many creators I follow are jumping ship and advising their viewers where to find them.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Google may find that their only option is to paywall YouTube.

They already have Youtube premium. But $14/month is an insane price. I refuse to believe that is anywhere near the typical ad revenue they get from people. That is more than many streaming services.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not that I support anything their doing, but managing YouTube has to be an order of magnitude more expensive to operate than a streaming service. I actually think they could get some sympathy if they took more of a Wikipedia approach and we're more open about the costs to operate YouTube. However much we might hate Google, YouTube is practically a public good in the way it operates and the world relies on it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

An interesting idea. But non-profit is antithetical to Google’s business model.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

How could hosting other people's work and at most giving them a cut of the ad revenue be more expensive than

A. Paying for streaming rights to other people's work. B. Creating your own works And C. Paying to host all of the above. ???

Unless you're saying that the hours streamed from YouTube is so vastly more than any streaming service that it out costs all the other costs Netflix etc has in licensing and content creation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's not, because it's a lot easier to get someone willing to pay anything in the first place to pay more than it is to convert a free user into a paying one. So as long as a yearly rise doesn't lose them more in profit they'll keep increasing the price it until it does.

Though I really doubt that on a platform as huge as YouTube halving the cost to $7 wouldn't get them twice the paying customers almost instantly, because $14/month is simply ridiculously expensive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'd love to see a plan where you just pay to rid of the ads, but YouTube is past YouTube, they would rather everyone pay YouTube premium as is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

They had that plan over here. But they killed it just before the war against ad block started (it was around half of the price of premium)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Where are they going? Most of the ones I follow are along the “this sucks, but it’s the only real game in town”, so I’d be interested to check alternatives and see what’s there.

The big problem with any social or content centric platform is that new ones are only useful for consumers if there are creators and only useful for creators if there are consumers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Most are headed to Patreon and Vimeo. A few seem likely to try out PeerTube.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 11 months ago

“We had to fuck over the people who aren’t in our monopoly, because we absolutely fucking love money!!!! Omg, money is the only thing we care about!!”

“Ok, public relations guys, do your best.”

Result ^

[–] [email protected] 38 points 11 months ago (5 children)

For anyone confused with the title:

YouTube is blaming the 'Firefox delay', that people been talking about, on adblockers.

Maybe it's just me.. English is not my first language so that might be it. I really struggled to understand what it said.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Thank you. The title was absolute gore

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To make it more clear use "have been" instead of just "been"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Thank you. I missed that part, figured someone would correct me before I finished editing so I left it as is. Took longer than expected!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Thank you. I happened to be smelling something toast like at the same time I tried to read that and had to check the comments. Turns out it was a heater that hadn’t been on in a while.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

It is my first, and I definitely had to read it twice to make sure that I understood. It is definitely not you, but the awkward way they worded the title.

Yours is much clearer, in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Weird, I use Firefox and ad blockers. I never get ads or delays when watching YouTube videos.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Okay? But when my Firefox uses Chrome's useragent string, the delay also disappears.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I would guess that Google uses a randomised rollout system to make changes affect a tiny % of users while they test it (common in big software companies). Changing your useragent might make you appear as a different client that's not affected (yet). Source: I work in software and can guess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Wouldn't it be easier to start with their own browser?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The original video showed that just changing the Agent string fixed the "problem", so it has nothing to do with ad blocking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Was any else able to verify the claim in the original video? I couldn't.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Lol, my internet is shit and I often have to wait a few seconds for it to buffer anyway, so I won't see much difference.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

In tandem with my current settings. Adding a Firefox add on to spoof my user agent worked for me. I set it to random and disabled all the Firefox user agents.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Part of me wonders if the reverse holds - if spoofing one's user-agent on Chrome to look like Firefox could cause the delay to occur.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

A few months back I had this issue on Chrome, but my ad blocker updated and it went away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. Did any change since then? Regarding it going away.

Also unrelated, your user name reminds of a Youtuber I use to watch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

After the update it's been working as intended.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I am ready to jump ship to Newpipe only (or newpipe and invidious) when I get the popup. And when these services are inevitably killed off, I will use a list that is currently WIP to help me find as many creators as possible via alternative methods (their own websites, podcasts, or them being on services like Odyssey or Peertube)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Hmm. Is this supposed to be affecting everyone using Firefox with adblockers? I just played a video on FF with uBO. Worked fine for me with no delays. Maybe because I searched for the video using DDG and watched it via DDG (meaning I did not click through and watch it on YT)?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Same here. I tried on 2 computers and no delay so far.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Could be an A/B test and you're lucky to be in the control group.