YouTube is experimenting with server-side ads
YouTube is experimenting with server-side ads
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How is this enshitification?
You're using third-party tools to circumvent the thing that the platform is held together by.
And the platform is now circumventing the third-party tool.
Pay for premium if you don't want ads. The servers aren't free.
Or, yknow, use an alternative. But you won't, because Mr. Beast and ASMR ear lickers aren't there.
If your youtube experience has been all about ignoring ad blocking, your experience has still been thoroughly enshitified.
Once upon a time you might get a single ad before the video, and be able to skip it if it went over 5 seconds.
Over time, we have gotten multiple commercial breaks, skip button being per-ad instead of per-break, the delay before skip extending to 30 seconds or no skip being allowed at all. Ads slipped into the stream sounds like ad skipping would be totally gone and I bet there's no "ads capped at a reasonable length" either.
Of course, as this has gone on, the content is increasingly just not worth it. So many titles that I know could be answered in like 10 seconds show a length of 40 minutes or so, and it's generally not "oh just a segue into a more engaging broader topic", it's stupid meandering and padding because long videos are somehow better for the creator. So if I see a youtube title that intrigues me, I google to find the wikipedia article they are probably sourcing instead.
Yes, overtime you'll get more ads, as the server cost increases. But you're not watching 360p content on a 1024*1024 monitor any more.
There are more and more content creators, creating 4K content every day. Server costs goes up.
IF you don't like ads, you have the option to buy premium, to pay the server costs / content creators / staff.
It's not enshitification, since you get more, high-quality (figuratively and literally) entertainment / whatever.