YouTube is testing people now?(old.reddit.com)
old.reddit.com
YouTube is testing people now?
https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/rioyyj/youtube_is_testing_people_now_what_is_the_point/
89 comments
I never see these surveys when I browse Youtube on my PC but the bonkers shit they ask my Mum always amuses me, also Youtube is very picky about about the content that YouTube creators create but will happily bombard my Mum with gambling ads all the time. You can opt out for "less" gambling adverts but obviously algo-wankers weasel out of any responsibility so it probably won't work very well since it makes them less money.
You can opt out of all the ads just by using uBlock.
I don't understand how people willingly go on the internet without it.
uBlock only supports browsers
NewPipe[1] works fine on Android.
[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
There's also YouTube Vanced
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uBlock is supported on Firefox on Android.
I'll mirror the parent's sentiment. It blows my mind every time i see someone else use YouTube and see ads.
I'll mirror the parent's sentiment. It blows my mind every time i see someone else use YouTube and see ads.
Lot's of Android devices come with Youtube app preinstalled, which means it is a pain to uninstall it, to make the links open in the browser.
Unlock is suppprted on chromium via kiwi browser
I stopped using the official YouTube app when YouTube started to constantly show me literal porn as ads below videos. The images were distorted a little bit but you could clearly see what was going on. I wasn't able to report any ad and it kept happening, so I just stopped using the app and went full ad block.
It boggles my mind how many scam ads are running on YouTube. Only ads I get are scams, make 5k a day, get rich quick with nft, fake investor ads etc. Google willingly make extreme amounts of money working with these scammers on the backs of ordinary people while already having billions. They are morally corrupt.
How do you think Google got so rich?
I'm pretty sure a significant fraction of Google's revenue is coming directly or indirectly from scammers.
I'm pretty sure a significant fraction of Google's revenue is coming directly or indirectly from scammers.
> bombard my Mum with gambling ads
I get loads of financial scams, especially crypto scams. It used to be Russian wife services and gambling. Probably because I turned off ad personalization for my Google account, so I get the lowest grade ad stock there is.
I get loads of financial scams, especially crypto scams. It used to be Russian wife services and gambling. Probably because I turned off ad personalization for my Google account, so I get the lowest grade ad stock there is.
I’ve also turned off ad targeting and have experienced the same. Lots of scam ads, many of them for crypto. I’ve tried to report a few of the more blatant scam ads, but the reporting process is tedious and not worth wasting my time on. Like the “free fortnite v-bucks” at a sketchy site is 100% stealing your account right? Thankfully I don’t see those very often so presumably google takes them down quick.
If she uses a PC you might be able to install uBlock for her. I never see ads on YouTube except for the mentions of sponsors that are part of the video.
Say your mom clicks on one of those ads and looses a lot of money. Would Google be liable for it?
“YouTube recommended this to me, I never imagine YouTube / Google would be trying to scam me”.
“YouTube recommended this to me, I never imagine YouTube / Google would be trying to scam me”.
There should be a law that requires any data collecting companies to list the inferences that they are planning to make from the data they collect. Once the study is complete, they should be required to destroy the data and inform customers.
A question like in the OP seems like it’s trying to figure out your level of education, which is something that could be used in discriminatory ways, not to mention that it’s not something everyone wants to share.
A question like in the OP seems like it’s trying to figure out your level of education, which is something that could be used in discriminatory ways, not to mention that it’s not something everyone wants to share.
Can someone expand on what this is? How does it come up for you and how often? I watch YT on the regular, combination of different platforms and entry points. Definitely not always with adblock. Wasn’t even aware this was a thing until now.
The sooner the adtech economy collapses, the better.
Youtube Alternatives :
Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii, DLive, Triller
Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii, DLive, Triller
Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
These are alternatives to hosting, not viewing. Hard to switch platforms if the people making videos I want to watch are not on the new platform.
Invidious lets you watch youtube videos without using Youtube. It even lets you subscribe to channels, and import your subscriptions from Youtube.
Theres an app for Android and Win/Mac/Linux called Freetube that uses Invidious.
There are a lot of free Invidious instances out there. You can also self host one if you want.
Use it! And if you can, donate to one of the public Invidious instances.
Theres an app for Android and Win/Mac/Linux called Freetube that uses Invidious.
There are a lot of free Invidious instances out there. You can also self host one if you want.
Use it! And if you can, donate to one of the public Invidious instances.
mpv combined with yt-dlp works quite nicely too, just paste the URL as an argument to mpv and it handles downloading on its own. Primary issue is that yt-dlp is highly sensitive to shadow API changes so rolling release is needed for it to be useful, though this can still be done with custom repositories on distros outside of e.g. Arch.
If I want to host my own niche curated video community, where do I start?
PeerTube, https://joinpeertube.org/
You can use an instance that let's you upload or you can run your own on a host somewhere and federated it.
You can use an instance that let's you upload or you can run your own on a host somewhere and federated it.
S3? Not even joking, a static website with some html5 video tags would bring you quite some way.
Depending on how worried you are about potential load and/or egress costs, you could go for somewhere with cheaper egress as well if you want.
Depending on how worried you are about potential load and/or egress costs, you could go for somewhere with cheaper egress as well if you want.
S3 will be way more expensive that it has to be. Instead, I'd opt for using a dedicated server from Hetzner, unlimited traffic for 0 EUR/GB (besides the monthly cost of the instance that is).
Their dedicated servers will be more expensive than s3. their storage boxes are much cheaper.
You’d also want to compare google drive, Dropbox, box, Amazon drive (Amazon photos), iCloud storage, and backblaze
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box
You’d also want to compare google drive, Dropbox, box, Amazon drive (Amazon photos), iCloud storage, and backblaze
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box
I wonder how far you could get with Github pages? It’s probably againsttheir ToS anyways, but I bet you could host a decent amount of (efficiently-encoded) videos before they kick you off.
Someone needs a promotion at Google and this is the latest plot to get people to train a "new" and "revolutionary" AI?
Can you win a washing machine that plays video clips or why should anyone participate in those surveys?
You are yoking, but I recently needed to visit a sewing machine shop and it appears there are sewing machines with Android UIs.
And it was displaying a YT video.
My sewing machine is decade+ old second hand I got for € 20, no YT.
And it was displaying a YT video.
My sewing machine is decade+ old second hand I got for € 20, no YT.
It's only complete though if the washing machine is showing YT ads for washing machines.
My guess is these are from Google Consumer Surveys, which anyone can use. So google itself probably doesn't give a sh*t about this data, although I wouldn't bet that they don't track it.
[Edited to add]
Although GCS is intended for boring stuff like which marketting logo or slogan is best, you can actually use it for any question, that doesn't violate the terms. In the past I've used it for joke surveys as well as academic research. Although I haven't done it for a while in case some turker flags me and gets my whole google account banned.
[Edited to add]
Although GCS is intended for boring stuff like which marketting logo or slogan is best, you can actually use it for any question, that doesn't violate the terms. In the past I've used it for joke surveys as well as academic research. Although I haven't done it for a while in case some turker flags me and gets my whole google account banned.
+1 I've previously got some of these questionable surveys from the 'Opinion Rewards' app and a few other spots on Google sites. Quite sure if you click on the [i] button (in OP's screenshot), it displays a blurb about the questions coming from a third party.
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Maybe there are questions where the value of learning a thing about the user for future ad targeting is higher than just showing them another ad?
Reminds me of the time a dating company did research (maybe okcupid?) on the best question to ask for matching, and it was something like "do you believe in angels?".
Reminds me of the time a dating company did research (maybe okcupid?) on the best question to ask for matching, and it was something like "do you believe in angels?".
These surveys on platforms are basically a way of evading the deep tracking they used to implement on their apps. Since app stores and device makers clamped down on app-based tracking, many social platforms lost their ability to track people deeply to better target ads, so now they do covert psychological and cultural profiling to get the metrics they want.
It's also why many platforms are handicapping their web sites and why some only allow access through mobile apps, because web site interactions don't give them deeper tracking cues they want, like access to device cameras and microphones, without alerting users first.
If you use TikTok or IG, you'll realize that whenever you're about to share something, your camera is activated, and it can capture a lot of details about you like your skin color, or snapshots of where you are... App makers have been over-reaching in privacy for ages now, and you're always giving up something personal for using any social service, whether it's your money, time spent watching ads, unrewarded labor in generating their content, or your privacy.
I don't do any surveys, they're often driven by mis-guided objectives that don't help user experience at all.
It's also why many platforms are handicapping their web sites and why some only allow access through mobile apps, because web site interactions don't give them deeper tracking cues they want, like access to device cameras and microphones, without alerting users first.
If you use TikTok or IG, you'll realize that whenever you're about to share something, your camera is activated, and it can capture a lot of details about you like your skin color, or snapshots of where you are... App makers have been over-reaching in privacy for ages now, and you're always giving up something personal for using any social service, whether it's your money, time spent watching ads, unrewarded labor in generating their content, or your privacy.
I don't do any surveys, they're often driven by mis-guided objectives that don't help user experience at all.
Thanks for reminding me to renew the bit of electrical tape I usually keep over the “selfie” camera (but had fallen off).
Yes! a roll of black electrical tape is man's best friend in 2021+ :)
Youtube ads have reached the point of ridiculous. Many people, in the early days, moved from TV to Youtube to avoid ads. But the last time I used the apps (on the iPhone) to listen to a song, I had two unskip-able ads before and one later.
Today, I bother with their HTML website on Safari (because of iOS ad block, it seems that I miss most of the ads) but their web app is shitty (and maybe being made intentionally shitty?).
Today, I bother with their HTML website on Safari (because of iOS ad block, it seems that I miss most of the ads) but their web app is shitty (and maybe being made intentionally shitty?).
YouTube Premium doesn't have ads. You get what you pay for.
$15 per month is a little nuts - I don't know anyone who pays for Youtube Premium - Though they piloted Youtube lite overseas for $5 per month but it's seems unlikely they will bring it to the states - If they do roll it out, I will subscribe
Quick note: $15.99 through in app purchase, $11.99 through the website.
YT Premium gives me a lot - YT is transformed when you don’t have ads, can have it playing in the background while on another app (there’s a Picture in Picture beta I’m using at the moment which works great). Also downloads and Music.
If you're on Android, you get all of this with NewPipe[0].
[0] https://newpipe.net/
[0] https://newpipe.net/
Not really. The cost of NewPipe is that you cannot log in, effectively forking the user experience in terms of content discovery, subscription management and watch history (versus the usual browser or app experience). There are not any decent workarounds for this.
I've found the experience of content discovery on YouTube to be absolutely abysmal. Tiktok introduces me to new videos each time I open it, even suggesting things that I've never demonstrated an interest in but which are still fascinating. Meanwhile YouTube keeps suggesting the same videos again and again each time I open it up, and they all seem to be based on the last few videos I've watched.
Missing out on YouTube content discovery isn't a huge loss.
Missing out on YouTube content discovery isn't a huge loss.
On the other hand, I see this as a positive.
The less insight YT has into me the better.
That being said, I understand how this could be a negative to some.
The less insight YT has into me the better.
That being said, I understand how this could be a negative to some.
Also vanced (nonfree): https://vancedapp.com/
Just fyi for others nonfree as in freedom, not as in beer. plus it has sponserblock built in to auto skip in-video ads.
Also includes YT Music, making it not much more expensive than other streaming music services if you're willing to use it over something like Spotify.
I really really wish I could love Youtube Music. But I just cant. It is even worst than Apple Music.
I've been using it. It's gotten a lot better than when it first came out. Super annoying that they released a product that was far inferior (and probably still is inferior) to Google Play music and forced everyone to switch.
>It's gotten a lot better than when it first came out.
Thanks. May be I will check it out again.
Thanks. May be I will check it out again.
Google has been trying to diversify outside of search + Google Apps but everything they try just feels janky and doomed for the graveyard in a couple of years anyway. Stadia, Chromebooks, Google Home, Wifi, Fiber, all of the Nest stuff post-acquisition, Fi… they all seem like they start off with a bang, then go nowhere and just fizzle for a few years before getting the axe. It makes it hard to get excited about anything they announce. I think Facebook has been doing this too.
At the end of the day, they’re advertising companies trying to be something more.
At the end of the day, they’re advertising companies trying to be something more.
I pay for YT Music. YouTube Premium is just bonus since I seldom use YouTube. YT Music is still not as good as Google Play Music was, but it’s better than Spotify imho.
Also, pretty sure I pay $10 not $15.
Also, pretty sure I pay $10 not $15.
I do. Worth it to me to get rid of ads. Plus I like supporting creators without having to sign up for umpteen Patreons.
And it’s $12/mo from the site (not in-app).
And it’s $12/mo from the site (not in-app).
Just VPN to India, you get 3 months of Premium for like $5 in total. It works fine without VPN after the initial sign up.
Would this require a local billing address?
Yeah, but using an Indian address generator works fine.
it works everywhere you might want to watch youtube. xbox, phone, smart tv, computer, tablet, hell probably my old gameboy DS.
guess it depends on how much youtube you consume. personally it was a no brainer.. less than an hour's worth of work a month to pay for it? now i only see ads when i get signed out of youtube.
guess it depends on how much youtube you consume. personally it was a no brainer.. less than an hour's worth of work a month to pay for it? now i only see ads when i get signed out of youtube.
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It must vary between regions, it's 1790 HUF for me, which translates to ~$5.5.
Also, why is it nuts?
Also, why is it nuts?
in india is for example 1.55 euros / month, just move there or get a vpn
I started paying when my kids got into YouTube. It was either that or blocking it altogether.
YouTube premium removes one layer of ads. The content still has ads, but you stop needing to watch ads so you can watch ads
That's not entirely within their control though. They provide a platform for people to host things. If someone pays you to talk about their product, no one will stop you unless the thing you're selling is against their ToS.
Well it removes YouTube's ads, no? Of course it doesn't do anything about sponsors, etc.
oh please
If you use YouTube enough that ads annoy you then just pay for YouTube Premium.
Would not mind paying if I knew what to expect from the start of their service. Now they are abusing more and more their market position to fuck their customers. No way I'm paying for that shit.
uBlock is better, free, available in more regions, and you don’t have to login to your Google account to use it.
You only need to use YT a couple times to already be annoyed by the unskippable and numerous ads, plus inline advertisement, that your face will get slapped with.
uBlock origin still blocks YouTube ads.
Google is highly profitable, take the subscription fee and donate it to someone who will help people instead of just develop more sophisticated ads and ways to remove blocking from browsers…
Google is highly profitable, take the subscription fee and donate it to someone who will help people instead of just develop more sophisticated ads and ways to remove blocking from browsers…
LTT has said in one of their WAN shows? Or their financing show? That YouTube Premium members get them more money than ad watchers.
I’m happy to help support YT creators in this way.
I’m happy to help support YT creators in this way.
Funny thing Youtube doesn't accept my money. It says my region is not supported for Youtube Premium. I would not mind paying 5-10 bucks a month for that, already does for Netflix and Apple TV.
I’m struggling with html Gmail on iOS Chrome. It keeps jumping as I click on an email or category and clicks the wrong thing.
Maybe for the past 3 months?
I’ve got the same it’s intentionally shittier feeling too.
Maybe for the past 3 months?
I’ve got the same it’s intentionally shittier feeling too.
Don't use the official client. Problem solved.
I pay for YouTube music for this very reason. Comes with ad free YouTube. I actually respect Google isn't a charity,but I value my time enough to not waste it on ads.
I pay for YT music and just a few weeks ago started getting some sort of ad inside the YT music app. It's getting ridiculous.
I have also experienced this. I hope it is a bug, but it also might be a result of using the same account on multiple screens (whereas before it would just stop playback on one).
I would like to know more. I haven’t experienced this. I’ve had YT Premium ever since it was a thing and use YT Music relatively regularly.
I wonder if it's to measure things like critical thinking skills and compare them with the videos people watch.
The average American reads at 7th-8th grade level and might not know what "false dichotomy" means, so it could be useful data. It's also a logical fallacy, so it might give an indication about whether a person has been exposed to the ideas of logical fallacies.
"People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
The average American reads at 7th-8th grade level and might not know what "false dichotomy" means, so it could be useful data. It's also a logical fallacy, so it might give an indication about whether a person has been exposed to the ideas of logical fallacies.
"People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
> "People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
Huh that's odd, I was thinking the opposite - people with critical thinking skills are often labelled as radical for disagreeing with logical flaws in the current mainstream narrative. Witness: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russiagate, ore more recently the Rittenhouse 'white supremacist' theory.
Huh that's odd, I was thinking the opposite - people with critical thinking skills are often labelled as radical for disagreeing with logical flaws in the current mainstream narrative. Witness: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russiagate, ore more recently the Rittenhouse 'white supremacist' theory.