r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube is testing hiding the dislike button entirely and users aren’t happy

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-testing-hiding-the-dislike-button-entirely-and-users-arent-happy-3420822/
24k Upvotes

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4.2k

u/JurplePesus 10h ago

You will watch what the algorithm feeds you and you'll like it! Now shut up and click on this AI ad for a gambling app or some prescriptions from an online doctor who will never meet you.

628

u/toddh39 10h ago

All the fake ai ads scams on you tube

217

u/new_math 9h ago

I see regular Costco ads, using the Costco logo, and it's for life insurance from a random LLC company that, based on the own ad details, is located in India or Eastern Europe >.>

123

u/Specific_Frame8537 9h ago

Damn, that's rough.

https://github.com/gorhill/ublock

43

u/throw-away-exception 8h ago

Yup, between this and Revanced Youtube on rooted Android, I haven't seen ads on Youtube in years.

27

u/annoyingashe 8h ago

Patching YouTube with morphe was easier and fixed the playback issues I was having with ReVanced recently. It also lets you use a more recently updated version of YouTube.

I still use the "reddit is fun" app patched with ReVanced, it's great.

4

u/JWBananas 8h ago

THANK YOU! YT Revanced was driving me bonkers.

2

u/Bassre2 8h ago

I still use the "reddit is fun" app patched with ReVanced, it's great.

Wait, there is still a way to use reddit is fun!? How? I though they blocked every other app other than the official reddit app. I hate that now they sort some comments by Live by default and there is no way to change it..

1

u/annoyingashe 7h ago

There is a way. It's not exactly trivial to set up, or at least it wasn't for me when I did it with Revanced but there are step by step guides.

I suggest going to r MorpheApp and reading the stickied threads. You should be able to figure it out from there. (Morphe and Revanced are very similar to each other, but morphe is newer and more actively developed than Revanced; that's why I suggest it even though I used Revanced to get rif working. May require some troubleshooting either way.)

2

u/jazir55 4h ago edited 3h ago

Does that way still work? For Boost it required creating a dev token which worked until earlier this year for me. Now if I try to create one the way it worked before it tells me to apply for a dev account to reddit so I can create the needed auth token.

3

u/Hi_Trans_Im_Dad 8h ago

Wait...are you me??

2

u/blacksideblue 4h ago

No, you're Dad

1

u/Specific_Frame8537 6h ago

How is Morphe easier?

I've only used ReVanced and beyond the default APK site being absolute ass and riddled with ads (ironic, really) it hasn't been difficult as such.

1

u/Other_World 2h ago

Unfortunately neither work for me, but since upgrading to a foldable 3 years ago mobile web works perfectly for 99% of my browsing. I barely use apps anymore, it's great.

4

u/PregnantOrc 8h ago edited 6h ago

Don't even need to root the phone for it and its clones/derivatives nowadays. Just wanted to throw it out there for the world that the barrier to entry has been going down a lot over the years and is now about as difficult as a first time phone setup. If it has seemed too technical before it has gotten notably easier and well worth a second look.

1

u/tightfade 7h ago

I didn't even have to root my Android for Revanced

1

u/on_guard_for_thee76 7h ago

There are methods for removing ads on iPhone as well, people just want it done for them. 

Between pihole, Stremio, and Vinegar extension for iOS. I do not see many ads. 

If it is truly unavoidable, I mute my phone/laptop and put the screen face down. 

I will not be advertised to if I can help it. 

1

u/ByeByeMiddleClass 6h ago

There are ads on youtube?! (tongue kisses ublock origin)

1

u/JiggzSawPanda 2h ago

Had to move to YouTube Reseam. Revanced was being borderline unusable for me.

9

u/crustyrobots 7h ago

I keep forgetting others experience the Internet without it.

This dog shit is seriously malware, anti-adware is a must

2

u/mnstorm 7h ago

I only got ublock origin (or some other earlier program) when my old-ass laptop was starting to go so slow. I was thinking I would have to replace it very soon. Decided to try an ad-blocker and frankly my computer was good for another couple of years. I have never looked back to a life without an ad-blocker.

4

u/metalflygon08 8h ago

Sucks that Youtube is getting smarter and will refuse to play if you have UBlock installed.

There is a constant arms race between them and it's a couple of days after YT blocks Ublock before UBlock finds a workaround.

2

u/KrazyA1pha 5h ago

I've been using uBlock for years and I've never had a problem with YouTube loading. If you are, you may be behind on updates or something

1

u/metalflygon08 3h ago

Its a thing.

Might be regional (in USA)

But it happens, usually right when YouTube updates.

It takes a day or two for UBlock to counter update.

1

u/mr_oof 6h ago

Replying to come back after work 👍🏻

-4

u/xSaviorself 9h ago edited 9h ago

Youtube with this installed is throttled to shit on a lot of browsers now.

Edit: I never said don't use it, it's a dig at the browsers.

5

u/William_Wang 9h ago

works fine for me

0

u/xSaviorself 9h ago

Try with different browsers with uBlock origin and see the result. On Chrome it's slow as fuck, Firefox a bit faster.

Both work just fine, YouTube itself is being a dipshit and preventing you from watching the video while the background shit fails. Browsers being controlled by ad delivery services seems like a bad idea. This is what causes the delay for the most part.

4

u/William_Wang 8h ago

Why would I go searching for a problem when I don't have one?

I use Firefox

4

u/roachy69 8h ago

On GX never had a throttling issue, and Firefox haven't had one since the start of the year and updating uBO lists solved that problem. I'd expect it to be bad on Chrome, Chrome doesn't get full uBO.

0

u/metalflygon08 8h ago

For me YT on FireFox will just refuse to play and display an error about detecting an ad blocker and then refuse to play until it is disabled.

9

u/WOF42 9h ago

then you arent blocking hard enough, there are ways to stop that too, also i would rather literally watch a blank loading window for an hour than a single fucking advert ever.

5

u/SirRolex 9h ago

I get teased slightly by my friends and family for the lengths I go to to avoid ads. I run ad blockers everywhere and I will spend hours troubleshooting why they are not working before I want to see garbage slop ads. It sucks as I really enjoy watching football too, but I cannot stand TV ads lol.

1

u/finalremix 8h ago

"ha-ha, you waterproof your home. Loser! ... why are my feet wet?"

-9

u/xSaviorself 9h ago

Blocking has nothing to do with throttling you goof come on now learn the technology you're purporting to support.

Signed, someone who's actually contributed to the software.

3

u/MyDickIs3cm 8h ago

I wish I knew where you worked so I could avoid their products.

The pages will try to load monitoring elements that can determine if the ad loaded or not. If they indicate it didn't load, it will hang you up and keep trying. You can see the number on uBo going up as it repeatedly tries.

1

u/not_a_miscarriage 8h ago

He's not saying blocking ads throttled anything. He's saying when YouTube detects that he's blocking ads, then YouTube throttles him. Which is 100% the case btw

1

u/xSaviorself 8h ago

He's saying when YouTube detects that he's blocking ads, then YouTube throttles him. Which is 100% the case btw

You're misunderstanding my response. I'm not saying blocking isn't causing the throttling sorry if my last response is confusing.

You cannot "block Youtube harder" to prevent it from throttling you and showing a loading spinner an extra 10s or more because it's YouTube doing the fucking blocking, by determining your browser and seeing what network connections fail. It's awaiting responses.

I'm agreeing that this is the case.

But what he suggested to my original reply is not something that works. That's not what he's saying at all, either. The "Also" in his statement is excusing the issue.

-6

u/baconboner69xD 9h ago

Honestly it’s more of a hassle than it’s worth at this point. Have to disable it every time you click a link to a website you’ve never gone to before. I almost wonder if a portion of comments mentioning it are actually ads.

1

u/userrr3 5h ago

Have to disable it every time you click a link to a website you’ve never gone to before

Surefire sign the website isn't worth visiting.

22

u/airfryerfuntime 9h ago

Those have become so common everywhere. I saw an ad for a $30 oil change at Valvoline, which is a good deal, so I clicked it. It took me to an ad agency in India, lol.

35

u/fluffygryphon 9h ago

Oh no... So you're the people that prove ads work, which leads to more ads. Don't encourage them!

3

u/seventysevensevens 8h ago

It's wild to me any one clicks an ad on a site but I also use unblock origin so I haven't seen an ad in years lol.

-5

u/[deleted] 9h ago

[deleted]

4

u/keygreen15 8h ago

Reading is hard!

1

u/RetPala 8h ago edited 2h ago

Bro really raw-dogging the Internet like a sailor

1

u/IClop2Fluttershy4206 7h ago

Costco doesn't advertise unless somethings changed. They let the people do it themselves

1

u/Cumulus_Anarchistica 5h ago

Make advertising platforms legally responsible for the ads they display.

Why is this industry unregulated?

1

u/Cheese-Manipulator 4h ago

Go ahead and report it and your report will be ignored. Success!

1

u/KareemOWheat 2h ago

Having your platform supported by ads is one thing. Server hosting ain't free no matter how much we might wish it was.

It should be illegal to have completely unvetted blatant scam ads on such a major platform though. Especially when you are served 3+ unskippable ads on each video.

53

u/iamtherik 9h ago

firefox + ublock origin

8

u/Nonsenseinabag 8h ago

Right? The solution is quite easy. Ads can suck digested chow.

2

u/KptKrondog 8h ago

If you scroll through shorts a lot, it doesn't help. A lot of the shorts themselves are ads made to look like legit videos. I've used ff with ublock origin since it came out. They're actual videos, just promoting some junk product. Now the only thing available to do is "don't show videos from this user". Which doesn't tell YouTube that the video is junk and shouldn't exist.

14

u/UselessScrew 7h ago

If you scroll through shorts a lot

The patient says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

2

u/iamtherik 7h ago

i see, i dont watch a lot of shorts. But yeah i get recommended a lot of "educational" videos made with ai, and it taks me a min to notice it's slop. T_T

get me out of this universe

2

u/JiveTurkeyII 6h ago

I literally never run into this.

Not ever at all.

Even on my phone adblock browser catches them.

1

u/stoops 4h ago

alternative also is brave + manifest v2!

24

u/rokahef 9h ago

" this is how i built a team of grok ai agents that make my life so easy now! Meet pip-" fuuuuuuuuuck offfffffffff.

So sick of that ad appearing every 10 seconds

2

u/TheGloriousCucumber 9h ago

I forgot that people actually see ads on YouTube. Life without ublock origin must be rough.

1

u/nnnnnnnnnnm 6h ago

And the block button does nothing, just an endless stream of Grok AI and Dr. Squach soap

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u/Maelstrom52 9h ago

It's unbelievably annoying, but I will say part of the problem is that YouTube has democratized the advertising structure on YouTube, so pretty much anyone can purchase ad space on YouTube. It's super easy to do. Almost none of those ads are reserve ads, they're all auction ads, which basically means that they just get placement in places where they probably aren't going to have that much of an impact. I would wager that almost everyone clicks the skip after five seconds button. The conversion rates on those things are probably well below 0.1%, whereas decent conversion rates would be between 1-2%

23

u/dychronalicousness 9h ago

Which it’s wild advertisers haven’t thrown a shit fit over artificially inflated numbers due to bots.

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u/Maelstrom52 9h ago

There are two different advertising buckets though. Advertisers with money, who are spending several hundred thousand or millions of dollars per month, are absolutely getting premier placement. 15-second unskippable ads and 30-second unskippable ads are priced very differently than TrueView skippable ads. It only costs a fraction of the reserve ad cost to throw a bunch of AI ads and try to get some exposure.

And also, considering the average person on Reddit is under 35 and probably not making over $100,000 a year, the likelihood that you're seeing more of the auction ads is probably part and parcel to your demographics.

12

u/baconboner69xD 9h ago

My favorite is when I’m driving or working outside and it starts playing an ad that is essentially endless unless I find my phone and skip it. Like wtf

3

u/Maelstrom52 8h ago

Yeah, it's actually something that really bothers me about YouTube's laissez faire system. There are aspects of it that I really appreciate, but it would be nice if they capped the lengths of skippable ads to like 3-4 mins. But part of the reason why they don't is that there's actually a utility for ad agencies and creators. For example, if a branded video falls short of its expected VG (View Guarantee), sometimes you can do what an agency will refer to as "social promotion" which is basically just "buying" the views in order to satisfy the agreement. Usually, a video has to at least have satisfied 75-80% of its guarantee before they will do it, so it's usually just done if the videos falls slightly short of its goal. It's worth noting that most brand deals consider 90% of a VG as "satisfied". So, let's say you guarantee 100K views over 30 days, and at day 20, it's at 80K views. You can use "social promotion" to grab the last 10K, and they usually do it on the cheap which means placement in non-US territories.

1

u/Residenthuman101 2h ago

So they know no one is actually watching these twelve hour ads but there enough pets and background music playing YouTube accounts out there in the world that they found a way to sell fake views to their own creators to help game the system they themselves control lol

1

u/QuackNate 5h ago

A fifteen hour picture of a gambling site with the Joker violin screech playing on loop.

1

u/Heronymous-Anonymous 7h ago

Theres also no way YouTube is hiding their real engagement metrics from companies like Nielsen. Big ad companies who do marketing for Fortune 500 companies demand, and get, the real data that they base their marketing on. They’re not stupid enough to take Facebook, Google, or any other social media platform’s word when it comes to where and how they spend their millions.

1

u/RyuNoKami 7h ago

As long as they are getting paid, they wouldn't care much but the companies that are selling the products, they should be caring.

2

u/magistrate101 4h ago

Atp I actively lose respect for any company that advertises on youtube.

1

u/MechAegis 8h ago

I see a new "chat" icon at the top on the mobile app. Is that new or has it been there?

1

u/BeautifulCuriousLiar 7h ago

NEVER START A CONVERSATION WITH “HI, MY NAME IS”

1

u/06_TBSS 7h ago

I don't watch anything crazy and my search history is pretty bland, but almost every YT video I watch, I get crazy AI ads for penis pills. I've tried changing my ad preferences and whatnot, but it still persists.

1

u/Effective_Olive6153 6h ago

I am noticing a food of fake AI videos - videos that aren't just 100% AI generated, but videos that pretend to be popular content creators and generate content as if it was produced by that content creator

1

u/darthexpulse 1m ago

U tried Vapor rub + honey?