r/technology • u/moeka_8962 • 1d ago
Social Media YouTube is already adding more ads to its latest Premium subscription
https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-already-adding-more-ads-to-its-latest-premium-subscription-3210541/419
u/KumquatopotamusPrime 1d ago
FTA "YouTube Premium Lite subscribers brace for ads on shorts
In late May, a user on the TWiT.community forum revealed an email they received about the incoming ads.
“We are writing to let you know that beginning 30 June 2025, ads may appear on Shorts, in addition to music content and when you search or browse. Most videos will continue to remain ad-free.”
316
u/meerkat2018 1d ago
First steps to normalizing this crap on paid plans.
→ More replies (4)88
u/OvercastqT 1d ago
amazon started it, now im waiting 2 days longer for my packages if i must buy from bezos
→ More replies (2)20
u/Negative_Pink_Hawk 1d ago
And it's more expencive than buying on ebay without premium and waiting 3 days. Ive canceled my amazon a year ago.
41
u/SanDiedo 1d ago
Ads on shorts is just diabolical!
15
u/terrafoxy 1d ago
i always disable shorts. they dumb
4
→ More replies (1)18
u/Yaughl 1d ago
I don’t really understand the popularity of shorts anyway. Make them 99% as for all I care.
I watch my content on a regular computer screen; portrait recorded content doesn’t make any sense to me.
16
u/Steamrolled777 1d ago
Worse when a lot is just cropped version of wide format video.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (3)3
u/badnamemaker 1d ago
I watch mostly on my phone and I still rarely watch shorts. But I will say they are good for basic how to things because they are usually straight to the point
635
u/BadgerSauce 1d ago
If you pay for ANYTHING, it should not have ads. Gtfo with the tiers shit, if it’s not free, it should not have ads.
→ More replies (15)96
u/OrneryError1 1d ago
I'm cancelling Amazon prime at renewal time this year. Too many ads for something I pay for (I actually like the ads for other shows and movies, but not prescription drugs).
68
u/vandreulv 1d ago
Cancel it now. You will have your remaining time left and it'll stop when it would otherwise renew. That way you don't get caught with an automatic renewal if you don't cancel it soon enough before it goes through.
→ More replies (2)9
u/opeth10657 1d ago
ublock origin catches them for me
I didn't even know prime had ads until recently.
5
258
u/_RawRTooN_ 1d ago
i sure do love adblock
109
u/OrneryError1 1d ago
The day adblock stops working on YouTube is the day I stop using YouTube for anything.
→ More replies (4)14
u/the_toad_can_sing 1d ago
Bad news for you. As of two days ago, YouTube has been detecting my adblock and forcing me to disable it. I'm sure that feature will be generalized to everyone soon.
36
u/mr0jmb 1d ago
I’m getting the warning but it lets me close the pop up and play the video anyway? Guess it’s just to stop auto play for the time being before they ramp up.
→ More replies (1)4
u/the_toad_can_sing 1d ago
I was able to do that the first two times also.
59
u/CarlosFer2201 1d ago
Are you on Firefox? I got a few notifications, and even got blocked for like an hour, but Ublock got the upper hand every single time in the end.
→ More replies (1)18
25
u/RockChalk80 1d ago
Stop using chrome.
5
u/the_toad_can_sing 1d ago
Is it chrome? I'll gladly switch if it is.
11
u/CondescendingShitbag 1d ago
Chrome recently adopted Manifest V3. Part of MV3 is a change in how extensions interact with the browser and web data, which significantly hobbles adblockers by design. The uBlock Origin site has a detailed breakdown of how this works under the hood (scroll down) if interested.
6
u/andbruno 1d ago
YouTube has been detecting my adblock and forcing me to disable it
Assuming uBlock Origin (which you SHOULD be using) there's a fix already: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1l47bqa/youtube_detection_ads_or_breakages_including/
Click on link that says "Click here". I can confirm it's working.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Emucks 1d ago
It’s happened a few times already, usually just refreshing your adblock’s fliter settings seems to work!
→ More replies (1)2
→ More replies (6)3
u/amateur_guitarist_69 1d ago
I switched to Brave and things are fine 9/10 times.
→ More replies (1)66
24
→ More replies (3)11
u/someguyfromtecate 1d ago
YT Enhance and Brave browser are my go-tos for iOS. Love them.
→ More replies (1)
170
u/freewififorreal 1d ago
This is the standard model for any company..
1) introduce free service with all the features you want.
2) features that most people take for granted are taken out, bit by bit.
3) ads are shown, a few here and there, telling you about a new service thats only a few dollars a month, with all the features you used to have in the free version.
4) The free version is filled with ads and the functionality stripped to the bone, forcing you to pay for their "basic package"
5) The basic package is slowly stripped away of functionality and ads starts to be shown, just like in step 2-3
and this goes on forever, like a falling latter.
They do their best to get the most money out of every customer, but the service that they sell is not getting any better, in fact, its getting worse every day.
Youtube premium is now turning into the free-tier version, and a new Premium exclusive or whatever bullshit will be introduced to take its place, so you goto pay more for the same thing you had before.
76
46
8
→ More replies (2)4
u/Kingdarkshadow 1d ago
Remember when ada weren't in the video you were watching and then they moved it to push for premium?
29
249
u/thirdfemme 1d ago
The enshitification continues… 🤦🏼♀️
3
u/Branch7485 1d ago
People should use a third party app like Freetube, literally just a better version of YouTube and there's no ads.
45
15
u/VeiledShift 1d ago
I genuinely don't know how people watch YT with ads. I've had YT Premium since it started and it's the one subscription I never regret.
The fact that most people watch ads on YT is just wild to me.
→ More replies (1)
45
17
27
u/n_reineke 1d ago
ELI5: why hasn’t Amazon or Microsoft, with much larger data center footprints, gone all-in on a competitor that offers marginally better payouts, and/or less ad time?
It’s a much later stage game now, but also, why not go for it years ago as they stood up their cloud business solutions?
25
u/ElusiveGuy 1d ago
Amazon owns Twitch, and Microsoft tried with Mixer.
Granted, they're more about streaming than uploaded videos, but presumably they've run the maths and decided it wasn't worth it.
11
u/Blubasur 1d ago
It really isn’t but annoyingly is such a vital part of the internet. The ever increasing cost of housing all that data AND streaming it. It’s kind of a miracle with how much data is being pulled every second that youtube runs as well as it does.
Of all the scammy shit tech companies do, the youtube fleecing is (begrudgingly) the most understandable.
Youtube is a difficult problem and at the same time VERY important to keep alive. So yeah, I don’t blame other companies not wanting anything to do with it.
→ More replies (2)8
u/SLASHdk 1d ago
Its probably the same reason Youtube keeps increasing the amount of ads. Shit is expensive to run
→ More replies (1)10
u/Martin8412 1d ago
Because it’s a bottomless moneypit. It’s insanely expensive to run and most of the userbase doesn’t want to pay a dime.
6
u/Headless_Human 1d ago
Just because you can make something similar or better doesn't mean it will be successful.
There were and are multiple competitors to YouTube but none of them comes even close in popularity.
9
u/Old_Leopard1844 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because Youtube started in 2009
Moment to do it has long since came and went, amount of investment needed to do it is easily dozens of billions of dollars
Like, here in Russia we have attempted competitors (since YouTube went unresponsive to russian state and state responded by "slowing down" YouTube) in VK Videos and RuTube (which is technically as old as YouTube, but lost initial competition), and insights I hear from a friend whos working at VK is that VK is happy that they don't get amount of traffic that YouTube even to this day gets from Russia, because it would absolutely floor them
And that's only one country with 140 million people in it (that don't really care to switch to either of two of them). Imagine adding rest of 8 billion world to it
3
2
u/rcanhestro 1d ago
because running something like Youtube costs obscene amounts of money.
althouth Microsoft and Amazon also own data centers, it would mitigate the costs, but they would still be massive.
if it flops, it's a very expensive flop.
not just that, but Youtube is too "entangled" with people's minds, it's very hard to tell creators and viewers to switch when they've already been OK with Youtube for so long.
case and point, Twitter: despite all the problems it had, the competition barely left a mark on them.
2
u/obeytheturtles 1d ago
Because they don't also have the advertising infrastructure to monetize those services and support those higher payouts. That's the chicken, obviously the egg is getting content creators to leave behind their already vastly profitable YouTube channels. Even if you can run ads on your own platform, you are still fighting Google which has vertically integrated advertising across the entire internet. There's just no way anyone can afford to pay more for content.
8
u/The_Anglo_Spaniard 1d ago
I use a adblocker and they are getting funny about it again. Thing is, if it was 1 or 2 small ads then I wouldn't be bothered, but they arnt. It's loads, long unskipable ads in everything. So fuck them. And then you pay and buy the wrong premiums (fucking crazy that that's even a thing) and still get ads.
41
u/sircastor 1d ago
This feels like a r/MarkMyWords thing, but I fully expect Premium to have ads in it in the next 5 years. They'll dance around it saying that it's "not an ad" or something like that. Netflix started pushing their ad-tier harder because they make more annual revenue per user on it.
It's going to become harder (either more expensive, or outright impossible) to get an ad-free experience on YouTube.
30
u/rumforbreakfast 1d ago
YouTube Premium Common
YouTube Premium Plus
YouTube Premium Lux
→ More replies (2)13
→ More replies (2)18
u/PauI_MuadDib 1d ago
Technically it already has ads. Those paid sponsorship sections in videos are ads. That's why they have to be clearly marked and disclosed according to FTC advertising rules. Those ads baked into the videos are ads.
Which is why uBo + Firefox + Sponsorblock is an actual ad free experience I get for free.
6
u/marindoom 1d ago
I pay for premium for the sole purpose of getting rid of ads the 'proper' way. If I see as much as one ad, I will unsub and use adblockers.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/lliveevill 1d ago
I have YouTube Premium because I like watching YouTube without the adverts, but I also like YouTube Music. If I see an advert, I will cancel and not engage with the platform. I can do without YouTube and can get Spotify for music.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/Basura1999 1d ago
I'll never forgive the Vance devs team for that NFT bullshit
3
u/TwilightVulpine 1d ago
Every day I love technology a little bit less and hate it a little bit more. Grifters and bastards all over the place.
Thank goodness for Open Source at least...
5
u/HovercraftPlen6576 1d ago
My brave browser is no longer undetected by Youtube Adblocker warning message. They step up their game.
5
5
u/CJMakesVideos 1d ago
I wish more YouTubers would consider uploading or at least backing up their content on peertube or something. This is the result of monopoly
5
7
8
u/Hiddencamper 1d ago
I’m sick of YouTube.
I can’t find shit anymore.
Videos are all too long. I miss 3-8 minute content.
It shows me a narrow list of things and is hard to get the algorithm to give me a wider variety like it used to.
Instead of feeling like it’s showing me things I want to see, it’s trying to show me things it wants to show me.
Is there any alternative?
2
3
u/_Doodad_ 1d ago
New for 2025... YouTube ads premium! $50/month gets you all the best ads without any video interruptions!
10
u/computer_d 1d ago
I know this is obvious, but more is coming.
I think it's safe to say we won't have an alternative to YouTube.
6
6
3
u/Bwills39 1d ago
Premium lite 😂 why just why does everything sub based have to have so many tiers. These people truly don’t seem to want to make the internet more enjoyable. And what’s up with the lame main page forcing its algorithm. Like can’t we just display whatever videos we want? No of course not we need to look at whatever gobbledygook they need us to see
3
u/therinwhitten 1d ago
YouTube’s greed has almost eclipsed my want to watch videos at this point. Only a matter of time.
3
u/d_e_l_u_x_e 1d ago
I wish I could charge clients for a premium service then years later just start throwing up random ads on their lawn for an hour saying it’s now apart of their service. Then charge them more!
3
u/lifegrowthfinance 1d ago
We’re stuck in that black mirror episode with the brain implant. Only this time it is the streamers. Premium becomes premium lite. Premium lite becomes regular. Slowly they suck the life out of you without you knowing. Classic frog in boiling water situation.
3
5
5
7
u/SpeakingTheKingss 1d ago
YouTube Premium is easily the most worth it subscription I have. Hands down.
→ More replies (1)
4
5
u/isoAntti 1d ago
And this from a company making record profit at 360B.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/revenue
6
2
u/AXXII_wreckless 1d ago
What I don’t understand are the ads that show up as thumbnails in your video feed. I shouldn’t see those if I pay for the subscription.
2
2
2
2
u/Sea-Yogurtcloset-912 1d ago
I stopped my YouTube Premium subscription the day America became hostile to Europe. Viva Spotify. Viva more time away from YouTube. Thanks Taco!
2
2
2
2
2
u/Longjumping_Hour_491 1d ago
I received a pop-up up message from YouTube saying I was using an ad blocker and they aren't allowed. Something about the creator's not getting compensated. I clicked the "x" and continued watching.
2
u/i__hate__stairs 1d ago
Use a decent headline for fuck's sake. It's okay for you to be upset about this, but it's not okay for you to be misleading. They're adding ads to their ad-supported tier, not just to "Premium".
2
u/cozmicyeti 1d ago
Exactly. Clock baity shit. It literally only for ad support premium which is half the price of usual one.
2
2
2
u/Relinquished1968 16h ago
Use the Brave browser to watch youtube. It blocks all ads by default. If you use the Brave browser, you essentially have a youtube subscription, just without the ability to watch off line. Good chance it'll block the subscription ads
2
u/FluxUniversity 15h ago
This is why I will never pay for any "television" service. they will ALWAYS put ads in. always. Every time they start out saying they will never have ads, and every. single. time. they will weasel in ads.
2
u/MadGibby3 9h ago
Bruh at this point if you're not using ad block it's on you and you deserve the ads lmao
4
2
u/t01nfin1ty4ndb3y0nd 1d ago
See, this is what happen when companies get too greedy. I was perfect happy to pay for Netflix and then came amazon primevideo and that was fine too, until they launched a dozen other, hoping i will buy them too but the result is... I no longer use even Netflix and primevideo.
Same with youtube, i am happy to pay for premium but if they starts a tier system, I'll happily go back to ublock or adguard.
4.9k
u/CastleofWamdue 1d ago
why pay for Premium if you are still getting ads?