Honestly, considering the YouTube algo and platform, what are people even watching on there in 2026 that is worth it?
So much of it is a person looking into a camera with a microphone having one sided pre-written opinion debates.
Even educational and conference talk videos don’t seem worth the duration.
Smart TVs are really just somebody else’s computer that you paid for to watch ads on.
This. There is a reason why dumb displays of a similar size are much more expensive. Because the manufacturer can’t feed you ads and sell your data …
I don’t understand the need for those. My smart tv is functioning exactly as a computer monitor. It is connected via a display connection to my computer, and nothing else. It does show a brief warning that it is unconnected to the internet whenever I turn it on, but it disappears after 10 seconds or so.
Yeah, but that’s not how most people use Smart TVs. Also, they’re still coming for you, next up they’ll try to insert ads via HDMI. and good luck finding a Smart TV with display port.
Displayport via USB-C could start gaining momentum.
It’s a possibility with chromebooks because of the google ad network, but I can’t see why consoles, linux, mac, even windows tbh, has any incentive to support this. At best, they might make it an option, but there’s nothing in it for them. It actively makes their content look worse, while an ad supported OS like windows already has capability to place ads anyway.
$$$
Consoles are a shrinking market. If they were offered money by TV manufacturers to cooperate with putting more ads on it, they most certainly will.
And I suspect Microsoft/Windows will too. Apple might not, though.
Yeah. Apple is plenty evil but not having ads is, generally, part of their “premium feel.” There are exceptions to this, unfortunately, especially recently.
But I definitely don’t regret doing a factory reset on my LG TV and hooking up an Apple TV.
good luck finding a Smart TV with display port.
Yeah, and that is a very recent one from a not-that-well know company. Go figure!
They can’t add ads if they’re not connected to the ibternet
Ads via HDMI shouldn’t work if the TV doesn’t have internet connection, by my understanding. So I do not see any problems there.
oh don’t worry, they’ll start participating in mesh networks with your neighbors’ smart devices and getting internet access that way
or using like 4g/5g network for ads for free, sucking up all the data bandwidth from smartphone users so they can make sure we got our daily ad dosage!
ANTI-CORPORATE PROPAGANDA DETECTED. PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN.
I seem to recall reafing that smart TVs have a list of default passwords they use to try and connect to the to wifi networks they find…
So they try to brute force in to our wifis? Why no one sued them?!
Ads over HDMI are being worked on.
That’s awful
My husband had the Tv connected to the internet, even though we watch everthing from the xbox. I changed the wifi password a few months ago, and never reconnected the TV.
Best decision ever.
I love how roku won’t let you re-order apps unless you are online. Fuck off!
TVs often do a bad job at switching on when the computer turns on, then off when it turns off/goes to sleep. Drives me spare. That was fixed in like 1995-2000 for normal monitors.
CEC has been around for years. This is probably more an issue with the PC in question rather than the TV. TVs do an excellent job at turning themselves on when CEC is enabled. 👍
PCs have almost never supported CEC. PCs use a different signalling method to indicate to the monitor that they’re on/off.
Exactly. So they aren’t talking with the same protocol. TVs can turn themselves on, but PCs just don’t send the required signals. ✔️
LibreELEC (just enough OS for Kodi) on Raspberry Pi supports CEC. Does that count as a PC?
I use mine the same way, but many people don’t. My parents would rather be logged in on the tv than connect a laptop or other pc for the same access but better results
What are the chances the 10-second warning becomes a 90-second unskippable one?
As long as it isn’t internet connected, it shouldn’t happen - unless it’s programmed to automatically connect to any nearby unprotected WiFi to fetch updates…
And now look how high $ CRTs are, even the low end ones.
I’ll never get rid of mine. You can’t get a 0 ms latency TV with zero “features” anymore. And those commercial TVs dont come with remotes. I never liked how flat screens look either. Laggy and awful colors. I’m sure a $3000 oled is great but no thanks
I also despise massive TVs so another win. People with 80" TVs in their living room are just ick.
The same reason i stopped playing on Consoles since the PS2 - there was no good reason for the People to get this kind of things on the internet.
It was just good for the Business to hold the connection to you and control whatever they produced.
I got a PS3 and a PS4 so I wouldn’t need to use Windows for gaming. That’s not an issue anymore, though.
Steamdeck here and the last time i played on Windows was like 2015/2016 but never again after Win10 shutdown my System for an Update while i played a LoL ranked Game… That was the last Time i used Windows for privat use. After that i formated the HDD and installed Linux Mint
I’m still very happy with this decision
I thought LoL was one of the games that require windows for kernel level anticheat?
That was a somewhat recent development, they had many years to suffer playing Leauge on Linux c:
Yes, but at least the kernel Anti Cheat belongs since 2024 i belive? There was a long Time before DXVK or Proton you can play nearly nothing on Linux but LoL worked “okayish”. Nothing close to play ranked but for a casual normal game it was good enought to let me switch to Linux this times and ditch Windows at all
That is a user error.
What is a user error?
The last console I owned was the Xbox 360. Once I started seeing non-gaming advertisements on my home screen, I lost all interest in the product line.
Sometimes I think internet connectivity was a mistake.
Commercial TVs are so worth the extra cost. Recently got a Samsung Commercial Non-Smart TV and paired it with my $20 debloated/deGoogled Onn 4K Streaming box from Walmart. Bam, got a media setup that I fully own.
What is the cost comparison?
Honestly under 60 inches not too bad
$453.00 # 43" Samsung HU6000F Non-Smart Hospitality TV with Pro:Idiom for Set Top Box Deployments
Nice!
yeah I got a bit lazy there, at 55 inches you are at $604
When you go to 65 though its $1004 so pretty big jump.
Oddly enough going from 65 to 75 is only another ~375 USD (1377)
To me the best deal seems like 50 or 55 inches, although your room size and seating positions are likely the most important.
Also interesting if you’re in the USA Best Buy does have some non-smart TVs and even a filter for it, although its mostly no-name brands or Samsung.
Thanks for fleshing out the full picture. So perhaps the largest TVs at the store are getting some pretty big subsidies, courtesy Advertising Inc.
And good tip on Best Buy. Thank you. What an informative lil comment, Leo 😎
Link to tv box? And did you have to debload/degoogle it yourself?
This really has nothing to do with Smart TVs in itself though… It’s just a problem if you choose to play YouTube videos on your TV, which seems like a pretty reasonable thing to want to do.
Youtube: “GOD PEOPLE KEEP SKIPPING ADS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS LOSS OF REVENUE?!”
Viewers: “Maybe have standards for length and content and moderate the platform to prevent malicious actors?”
Youtube: “I KNOW, I’LL JUST MAKE FORCED ADS LONGER AND MORE OBNOXIOUS!”
Viewers: “JUST MODERATE YOUR FUCKING PLATFORM, YOU HAVE THE MONEY AND RESOURCES TO FUCKING DO IT”
Youtube: “Users are just so selfish and entitled, trying to skip ads…”
Viewers: " Fuck it installs ublock origin
If you grew up with commercial TV, not only is the frequency of ads on youtube bad, but the placement–in the middle of a sentence or a scene–is mentally and emotionally destructive.
The worst is when you’re watching something emotionally charged (pissed off or funny as fuck) they’ll put an ad exactly when the video hits you
When cable TV first came out it didn’t have ads because you were paying for the service. When Sirius satellite radio came out it didn’t have ads because you were paying for the service. When Netflix streaming came…
Adding ads to YouTube was always the plan.
That was always the plan. They were just slow walking it.
Also Youtube: DONT INSTALL UBLOCK ORIGIN OR WE’LL REMOVE YOUTUBE SHORTS!!!
Viewers:
Wait what? I have had ubo installed forever. Why is my shorts still there?!
Wait, they’re willing to reward us for using UBO?
I will sit on my floor with nothing, for hours, before i watch ads.
Ive been getting back to reading myself. Media’s become so overstimulating
Same I just bought a used kindle and jail broken it so now I have a huge library to go through and I have downloaded a bunch of movies and tv shows to my media server as well
Does the jailbreak allow you to use z-lib or Anna’s archive as the “store”?
Directly on the device no, but I can start my Calibre server and connect to it from my Kindle wirelessly through KOreader to transfer the books
So true! Also, productive screentime has been nice. Instead of doomscrolling or mindlessly zoning out to video essays, I’ve been programming, doing some 3D modeling for 3D printing, working on some simple games, and reading long form articles from my own curated news feed.
I had a book once that had a full color spread for the movie in the middle of the book. Obviously this was a skippable ad, but still, it’s inescapable.
I’ve been collecting old books for years. Currently slogging through Mellives collection of stories printed in 1968. Could find a copy of the book turned movie, printed before the movie?
Some of those old books had ads for cigarettes in them! Mostly the cheaper paperbacks. For some reason it wasn’t as annoying, it was more of a historical artifact, an indication of the context in which the book was originally read.
yeah that’s actually pretty dope lol
I’ve found old textbooks from the 30’s with handwritten notes in them :D
history is cool
I will sit on my floor with nothing, for hours, before i watch ads.
Hmm somehow i havent ever gotten those kinds of ads… maybe because im using ublock? Must be something else, i am just the chosen one.
If you just click into the article you are absolutely blasted with statement after statement that this is only for TVs. Obviously if you have an ad blocker you wouldn’t see ads. 🙂
Pihole can solve that for you :)
Or just not using shitty locked down devices like that.
I have Pi-Hole for like ten years maybe, they cannot stop the YouTube ads since, idk, at least five years, maybe more.
I’ve read that YT is injecting the ads directly into the video stream, i.e. the source is not ads.someshittycompany.com, but rather videos.google.com (which you cannot block for obvious reasons). The only solution to kill ads is to use addons like uBlock or client software like Freetube, Newpipe and the like that strip out the ads in some other way.
I don’t know if they actually started injecting it into the video, but even before they did that, they were serving the ads from the same domain.
uBo on phone and computer, smart tube on TV. haven’t seen an ad on YouTube in years.
Can confirm, I’m going on nearly a decade and Pi-hole has NEVER been able to stop YT ads because they’re served by the platform’s servers rather than outside servers.
Well, I remember it actually stopping YouTube ads, 2018 or 2019 was when it changed. Or even 2020, won’t recall.
I’ve had pihole set up since 2017 and it didn’t block YouTube ads back then either
I have no proof for this except my memories. Perhaps we could find some links somewhere, but that would change nothing: it doesn’t work today. My guess that maybe it was different for different markets / locations. As I clearly remember a friend learned about Pi-Hole and bought an SBC just to deploy Pi-Hole. I’d been having it censoring the ads for my entire family, till it stopped doing that at some point. I still have that Pi-Hole deployed by the way, it continues blocking trackers and other shitty things online.
I wonder why browser extensions still work, while network-wide ad blocker does not.
Damn that sucks. But also every TV still allows you to just plug in a laptop over hdmi right? Just bypass all their shit.
I wish hahaha. Like the other user said, no blocking any ads served by the same servers as the stuff you’re watching. Never worked for YT, never worked for Twitch.
That’s why I use computers on every screen in my house, and a Pi-Hole for other ads!
Yes, Pihole can solve that.“Normal” people don’t have Piholes though. And “normal” people really do purchase televisions, and install the YouTube app and watch videos with it.Nah, Pi-Hole has never been able to block YT ads. And I’m proud of anyone and everyone I’ve ever got to switch from using shitty smart TV interfaces to cheap computers. I’m responsible for probably half the sales of the Logitech K400/plus hahaha.
Nah, Pi-Hole has never been able to block YT ads.
Thanks for the correction!
No, I don’t see them and the day I cannot block ads anymore is the day I am going to stop using YouTube. It’s really not that important to life.
“unskippable”
I haven’t seen an ad on YouTube for years, with 2 simple browser plugins. Assuming you’re on a PC:
Ublock Origin Sponsor Block
If you’re using chrome, you already fucked up.
Hey YouTube? The endpoint of enshittification is this: I wipe my ass and flush you.
Keep going, YouTube. You’re not so important that we can’t just leave.
Nebula exists. Curiosity Stream exists. PeerTube exists. Odysee exits. The people I value on YT already have footholds on all four. More will arrive soon enough.
So keep at it.
Keep injecting unskippable ads, flooding the feed with AI slop, letting bots post porn, demonetising and hiding quality content, using DMCA like a digital SLAPP against content creators, and using the algorithm to warp reality.
Your value proposition is ubiquity. That’s it. That’s all you have. Without popular buy-in, you’re dead.
We proles? We have something better than loyalty.
We have spite.
So keep pissing people off - because watching you die on a very stupid hill of your own design will be entertaining AF.
For everyone else, see you on !selfhosted@lemmy.world and !privacy@lemmy.world. Come and learn how you can replace all of these pieces of shit.
And in the meantime - yt-dlp should still work to download what you actually want to keep, and SmartTube is black magic incarnate.
Ublock must be blocking them. Huh, oh well.
I have noticed lately that in FF with ublock the videos have refused to play for an ad like length of time. Probably ab testing something.
I’d rather look at a loading screen than an ad.
If the video refuses to play, just reload the page. That fixes it for me.
Yeah I don’t wait for it either but it does cause me click the play button a few times and watch the throbber spin for a second before I do.
I notice that I don’t pay attention to videos as much any more. It’s just stuff playing in the background while I game or edit an image or browse piefed or something. So if it “hangs” for a couple seconds while ublock fights the ads, it doesn’t really bother me.
AFAIK that is youtube delaying the video stream on purpose because you were supposed to watch ads in that time. If you wait 5-10 seconds it will start playing. For me it happens only on the first video, and autoplay is still instant afterwards. I am gladly waiting out the loading screen than watch ads. Knowing that I probably make google lose money on every view makes the wait even more bearable (I am never logged in, and anyways I always run youtube in private mode, so there’s almost no profiling happening)
You could try to change the user-agent to make it a little bit faster (google slows down youtube on firefox btw) or you could try to sue google for unfairness or smth
Seriously. I’m not seeing any ads… just AirPlay YouTube to my Apple TV, and I’m good to go
Well, i wont watch ads. If it comes to it i’d rather have a program thats recording videos in real time so i can skip the ad segments later in my recording like in the good old vhs times.
This should only become a necessary solution if YouTube invents a way to inject ads directly into the video stream of the video you’re watching, like old school broadcasting.
That is sort of what sponsored segments are, and what sponsorblock is quite effective at dealing with.
If they’re injected on the fly at variable time points, it gets harder, but I suspect fingerprinting could work well enough.
Even better, yeah. So this solution shouldn’t feel necessary unless as a last ditch effort, definitely.
uBlock Origin and revanced are still effective at blocking. Sponsorskip (available as a Firefox plugin or built into revanced) even skip sponsored segments inside videos!
Might want to check out morphe(Revanced might be dead?)
Revanced might be dead?
Revanced is not dead. Revanced Extended(RvX) was discontinued and rebooted with the new name Morphe. Both are two different projects and both are alive.
That was what my grandpa also did many years ago, he was living in the future! Or we’re going backward.
Last time I saw a youtube ad was probably 2009. Or it might have been 2008.
Android: https://newpipe.net/
Smart TV: https://smarttubeapp.github.io/
Computer: https://ublockorigin.com/
SmartTube is for Android, as is NewPipe. You need a Smart TV with Android TV. Other TVs do not have a way out.
Their way out is using an external device.
Of course, but it’s a bit misleading. I thought it might be helpful to add that comment.
SmartTube is for Android
And the developer has left from what I read, its still working for now but Im starting to see a few videos that wont play
Huh? Last release is from three days ago and the last commit to SmartTube’s GitHub repository is two hours old.
Where did you read that the developer left?
SmartTube
the version I have has not had any updated for months. Theres an error on it saying it will no longer be updated
The repo was compromised and you need to change sources. Check the announcements
I will check that thanks
You need a Smart TV
No.
The enshittification will continue until… No man, it’ll just continue.
I wonder how many ads Vader needed to deal with.
he was so pissy cause the inside of his helmet was just ads for pharmaceuticals he couldn’t afford.
My solution is to just close youtube. There’s nothing on there I want to see that badly.
Mine is Firefox + adblockers.
I like watching SciShow and Crashing Out.
My setup to make YouTube bearable:
Firefox mobile and the following extensions:
- uBlock Origin
- DeArrow
- Hide-Shorts
- SponsorBlock
I suggest adding “fix youtube search” to get rid of the stupid suggestions you get when searching.
About half the comments here are just people saying they use Ublock origin.
If you’re getting the ads you’re there to watch something you wanted to watch.
And you can decide the thing you want isn’t worth the cost.
But they’re coming for everything. There won’t be anywhere to go to get information. You’ll give up everything?
what Buddahriffic said. :) I ain’t got that kind of time. (Caveat–am looking at little things occasionally on my phone–this must be a nightmare for people using YT TV.)
Like others, desktop I’m using Firefox with ublock origin. Android phone, Firefox with ublock origin. Android TV, SmartTube. Ad blockers have always outpaced Google in my experience though I use youtube maybe like twice a week and I don’t randomly browse reccomendations. Just there for specific stuff
I just realised i haven’t watched a single ad in like 2 years
Thanks ublock origin!
I haven’t seen an ad in 16 years. Thanks ublock origin/dns hole/not watching TV/not going to the movies/not reading magazines.
And FM - the local radio stations are the biggest dumpholes of ads
