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Unpopular opinion: I like paying for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads and still make it possible for creators and YouTube to get paid and survive an keep offering me entertainment.
In addition you also get YouTube Music so no need to pay for Spotify. It might not have as good features but I listen to music specifically so I only search for what I want to listen to and don't want any algorithms anyway.
I pay for nebula, which is significantly cheaper and has a lot of creators that I am interested in supporting, plus extra content from them.
God the ads are awful. If they start blocking apps like Vanced and Browsers like brave, i will make a PiHole. And they can never block it.
I think a pi hole dosen't work for youtube ads.
Piholes rely on blocking DNS requests to ad servers, but on youtube the servers that host the videos and the servers that host the ads are the same thing.
Unfortunately this is a question that comes up very often in the Pi-Hole community where the answer is always: no, a Pi-Hole cannot block YouTube ads.
This is because a pihole blocks at the DNS level and YouTube serves their ads from the YouTube.com domain. Block that and you lose full access to the site.
They recommend running either uBlock Origin alongside it and/or use apps such as newpipe for android and freetube for desktop.
That said, I will always recommend setting up a Pi-Hole if you're able to as the benefits of blocking trackers and ads from the entire network (which includes your cellphones, smart TVs, printers, IP cameras, etcetera) is definitely a good thing. Once set up it is 99% a "set it and forget it" kind of setup.
I pay for Prenium. But that's only because I also use YouTube Music. Otherwise, I wouldn't pay for it and I would do everything that I can to get rid of the ads. YouTube with ads is just hell now. There are so many of them now, it's ridiculous.
Don't get me wrong, I recognise the value that YouTube provides. Most things I watch and listen to are on YouTube. It's the website I use the most and I'll be glad to pay for it. I understand that it costs money to run and I want to support the creators that I watch.
HOWEVER.
I refuse to be strong armed into paying for it. Music brings me the value that I want and comparing with other prices, such as Spotify and so on, the actual "YouTube" part of the package just cost me 1€ per month which is one hell of a deal if you ask me.
But if you don't care for YouTube Music, 11€ a month (worst in the US apparently), just to get rid of ads is... ridiculous. I'd happily pay 5€ a month. It's not much and for the thing that I use the most? Yeah, I'm willing to! And I know that there is YouTube Prenium Lite. However, it's not available everywhere and it comes with a giant "fuck you" to the costumer.
You see, YouTube Prenium Lite is YouTube without ads. And that's it. So, no Background Play (which I use ALL THE TIME), no downloading of videos, none of that. You want that, well, you have to pay full price. Even though these are basic features.
Paying for getting rid of ads is one thing, and maybe accessing special features is one thing. But paying for artificial limitations that are put into place? Absolutely not. And I know the line between what's a prenium feature and what's an artifical limit is blurry. But for me it's basically this: If I can do something for free on desktop, but can't on mobile without paying. Such as background play.
I am convinced YouTube Prenium would be way more appealing if YouTube weren't being such dicks about it.
It's simple:
Bam. All of the sudden you have compelling options. Some people will say: "Uuuh, jUsT uSe an AdbLocKeR!" and whatever. Those people are not the majority, so many people watch YouTube from their phones and their TVs now, they will be much more inclined to buy it...
...I think.
That last part is important. I recognise I'm just playing armchair business developper here and that I don't know shit, but still. I'm convinced this could work. The real issue comes down to YouTube being a monopoly and thinking that they can do whatever the hell they want, which... they likely can, due to the position they're in. It's an issue but this comment is already long enough and that is another discussion entirely, but basically: Monopolies sucks.
Call me lumberjack cause I wish a nigga wood pay for YouTube premium. With how many times YT tells me I’m not connected to the internet while my phone has a 3 bars of 5G (for whatever that’s worth) connection, hell naw I’m not paying for youtube premium. They move the goalpost way too often for what counts as “monetizable content” to the point that it’s neutering my favorite content creators to keep the lights on. TBH I’d rather pay Nebula
Honestly, I pay for YouTube Premium because I find value in it. The price is reasonable for where I live, and it's my main source of entertainment. I don't like watching movies/TV shows that much so YouTube is my jam. So the convenience of being able to download videos, ad-free viewing, picture-in-picture, background playback etc. is totally worth it for me. I know if I dig hard enough and use an Android phone/tablet I can get those features without having to pay, but I don't like Android and again, the features are worth the small price.
For me, YouTube Premium and Spotify broke piracy because they're more convenient than pirating.
Honestly if I worked at YouTube and they asked me to implement this I'd quit.
Fuck youtube and fuck their ads, this shit is getting out of hand
If I wanted to watch 15 minutes of ads in a 45 minute video, I'd just get cable. I'm happy to watch 1 or 2 ads before a video. That's it. So I use an app that can even remove promotions.
The big issue for me is the content to ad ratio is completely out of whack.
I'd be happy to pay for video content/video hosting, but I'm not happy with any of my money going to youtube or google. Peertube is the future. 😎
Knowing what I know about the costs of streaming video, I really want to know what the alternative is for a platform that can't just throw money down the drain. To my mind, there are only two options here - people watch ads (within reason, but 2 hour ads aren't resonable), or people pay YouTube (a la Premium).
If you want things for free, the only way to make that happen sustainably is ads right now. Donations simply will not work, especially for something with the costs that video incurs - to say nothing about being able to compensate creators for their time and effort.
I took the L and started paying for YT Premium since you can't really get rid of ads on LG TV otherwise
Did it with a bit of malicious compliance and opted for Family plan using argentinian VPN, totaling at less than $3 a month (and constantly dropping) for 5 people.
I use ytdl-sub to downloadt the newest videos from the channels I like and import into Jellyfin. No ads, nothing, just videos. Even thumbnails.