this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2026
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Microblog Memes
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Oh yeah, its so wild when you see it.
Like, I forgot Youtube even has ads.
And just to throw out therr, I get it, people need to make money, I am not against advertising, but fuck the ads are SOOOOO MANY and all come off as SOOOOOO scammy.
If you are showing me an ad online, I assume you and the product are just trying to rip me off and whatever is being promoted is a scam. If it was just "Hey, McDonalds has McRibs" in a little banner, ok fine, whatever. But its all this wild cheap garbage from weird fucking bull shit websites. What happened to actually having a sales person vet this shit?
No they don't. Modern advertising isn't informing ppl of something thats available, it's emotionally manipulative con artistry. They love nothing more than shoving an ad in Yoru face at the moment it would be most manipulative. You don't have to make excuses for them. In fact, you should maybe, intentionally stop doing so.
Same here. A buddy of mine was listening to YT Music on a speaker when an infomercial length ad started talking (uh, I mean, lying) about all the how and why the United States has the best healthcare system in the world and there's no good reason to change any of it.
My head almost exploded. What. The. Fuck.
The ads on some podcasts, like anything NYT, are shockingly conservative lately.
A lot of ads just seem like AI advertising made-up products that don't exist, gambling, or payday loans. Or sometimes totally normal things like a local college.
Normal college that makes you take out loans, or worse, sketchy technical schools that promise they'll help you find a job if you just sign up for a 20k loan
Surprisingly just the local community college that's been around for decades. ~$1000/semester for full-time in-district residents or ~$1600/semester for in-state but out-of-district). Not sure why they're doing ads like they're a scam, unless there's been some changes such that they are.
"Optimized" away as fast as possible, you can safely bet.
It all went to shit when advertisers realized that they don't actually have to sell anything. The ad is the product. That's why so much advertisement is a scam now. Regulation is so far behind the problems of the internet it is ridiculous. Some companies entire business model is to put out ads, then funnel the data straight to data brokers. The products aren't real, they just have to get prints, eyes and occasional curiosity or accidental clicks, and they make a margin over it. It is madness.
I'm always surprised when a band mate wants to share a song with me and they whip up their phone and absolutely tolerate 45s of ads before the music starts
Oh yeah, and Spotify pays artist garbage. Its best to buy direct from their website or Bandcamp (on Bandcamp Fridays).
Though Bandcamp is starting to get enshitified.
What's going on with Bandcamp?
I want to say they recently laid off a bunch of people for AI coding despite pushing against AI music. Plus their owners are kind of increasingly Vulture Capitalisty.
I can't find it at theoment but Insaw something on reddit and lined up a list of alternatices but of course, the alternative suggestions are even more smaller and niche.
You don’t immediately want to click on an AI image of a toe infection, or fingers holding some weirdly anatomical exotic fruit?
I have no idea what you are even talking about because I basically never see ads anywhere.
You’re not missing much.
How do you watch YouTube on mobile without ads? Do you just watch on mobile browser instead of using YT app? Is there some alternative front end app that includes adblock?
I watch Youtube in my Firefox Android with uBlock Origin, zero ads 👌
So for Android there's for example Grayjaj (available on Playstore or https://grayjay.app/ ) or how about Newpipe ( https://newpipe.net/ )
For IOS I have no Idea but how about firefox with UBlock origin
Brave browser on iOS will do it. Orion probably will as well.
Newpipe has been pretty great for me on Android.
+1 for grayjay, works really well for me
I don't use the app and disabled it. I watch via Firefox Mobile which has Ublock Origin. Also I run NextDNS, which I pay $2/month to, to block ads.
Similar set up on the desktop and laptop, though I also yt-dl a lot.
I also just, really hate video as a format for 99% of things. I MUCH prefer reading blogs and such. Most of my Youtube watching is concert videos. I love live music, even if its mediocre cell phone footage.
https://f-droid.org/packages/InfinityLoop1309.NewPipeEnhanced
PipePipe is kind of like an RSS reader for YouTube. It's not going to give you algorithmic suggestions based on your viewing activity, but it will let you follow channels, and it doesn't show the ads.
Also, if you find that it's not working suddenly one day, it probably just needs to be updated.
I've heard Firefox with Ublock Origin and Sponsorblock works well on Android. I've personally had frequent issues with Grayjay. But I haven't tried the above solution yet.
Brave blocks it automatically. Easy.
I don't want to get in a debate about brave.
I mean it’s the same with any other browsers with ad blockers on mobile platforms.
Firefox on Android and Orion on IOS both let you use ublock origin.
No need to use crypto bro ad company browser.
Brave users are in a cult. I swear to god.
I'm not, I just really don't care that much.
I mean you care enough to mention it randomly. 🤷♀️
What? No I just know everyone wants to have a big discussion about brave or Firefox. I don't particularly care. Brave blocks it out of the box.
No one was talking about crypto bro ad company brave (or Firefox) till you brought it up randomly.
Then just watch YouTube with ads or pay for premium.
Yes the app is cancer
I realised this myself when i had to watch some youtube video in a browser without adblock. There was literal porn as an ad. The second of two was some hentai game, but at least it was half blurred. I have no idea who used that browser to get those targeted ads, it was a shared computer.
Even the companies displaying the ads can't always tell why a particular ad was displayed to a particular person.
Thats the thing.
They used to know.
Because instead of shitty algorythms, some sales person would go out and be lke "hey Ford, want to advertise on our car website?"
That costs money. Why would they do that when it turns out that they don't actually have to?
True that. Rather than do it in a way that actually has positive user feedback, they just a:b test and look at viewer metrics until some method happens to stick a little better. No actual thought in the process, no intent or attempt to actually make a usable experience.
As the downward pitch of engagement increases, they'll put their hands in the air and go, "I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND IT!!" - as they never did to begin with.
Because in the end they are not even selling anything except accidental clicks at the expense of alienating their userbase and destroying any trust.
They also interrupt video at random times on web video. It is like web advertisers are unaware of the transition that existed on linear broadcast so the viewer can retain context. Web videos are so jarring they have the reverse effect.
I would pay for an app to tell me the nearest McDonalds that had McRibs.
It took me years to accept that mid video sponsor ads are just... a thing now, and it ultimately makes little sense for me to just give a blanket 'nope' to everyone who uses them...
We thought we could build a digital utopia, and laughed off 'the corpos will buy all of it' as fanciful cyberpunk doomer hysteria.
... well... turns out that wasn't hysteria.
Oh well. At least I can more easily conceptualize myself as something like 'down on his luck shadowrunner', rofl.
The old logic from the 90s still holds -> the more pernicious the ads, the less you should want to be there.
That it all got functionally digitally enclosed and normalized doesn't change that... you just gotta deal with the terror of knowing most people these days just literally are programmed by advertisements and algorithms.
I never see ads almoat anywhere, I have layers of blocking, PiHole, UBlock Origin, Ghostery, often use a VPN, NextDNS on the phone, a few other plug ins.
I've been using adguard dns on my phone for a few years but have noticed a lot more ads sneaking though on certain sites. Would you recommend next dns?
I have had good luck with it and there is a pretty generous free tier I think if you want to try it.
Sponsorblock
+1 for Sponsorblock
Excuse me, are you insinuating Tai Chi Walking is a scam?
I still dont understand why YouTube removed banner ads from on top of the video. The ones on the homepage and side feed, I can kind of understand. They want to show more videos to people faster. Sure. But the on-video banner ads were quite unobtrusive imo. Like I didn't even close them very often in the olden' days when I didn't use an adblocker all the time.