| ▲ | dns_snek 3 days ago |
| Consider yourself lucky. Some of their A/B tests seem to be designed to psychologically torment you with videos "buffering" for 10-60 seconds before they start playing, navigation taking 15+ seconds. If that happens to you, this thread [1] is sometimes updated with manual workarounds that sometimes work: www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.web_enable_ab_rsp_cl, false)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.ab_pl_man, false)
||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,method=get,domain=www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com/watch##+js(set, ytInitialData, undefined)
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtu... |
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| ▲ | everdrive 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| >to be designed to psychologically torment you with videos "buffering" for 10-60 I don't mean this as an attack on you. I find it perplexing that this could be such a difficult thing. If a video isn't worth waiting 10-60 seconds for, is the video even worth watching? Consider a comparison to reading a book or watching a DVD. With the DVD you must stand up, walk to the DVD, remove the plastic wrap, turn on the DVD player place the DVD in the tray, wait for the tray to close, load the DVD, wait for the main menu to load, and finally press play to watch your movie. (potentially after navigating through settings to configure audio / subtitles / etc) The DVD experience could obvious be _better_ (and if you don't care about picture quality you might be shocked how much more convenient a VHS tape is) but this hardly strikes me as any sort of real problem. Youtube might actually be doing you an accidental favor here; it is the extreme reduction of friction which degrades your impulse control, and is part of what keeps you on the platform too long. By imposing an small but perceptible cost, they might actually keep from your zoning out and watching and instead intentionally watching only the videos you care the most about. |
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| ▲ | dns_snek 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > If a video isn't worth waiting 10-60 seconds for, is the video even worth watching? I won't know that until the video starts playing. I'm not watching a 90 minute movie here and I don't know if the video I'm about to play is the one I want. Spending a minute setting up a 90 minute movie is very different than spending a minute waiting for a video to load that I'm likely going to spend <30 seconds on. Maybe I'm learning how to use certain software and I'm trying to find a video that demonstrates how to use a specific feature. In that case I might be clicking through 10+ videos to find the niche thing I'm looking for. If I was just vegging out on Youtube this wouldn't bother me nearly as much. And don't forget that the time penalty doesn't only apply to the initial load, it would pause and fake-buffer every time I jumped around the video. |
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| ▲ | kelvinjps10 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Although what you describe seems annoying, still no ads |
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| ▲ | dns_snek 3 days ago | parent [-] | | No ads but it's far worse than just annoying — for me. I get annoyed when a video buffers for 10 seconds due to a technical hiccup. Being made to wait for up to a minute with pretend-technical issues and mocking messages like "Why am I seeing this?" that try to convince me that they're not doing this on purpose is insulting and enraging. I would gladly pay for an independent alternative but I will never pay for Youtube Premium on principle [1]. If these workarounds stop working I'll just use third party clients all the time, I already use SmartTube on TV. [1] If I give you my money, I want you to respect me as a customer. Google will continue tracking me, abuse my personal information, and almost certainly re-introduce ads at some point in the future in pursuit of infinite growth. It's never going to be enough, the only winning move (with them) is not to play. | | |
| ▲ | kelnos 3 days ago | parent [-] | | On the other hand, I'd rather sit for 10-60 seconds waiting for (fake) buffering, than sit through a 10-60 second ad. | | |
| ▲ | dns_snek 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It doesn't stop there, it would also fake-buffer when you jumped to a different point in the video, it would be stuck in a broken transitional UI state for 10-30 seconds any time you navigated to a different page. Clearly they want people to get pissed off enough that they turn off the ad blocker, it's been getting worse over time. | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | With ads, at least you know that they will end. And when. |
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| ▲ | mrheosuper 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >videos "buffering" for 10-60 seconds before they start playing Thanks, that explains a lot, why i sometime have trouble with youtube, while having perfectly fine internet connection. |
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| ▲ | psd1 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I've noticed a big increase in time-to-first-content over the last few years, even on ever-increasing bandwidth and decreasing latency. I should sniff traffic to find out why, but my assumption is that it's a mix of CRL bloat and code bloat. |
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| ▲ | bambax 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Hit F5, buffering gone. |
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