I remember when YouTube commercials were just quick 5-second clips that you could skip right away. Those days are long gone now. Currently I’m dealing with lengthy commercials that run for 60+ seconds, or multiple short ones that won’t let you skip them at all. Watching content on my television has become practically impossible because of how intrusive these interruptions have gotten. Every couple minutes there’s another 40+ second commercial break that kills the viewing experience completely. The only solution I’ve found is using my computer with ad blocking software installed. It’s really disappointing how much worse this platform has gotten. I can’t think of any other streaming service that has declined this dramatically just because they got too aggressive with their advertising strategy.
The shift happened gradually but really ramped up this past year. They’re now shoving ads right in the middle of music videos, which completely kills the vibe. What pisses me off most is how they’ve gotten way more aggressive on smart TVs - they know we can’t just throw an ad blocker on there. I’ve started downloading videos I want to watch later just to skip the constant interruptions. The worst is when you’re trying to show someone a quick clip and have to sit through a 30-second ad first. Makes sharing stuff awkward and kills the whole spontaneous browsing thing. YouTube forgot that being more convenient than regular TV was their whole advantage.
Been dealing with this for months too. What worked for me was ditching live streaming and setting up automated downloads instead.
I built a workflow that grabs videos from my subscribed channels overnight and stores them locally. No ads, no buffering, and I can watch on any device without internet.
Takes 30 minutes to set up but saves hours weekly. You can auto-download new content, organize by channel or topic, and convert formats for different devices.
Beats paying for Premium or sitting through those awful ad breaks. Plus you own everything locally so platform changes don’t matter.
Latenode makes this really easy with their automation tools: https://latenode.com
YouTube’s ad strategy has gone way too far. I switched to Firefox with uBlock Origin six months ago after getting hammered with three straight 15-second unskippable ads before a 2-minute video. Night and day difference - no interruptions, faster loading, and I can actually enjoy content again. The mobile app’s become almost unusable without Premium. I used to watch during my commute but now it’s just endless ads. Creators aren’t even benefiting since people either block ads or bail out frustrated. YouTube’s forgotten that user experience beats squeezing every last penny from ad revenue.
Same here! It’s gotten ridiculous, especially when you’re trying to fall asleep and get blasted with loud commercials every few minutes. The worst part? They made it so you can’t even mute them on some devices anymore. I’m honestly thinking about ditching YouTube completely at this point.
Totally agree! They keep bombarding us with more ads, and it just makes me want to find other ways to watch. I miss when you could easily skip them. These double ads are so frustrating - c’mon!
The timing’s awful too - Premium keeps getting pricier while the free version gets worse. They’re dropping ads at terrible moments now, cutting people off mid-sentence during the good parts. And they made the skip button tiny and hard to find on mobile. The whole thing feels like they’re trying to annoy us into paying rather than offering a decent free option. I’ve been using other platforms when I can, but most creators I follow are still on YouTube. Worst part? This’ll probably get even worse as they test longer unskippable ads.