Someone at YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled
108 comments
·November 25, 2025JumpCrisscross
I used to pay for YouTube premium. I stopped doing that, uninstalled the apps, and now use it through the browser with adblockers. (Yes, on my phone and iPad.)
It works so well I’ve gotten at least half a dozen neighbours to do the same. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a definitive step up in UX.
ElectricalTears
Revanced is the best UX for Android, can remove a lot of things as well (like shorts).
NooneAtAll3
I never managed to install it
it complains about youtube app being separated into parts or smth like that
koakuma-chan
YouTube hasn't been working for me past two weeks with uBlock Origin. Video doesn't play.
Nextgrid
Counterpoint: it works, you just have to wait a bit, since now the server will not actually send you the video until the mandatory (pre-skip) ad’s length has elapsed.
Which is fully in their right, I’m not complaining, it’s not like I’m any worse off (waiting on a black screen vs waiting while some bullshit ad tells me to CoNsUmE PrOduCt!!!)
da02
Have you tried "uBlock Origin Lite"? It is by the same author, Raymond Hill (gorhill). It has been working fine. I use "optimal" level for the filtering mode. (Note: I use Chromium on Linux)
koakuma-chan
I'm gonna try, thanks.
danpalmer
I do pay for YouTube Premium, I see no ads, and everything works pretty conveniently. What's your point, that with a bit of extra effort you can pirate content?
mattacular
I pay for YouTube Premium too (probably not much longer) but can only 'comfortably' use the site through a series of increasingly hacky extensions for Firefox. On non-web apps, there is no recourse from the UI enshittification.
The general theme is the same as the article: less real estate dedicated to actual videos you might want to watch. There were two rows of completely useless garbage that I had to add to my uBlock Origin filter just now: one for Shorts (which I have blocked in the past) and a new one for some sort of Youtube Games thing (?) that looked like the worst AI generated slop you'd never want to play.
If this is the premium experience then I don't want it.
tcfhgj
Blocking ads is hardly "pirating" content
crazygringo
I don't really see what the difference is.
They're not getting the payment for the video either way.
Morally I don't see how they aren't equivalent. I'm not going to stand on a high horse saying you shouldn't do either, but I don't really see how you can pretend one is less harmful to creators than the other, in terms of the basic principles involved.
danpalmer
To be clear, this is not a value judgement. I pirate content sometimes, and I use adblockers, but ad blocking is definitely piracy – you're circumventing the method of paying for content.
I realise that online ads have other implications such as tracking that, say, a blu-ray rip downloaded from a torrent doesn't have, but the reason for piracy doesn't change the fact that it is.
tonyhart7
its pirating content in a way that you dont generate revenue for youtuber that expect from ads
ahartmetz
It's not piracy.
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adrianpike
Which adblocker are you currently using? The arms race is getting pretty tiring...
JoshTriplett
uBlock Origin continues to work well, on both desktop and Android.
Hnaomyiph
Like another poster mentioned, I use Orion on my iPad with ublock origin installed as an extension. It’s a really great browser, only a few bugs here and there.
JumpCrisscross
> Which adblocker are you currently using?
I’m really shooting myself in the foot right now aren’t I.
1Blocker and Wipr on mobile. Plain old Orion by Kagi on my Mac.
secondcoming
I use Brave 99% of the time just for Youtube.
Nextgrid
Even on Safari with Apple’s braindead “content blocker” API, AdGuard manages to successfully block YouTube ads.
nozzlegear
Not so braindead after all
brcmthrowaway
What is a set and forget adblocker for the Apple ecosystem?
nozzlegear
Wipr, Adblock Pro, Ghostery or uBlock Origin Lite. I've used all four and they perform about as well as you need them to for an adblocker. I'm currently using uBlock.
Nextgrid
AdGuard Pro.
komali2
I've loved Grayjay as an alternative YouTube client. It can pull in videos from other platforms as well, and it can Cast videos! AdBlock and sponsorblock built in too.
deanCommie
I mean I pay for Youtube Premium because I use Youtube Music instead of Spotify.
I get a very unopinionated but effective music player that has all the music I need, and it doesn't try very hard to "upsell" itself to me unlike Spotify because to Google YouTube is the real money driver.
So to me getting no YouTube ads as well is well worth it.
MBCook
I noticed this morning there was a new version of the YouTube app on my Apple TV. I can’t wait to find out how they screwed this one up.
My personal long-term complaint is the length of video titles.
Lots of people like to make really long video titles. So right now there is one on my screen titled “The Best Decisions Every Video Game Console Developer Made”.
Now if you didn’t know, that is not the whole title. But there’s absolutely no indication of that. The only way you actually know that is either by checking or if the stuff on the screen is clearly not the end of a sentence.
So what is the full title? Well if you click and hold on the video, you get a pop-up letting you choose a couple of things such as play or safe to watch later or indicate you’re not interested. And at the top of the pop-up you see more words in the title. In this case you also see “(Part”.
Yep. You get ONE extra word. Sometimes not even that.
The ONLY way to see the full title is to start watching the video.
Obnoxious.
jazzyjackson
Google News has this same truncation problem. I thought it would be an obvious thing to, I don't know, use the `title` attribute so mouseover reveals the rest of the snews...
thaumasiotes
> Now if you didn’t know, that is not the whole title. But there’s absolutely no indication of that. The only way you actually know that is either by checking or if the stuff on the screen is clearly not the end of a sentence.
> So what is the full title? Well if you click and hold on the video, you get a pop-up letting you choose a couple of things such as play or safe to watch later or indicate you’re not interested. And at the top of the pop-up you see more words in the title. In this case you also see “(Part”.
> Yep. You get ONE extra word. Sometimes not even that.
> The ONLY way to see the full title is to start watching the video.
I'm looking at youtube right now. There's a video displayed with the title "Word Differences Between 11 Countries! | Europe, Africa, Asia , ..."
That "..." is the indicator that the title has been truncated. If you hover the title with your mouse, you can see the entire thing: "Word Differences Between 11 Countries! | Europe, Africa, Asia , America | Why Are They Similar?"
Not far away, there's "Alex Honnold Answers Rock Climbing Questions | Tech Support...", which expands to "Alex Honnold Answers Rock Climbing Questions | Tech Support | WIRED".
Am I using Apple TV? No. Is it really true that they removed the truncation indicator?
dav43
It’s crazy you can pay for premium, which is not cheap, and you can’t disable shorts.
The number of times I clicked “show less” and it has zero effect on the number of shorts.
7373737373
Whoever made automatic AI dubs a default and impossible to disable also needs to be fired
chao-
That "feature" is so egregiously bad. I regularly consume content in three languages, and hearing the wrong language coming from my speakers is so jarring. It is a uniquely awful experience that I had never encountered before, nor even imagined.
darth_avocado
While we’re at it can we also fire the guy who made it that we now have to click the channel’s mini thumbnail to open it, EXCEPT, when the channel is live and clicking the thumbnail takes you to the live video where you have to click the thumbnail again.
mitthrowaway2
I agree. But for the benefit of other people struggling, I haven't found a way to disable them as a user setting, but you can at least turn them off on a per-video basis by changing the video language in the playback settings (the little gear icon).
locao
There's no little great in embedded videos or, at least, my local newspaper actively disables it.
7373737373
This is not always available for some reason
jacekm
In the meantime "YouTube No Translation" addon fixes the issue. https://youtube-no-translation.vercel.app/
ahartmetz
They could at least try to vaguely match the voice and maybe cadence of the original. AFAIU it's one of these things that would have been too hard ten years ago but is fairly easy now. Too computationally expensive probably.
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tcfhgj
ReVanced allows disabling them, and there are extensions for Browsers.
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striking
For me this change was reverted quite quickly, I think within the week. On my Apple TV at least it is back to 3 (and a quarter) videos displayed at a time.
I like to think that it was the feedback I submitted that pushed them to change it. However, it was more likely a change in viewership that would cause them to revert it back. I know my viewing habits definitely changed, I found myself spending more time looking through the thumbnails and then giving up to go watch content on other platforms.
4.51.08/web_20251117_11_RC00
Nextgrid
It’s not a revert, merely A/B testing to see which version leads to more “engagement”.
They’re also testing the same on the web, half the time I get the normal sidebar, half the time I get a 300% zoomed one where I can only see like 3 video thumbnails before having to scroll (jokes on them, I don’t - but then again I block ads so I don’t count either way).
striking
If it happens to me again, I will have to find my content elsewhere. It's not even a conscious decision, I just got genuinely fatigued from the experience.
On the bright side, maybe I'd be better off. There are probably better things I could be doing with my time.
delichon
> maybe our mandatory NeuraLinks are coming sooner than I thought.
The founder of NeuraLink has recently proposed to deploy sentient robots to watch criminals, removing the need for incarceration. There is a lot of synergy possible here with mandatory neural links. The bot could not only watch us but also press our buttons. "Criminal", being such a flexible concept, should pose little problem to globalizing this paradigm. For one thing, it will make it possible to harvest any number of clicks necessary, so advertising becomes obsolete, and so does content.
God, I hope I'm not a prophet.
JumpCrisscross
> sentient robots to watch criminals, removing the need for incarceration
These are slap drones [1] from Banks’s The Player of Games [2].
Nextgrid
> it will make it possible to harvest any number of clicks necessary, so advertising becomes unnecessary and obsolete
But then again, this is already possible, and has the advertising industry shit-scared, thus all the interest in blocking AI-related scrapers since they circumvent the whole “wasting human time” element.
daemonologist
Ah yes, the Culture solution (https://groups.google.com/g/alt.books.iain-banks/c/nbW7GxRQ6...). (Always seemed rather cruel to the drone, to me.)
tonyhart7
I can see this mandatory in a country like north korea where government would gladly use this tech to control citizens from defecting etc
but after recent EU balooney request like chat control etc, I cant be so sure anymore
strickinato
Actually - BOTH videos in the screenshot are ads - so there are zero videos on the homescreen already
crazygringo
I don't think so? The "I Skied Down Mount Everest" is from the Red Bull channel. It may be a commercial channel, but it's not an ad, i.e. they didn't pay for placement (doesn't say "Sponsored" like the other one).
dathinab
and they are often good videos (if you like watching extreme sports related things), given the partial second video this seems likely for the account who made the screenshot
but given that half a video is not a full video this still means we are at one single full video
and an AD which is deceptively pretending to be a video
I still think regulators should ban deceptive ads and require ads to to clearly different from the main content _on the first take/glance_. They way YT, Google and co handle ads is IMHO deceptive to a point its reasonable to say they try to deceive the user into clicking on the ad when they wouldn't have done so if they new it was an ad.
And "systematically deceiving a user/customer to their detriment (wasting time) and your profit" isn't just shitty but on a gray line to outright fraud.
amarant
I dont particularly enjoy red bulls drinks, but their ads are often cool enough to be considered content.
It's probably the only company with ads that are more enjoyable than their product.
jaydenmilne
Technically correct, the best kind of correct
notanormalnerd
You know who has great information density? Pornhub. If you open Pornhub on a 4K screen, you will absolutely see none of the thumbnails. I think YouTube is overdoing it, but it is really a thing of: people are either using really small screens or 1080p. 4K is still not around much.
Nextgrid
Because unlike YouTube, porn is an actually competitive industry with plenty of “tube” sites to choose from. So they have to compete on UX.
komali2
Google "Ethical Capital Partners."
Operates:
Pornhub
RedTube
YouPorn
Brazzers
Digital Playground Men.com
Reality Kings
SpankWire
throwaway984393
[dead]
1bpp
They just need to fix search..
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danpalmer
What's the point being made in this article?
That TVs have lower information density than desktop browsers? Like, yeah, obviously.
That if you don't sign in to YouTube and don't pay to remove the ads, that you'll get prompted to sign in and you'll see ads? That doesn't seem particularly problematic.
Sure it's mildly funny that a funny projection is true in a very contrived way, but it doesn't really stand up to any criticism. I use YouTube almost exclusively through the Apple TV app, and it's fine, I'd even say it has improved a little over the last few years. I like the low information density because I sit approximately 3m from the screen and navigate with a TV remote.
jaydenmilne
Unfortunately I don't have pictures from before this change, but you used to get 5-6 videos I believe. Now you get two (and maybe one is an ad).
The point is that I made a joke projection in my last post in April that by next May there would be only one video on the homepage, because obviously that would be ridiculous, right? Then I turned on my TV and it happened.
See the previous blog post: https://jayd.ml/2025/04/30/someone-at-youtube-needs-glasses....
danpalmer
On my Apple TV I get 2.5 thumbnails per row and 2 rows. I honestly think that's appropriate for a TV interface and I basically like the UI. I find YouTube's Apple TV app to be the least clunky of all the carousel-of-videos apps that I use.
spartanatreyu
Compare the 1.25 video thumbnails shown on the apple tv app to the thumbnails on Steam's big picture mode (designed for people sitting on a couch far away from a tv):
1. https://emilio-gomez.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/steamos-...
2. https://preview.redd.it/new-big-picture-mode-is-finally-publ...
crazygringo
> Sure it's mildly funny that a funny projection is true in a very contrived way
I think you got it -- that's the point right there, nothing more...
1a527dd5
Ahh, I thought this was just happening to me. I used to watch a fair bit of YT on my PS4, but a few months ago my home screen was basically empty save a few ad videos.
It was pushing me heavily to sign in; which I do _not_ want to do.
End result was I just stopped watching YT.
Related: Someone at YouTube needs glasses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43846487 - April 2025 (694 comments)