So, you’re like me. You’ve grown more and more distrustful of Google as of late. You begin trying to divest your data from them. You even switch over to Firefox. But, there is some juicy content still on Youtube. But you’ve began to notice things are loading slower for some reason.
You’re not alone. And it isn’t by accident. It’s a malicious attempt to get you back in to their ecosystem.
This week, some users have began noticing that YouTube hadn’t been loading as quickly as it should have been. This was noticeable on every browser that wasn’t Chrome.
Android Authority has confirmed that YouTube is causing the slowdown with adblock users, unless they’re using Chrome. YouTube is even calling it a “suboptimal viewing experience”.
To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.”
YouTube statement
I want to go back to the “suboptimal viewing experience” bit. It’s a bit odd that they are saying that removing advertising from the content we are viewing is “suboptimal”. The only thing being made suboptimal is YouTube constantly adding some delay to the content that we are watching and the creators we are supporting.
The fact that we have to pay with our time in watching ads (or waiting for slower load times) or wallets with YouTube Premium is asinine.
I’m starting to believe this version of the internet in general is a “suboptimal viewing experience”.
Source: PCMag
