Mastodawn

Jason Koebler Nov 20, 2023

New: Firefox users have reported an "artificial" 5-second delay when they try to load YouTube videos that is magically fixed if they use Chrome, which has been going viral in a few different places. I asked Google what is going on. They

1) Didn't deny the artificial wait time is happening
2) Said it's part of its war on ad blockers, not targeted at Firefox

Mozilla also told me no indication this is targeted at Firefox

https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/

YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users

Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

404 Media

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Kezia Crawford-Cousins Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler A data point: I see this in the first-party YouTube app on my iOS device too. And yes, I did recently install an adblocker *on a different device*, which is not active for YouTube.

The user experience is incredibly awful. I see all ads, but often with long pauses before the ad even runs. I end up leaving the app in frustration — to everyone’s detriment. Just so incredibly dumb.

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Kezia Crawford-Cousins

@jasonkoebler Though… how would this work? Thinking about this, might be correlation but not causation. This would need them to have set some kind of flag on my profile, and then slow down some things, somehow, in the responses to requests from the YT app. It sounds a bit too conspiratorial, somehow.