How’s Reddit these days? Haven’t been there in a long time.

My guess is, YT is experimenting with different ways to discourage ad blocking. We’ve seen similar tactics before. During an experiment like this, a new feature is rolled out to only some users. If it works out as expected, it becomes a standard feature for the entire platform and every user.

I may just be one of the lucky few Guinea pigs.

This is my first reply on Lemmy that isn’t a post.

Well, at least as far as today is concerned. Anyway, we’re both off to a good start.

Thanks! I am aware that it might end up being more than just a brief experiment. What if I get used to not having any of the annoyances that are common on YT. What if going back will truly open my eyes and I’ll see how bad it really is. If that happens, I may end up cutting back a lot more than I ever anticipated.

Quitting Reddit and switching to Lemmy wasn’t really a problem at all. There was only one really interesting subreddit, but it turned into a complete dumpster fire just before the APIcalypse, so even that one wasn’t holding me back. Most subreddits worth following have already been sufficiently replicated on Lemmy, so I don’t really miss Reddit at all. Besides, I also like the vibe of a smaller place.

Thanks. I’ll try that out when I get back home and the challenge ends.

I did that too for a very long time. Recently, something changed on YT, and now there’s an aggressive ad-blocker-blocker. All videos run for about 60 seconds and then they just stop. It applies to all mobile browsers and all ad-blockers I’ve ever tried. Still not a major issue, since real computers are unaffected.

LOL, yeah lots of advice, but they’re all appreciated anyway. After about two weeks, I’ll have to try them out.

My YT use has been highly variable. If I’m doing something else, I can have YT videos in the background. Usually something where the actual video component is more or less irrelevant while the audio part actually matters. When I’m listening to videos like that, I can easily go through several hours every day. If I actually use my eyeballs for watching the videos, I could probably watch about 1-2 hours every day. Who knows really. These estimates could be be way off.

I’m looking forward to finding new videos I had never even heard of. If you spend lots of time on YT and ignore all the other platforms, you could miss some really cool stuff. So far, the local TV channels have delivered 99% trash and 1% meh videos. I did watch one documentary on Mark Zuckerberg, and that was mostly tolerable. Way too sensational to be taken completely seriously, which would have deserved a downvote and an negative comment had it been on YT.

Actually, watching videos has become a mildly boring thing again, which means I’ll probably be doing non-video related things too. Probably a good thing in the long run. Also looking forward to getting bored and occupying my time with more useful stuff.

Amazing. Never even thought of trying that. Well, in about two weeks I’ll find out.

Great! I’ll try that out when I get back home.