Based on recent reports, YouTube is actively restricting access to Premium accounts created through VPNs and cracking down on users accessing Premium content across different regions. According to user discussions, YouTube now detects and blocks VPN connections when attempting to stream Premium content[^6][^10].
Some key impacts:
- Users report being unable to play YouTube Music through Sonos speakers when using a VPN, with the service becoming accessible only after bypassing VPN connections[^6]
- Premium subscribers attempting to access content from different regions than their subscription face connection errors and service disruptions
- The restrictions appear to be part of YouTube's broader strategy to enforce regional content licensing and subscription terms
The crackdown coincides with YouTube's increased focus on Premium subscriptions, including showing longer unskippable ads to free users in 2025 to drive Premium adoption[^8].
92 Comments
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 88 pts · 345d
Thanks Youtube, once more showing why Peertube is better!
Suspiciousbrowsing@kbin.melroy.org · 48 pts · 345d
Does anyone actually upload to peertube though? I mean my "recently uploaded" is a few videos from days ago and then from weeks ago
Auster@thebrainbin.org · 14 pts · 345d
Checked to confirm, having 22 Peertube instances integrated to Grayjay (platforms aggregator) so not necessarily one communicates with the other, and filtering the contents from the Home tab just by Peertube instances, and indeed most stuff is months old at best.
However, least for tech content creators, it seems to thrive. Also, if lack of contents is a problem but the person sees potential in the technology, I'd invite the given person to also help producing contents for there. Like the saying goes, if you want change, be the change.
And also, the more content a platform has, the more inviting it is to others. Expecting it to be as big as youtube but much quicker and organically is a first step to regret, I think.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 345d
I mean, there's Patreon, but that's American. It's in San Francisco in California though, which is at least not Trumpland. But with how things are headed, I'd be cautious.
Liberapay exists, but it uses Paypal, which is even scummier than Visa and Mastercard. Uses Stripe too, which is Irish-American (HQ in both countries).
If there's a FOSS decentralised* Patreon alternative that would support Wero, cash, and Monero, I could foreseee that having a ton of potential.
* with the HQ of development or whatever being in a country that's resistant against censorship.
Auster@thebrainbin.org · 1 pts · 344d
Sure you answered to the right comment? I don't think the topic of this specific comment thread was payment methods.
SuperDuperKitten@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 343d
Yeah and majority of them aren't as popular. Think Fedi.Directory has selection of various PeerTube channels which the popular ones like The Linux Experience, Veronica Explains more used PeerTube as a mirror for people who don't want to use YouTube and then there's some FOSS Project (think KDE?) that use it just to show off features related to their project.
Beside Tilvids' instance, there's barely much video on PeerTube I feel like I want to actually watch
BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 345d
I tried once. For some sites I couldn't even register, at the rest I couldn't upload anything.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 345d
Peertube will take off more when you can make money from it. That's why people still stuck with YouTube. Money
asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev · 16 pts · 345d
Well, since Peertube won't get ads, I don't see that happening soon. YouTubers will have to get used to asking for donations and setting up donation accounts.
...or another solution is cryptocurrencies but that is not very reliable.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 345d
Maybe in the future, until now not a real alternative by content. For users which want to watch music vids of their favorite band or vids from prefered science channels, movies, etc. it's not an valid alternative, nor for authors which want to monetize their content. Last prefer Bandcamp, Vimeo, Odysee and other.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 345d
It won't become an alternative if we don't move. I think PeerTube can actually work regarding monetisation - having a decentralised Patreon alternative would help along, for example.
Vimeo is alright, but it's US-based. I don't trust far-right censorship to not creep up there.
Odysee is good design-wise, but it's full of hatred. Also, situated in the US.
Bandcamp, also situated in the US. No thanks.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 345d
Yes Odysee is also used by right wings, same as YT or others, In Odysee you find all kind of content and political spectrum. It remain in the same, Bandcamp is for music the best alternative also fair with the creators, it's a good measure to listen most content for free and a optional paid download of tracks or the whole disk, not given in YT. There you can only legal download an video with an premium account and where the money goes to YT, not to the artist as in Bandcaamp. I only hope that the EU offers more alternatives to YT, but until now there is no other as using the less evil alternative and Bandcamp and Odysee are.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 57 pts · 345d
YouTube is trash. I was watching a cooking video, and I swear, after 60 seconds of ads, the YouTuber talked for maybe one whole minute before it went to ads again with a 60 second timer.
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 345d
For the first time ever today I deliberately watched some shorts. It was so much worse than I expected. Thank TFSM for blocking shorts with ubo.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 345d
Wait, are you a pastafarian or a satanist?
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 345d
I am pretty sure the video uploader controls when ads play. So that seems less of a platform issue and more of a "that specific channel" problem.
glimse@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 345d
Yeah, YouTube will insert ads but never THAT close to the last one unless they play back-to-back.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 345d
I’m not sure. There have been times where I thought, this would be the perfect place for an ad break. And lo and behold… ad break. Sometimes they get cut off mid sentence and I think, either it’s automated, or maybe you’re right and they got a say but didn’t specify enough ad breaks so one was inserted semi randomly…
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 345d
Per their support page, videos over 8 minutes long can have mid roll ads. They can be manual, automatic, or a combination.
If ads were placed that closely together on a video longer than 8 minutes, the creator either did that manually or did not care enough about their audience to check what automatic ads got placed.
nightlily@leminal.space · 51 pts · 345d
Fuck me if I want to securely access stuff on hotel wifi I guess?
possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 344d
Stop giving youtube money, use ublock and revanced.
Plagiatus@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 344d
Not OP but for me I'm fine giving them some money in exchange for me not having to watch any ads while using their services. Just not the amount they want to charge me in my home country. 5€ a month feels fair, 15 does not.
possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 13 pts · 344d
That's fair, but my code of ethics prohibits me giving money to a corporation that engages in mass surveillance and actively radicalizes young men and women into the alt-right rabbit hole.
Plagiatus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 344d
Also fair.
Scrollone@feddit.it · 3 pts · 343d
And SmartTube on your Android TV.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca · 42 pts · 345d
Every time YouTube raises the price of Premium or messes with their ad-model, it raises the value of blocking ads! 😊✨️
clb92@feddit.dk · 17 pts · 345d
I do value my adblockers very highly, and I blocks ads in the browser, via DNS on my home network, and on my rooted phone too. Every time I access the internet on a device that isn't mine, I'm blown away with how bad it is.
irmadlad@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 345d
Sometimes my friends will ask if I can take a look at their computers because it's not working as expected or something is definitely wrong. I am always blown away by all the ads and crap all over the screen. It's like going to a porn site. I always ask 'How the fuck do you do this?' At the very least, install an adblocker. Sometimes I'll just go ahead and install UBlock, but there's an issue with doing that. Ublock Origin has a little bit of a learning curve. You actually have to put in a little work before it really works optimally for you. I find that people are not willing to do the work.
Plagiatus@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 344d
Not sure what you mean - UBlock Origin works great for me out of the box.
dditty@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 344d
If you don't have Bypass Paywalls Clean too, some news sites won't let you read their articles when they detect your browser- or DNS-based ad-blocking. The user might want to know how to turn it off for a particular site (or learn how to switch to reader mode and/or how to use a site like 12ft.io) to get around that. Or if they turn on extra uBlock lists like the "annoyances" ones they might not see certain social media sign-in pop-ups they're expecting to see, for example.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip · 24 pts · 344d
You know, I was trying to pay for YouTube Premium. I do think that was fair even though I knew I could use ad blockers for free.
The prices are outrageous where I live so i used a VPN to find a more reasonable price. Every so often, YouTube would cancel my account and I’d do it again.
This happened several times, but I finally realized that YouTube doesn’t want any money for my account! They would rather I pay nothing at all! That’s so generous of them.
So, now I use ad blockers and I get the same service for free.
Also fuck Google.
Scrollone@feddit.it · 10 pts · 343d
Firefox + uBlock Origin on desktop.
ReVanced on Android phone/tablet.
SmartTube on Android TV.
Enjoy a good user experience as it should be.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 343d
My exact setup.
Xella@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 343d
They're literally taking money out of their own pockets. Idiots!
artyom@piefed.social · 16 pts · 345d
Unfortunately YouTube Premium doesn't solve any of the horrendous problems YouTube has. Using a third party client is the only thing that does.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org · 1 pts · 345d
jim3692@discuss.online · 4 pts · 344d
You can install SmartTube on Android TV. It's the YouTube TV app, but without ads.
Scrollone@feddit.it · 1 pts · 343d
+1 for SmartTube. Best app ever.
didnt1able@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 345d
I like that it comes with YouTube music. That is the one thing I like about premium.
floopus@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 345d
The problem here is the lack of a current alternative. As others here have mentioned, peertube might be a future alternative, but I can not help but feel that only fairly ideological people like myself would be interested (in the sense of dropping youtube on privacy grounds). I can't see "normies" moving elsewhere. That said, maybe a good alternative doesn't require mass uptake. I mean Lemmy seem pretty cool, albeit I haven't been here very long at all (like a day lol, although I have lurked for sometime).
floofloof@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 345d
Nebula seems promising. It's reasonably priced and because they charge money there are no ads. I can afford it while I can't afford the amounts people ask for on Patreon. But I don't know whether it can scale up while paying the creators enough and keeping the price to users low.
rollin@piefed.social · 4 pts · 345d
Just had a look - $6 a month, based in NYC. Definitely better than giving YouTube money, for now at least. They say they have a 50/50 profit sharing model with creators - profit presumably is after salaries (including bonuses?) have been paid, so it's not clear exactly how much of your subscription does in fact go to the video creators. Still, a better option than YouTube, if only to support competition.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 343d
My understanding is their economic model has every creator being a part owner of the platform
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de · -4 pts · 345d
You’ll come to see this is like the Donald for left wingers.
Constant downvoting of dissenting opinions with no discussion.
Linux shilling will be everywhere too.
brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 345d
I haven't had that experience at all and I've been here for years. Maybe you're lurking in the wrong subs.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 344d
This is why you don't give them money.
Also other reasons.
Schlemmy@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 344d
On what terms? I have my VPN permanently on. That doesn't mean I'm trying to cheat.
notarobot@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 343d
On terms of using a VPN. They don't need a reason. They can just do it
rosco385@lemmy.wtf · 9 pts · 343d
A year ago I would have been worried about this, but YouTube is so full of AI slop now that I barely watch it.
appropriateghost@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 343d
They are totally doing it to themselves. there is just too much crap there.
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 343d
ReVanced for the win
DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 345d
Just install uBO/use Brave and you don't need Premium.
warm@kbin.earth · 40 pts · 345d
Dont use brave, use uBlock Origin and Firefox.
Or FreeTube on Desktop.
For mobile, NewPipe or one of its forks, e.g. PipePipe for SponsorBlock too.
Scrollone@feddit.it · 2 pts · 343d
And for Android TV, use SmartTube.
artyom@piefed.social · 8 pts · 345d
You're very brave to make such a suggestion around here.
DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 343d
At least on Brave you don't have to use an account (which Mozilla hasn't figured out yet) to synchronize your bookmarks, extensions and settings. And mind you that you can disable all the controversial things.
artyom@piefed.social · 1 pts · 343d
It's true. I use Brave as well. They have several novel privacy features that no one else does. And although the company has a checkered history, I still think it's the best (for now). I just wish more FOSS devs would take notes and implement these privacy features in other browsers.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 345d
You don't need Premium anyway. For the cost of an YT Premium account you can use Netflix, Rakuten or any other paid streaming service with less money, or even for free in PlutoTV, or channels of public TV of every country, where you can watch movies, documentals, Series, etc for free, without ads. The greed and policy of YT will be its end sooner or later. Ads always can be avoided, uBO, even uBO Lite, Adguard and several others are working fine in YT.
rollin@piefed.social · 4 pts · 345d
I stopped paying for YouTube when they started cracking down on free users, and stopped using them pretty much entirely. It was hard though - even though I have Netflix, I always found it easier to find interesting and informative things to watch on YouTube than Netflix. I'd watch YouTube several times a day, whereas with Netflix I usually spend about 10 or 15 minutes scrolling through their god-awful UI before closing it and finding something else to do.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 345d
At least in the EU almost every public TV has an online channel with movies, series, documentals, entertainment, live and/or on demand, all for free and without ads, similar in Pluto TV
Spanish public TV
German public TV
More
https://tv.ssuiteoffice.com/
eee@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 345d
You can add arte, too.
umbrella@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 345d
irmadlad@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 344d
As far as YT & Google et al, I don't participate. A good while back, I tried to promote some of my music on YT. The experience was...... terrible afaic. I used to use YT for tutorials, but there is no way I'm going to jump through all their hoops and endure back to back, un-skippible ads, to find out that the tut is shit. Screw that noise.
Reddit has been silently rejecting accounts that sign up with a VPN for quite some time now. If you make an account using a VPN, an alias email, using a hardened Firefox, and all the blockers, you can expect that your account will be shadow banned almost immediately. So, as long as Reddit front ends work, I'll still use it as a resource....for now.
I foresee that private forums will become a thing again where people of like minds congregate and exchange info, expertise, ideas, content, etc. They were once quite popular but people gravitated to these multi billion dollar corp owned social media outlets because it was the next best thing, and now the other shoe has dropped.
kalpol@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 344d
Honestly just need to bring back Usenet newsgroup traffic
syzygy@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 344d
What about platforms like Lemmy and Peertube? Seem like a solid alternatives to Reddit and YT.
irmadlad@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 341d
Hey bro. I appologize for the late reply. Apparently I lost track of time.
First, I am a mediocre musician on my best day. I've been playing stringed instruments for about 65 years, but it's more of a hobby that I get a lot of satisfaction out of. I did entertain the notion that maybe I could pick up one or two gigs doing background music for an indie game dev, which is why I was using YT. I do have some tracks on PeerTube, but as you are probably aware, the traffic flow of PeerTube is rather spartan.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 343d
More reasons to never subscribe to YouTube.
notarobot@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 343d
Of course not seeing ads on YouTube doesn't mean they don't want to profile you to shore ads somewhere else. Premuim is ad free, not tracker free
simonced@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 343d
Lol, it's like paying to lose your privacy, it's dumb!
MetalMachine@feddit.nl · 6 pts · 343d
They could have just ignored this
Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 345d
I feel good, that I have never depended on YT... I don't pay them, I don't watch ads, and I use other services too, and own my films and music... It's nice - especially when reading posts like this.
StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 344d
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 343d
Who paid for premium? I can watch ad-free and my screen off on my phone for free
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 343d
I used this addon and I watch stuff in the phone's browser
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/video-background-play-fix/
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 343d
That's what I do too 😂
wdx@feddit.org · 1 pts · 343d
I used to leave Firefox in the background, then resuming from the Notifications.
this makes it a lot more convenient. thank you
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 343d
consider fennec on fdroid rather than firefox official
I like it
Normaldude@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 345d
LOL this is insane we should switch to Rumble and other alternatives other wise we are fucked.
StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 344d
NuclearDolphin@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 344d
PeerTube is what he should have said.
Schwim@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 345d
I think rumble is similar. You're only allowed to use it if trump is your god.
sakuragasaki46@feddit.it · 1 pts · 343d
Where our datahoarders at?
Will creatives jump off the sinking ship? Or authorize us to download?
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 345d
Fuck YouTube. Only thing I still like about it is the ability to find how-to videos on it.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 345d
I search the Video with Andi and watch it there in the search result.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 345d
What is "Andi"?
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 345d
https://andisearch.com/
Traffic3003@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 344d
😐
Schwim@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 345d
Of course, for the same reason streaming services block it. They don't want to risk account sharing.
This doesn't seem newsworthy but more along the lines of "yeah that makes sense."
Cyniez@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 345d
Come on, that's why we have yt-dlp and yt-dlp GUI. Who even uses YouTube on the website anymore?
ayyy@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 345d
That won’t magically work around IP blocking.
bykdd@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 344d
just buy adguard it supports multiple device, and can block twitch ads too.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 344d
Even uBOLite do it
infjarchninja@lemmy.ml · -4 pts · 345d
glimse@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 345d
This is a really confusing comment and "boatracecrook" is an incredibly lame insult lol
infjarchninja@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 345d
Schwim@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 345d
You can call it Facebook or YouTube. No evil entity wins if you do, you just make it much easier for fellow community members to understand what you're trying to say. Your two comments are impossible to track and understand.
infjarchninja@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 344d
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 343d
Hah. I mean no offense but you sound exactly like Gemini or copilot after I call it out for some egregious hallucination.
"Of course you're absolutely right, I completely understand how saying X would undermine your confidence in my abilities. I'll keep that in mind for next time, I'm always learning etc...
infjarchninja@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 343d
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 345d
I'm maybe one of the oldest here
infjarchninja@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 344d