I’ve trained the algorithm that I don’t tolerate ads.
I rarely see ads on YouTube. I use FreeTube and yt-dlp pretty much exclusively for my YouTube viewing. I only see ads when I watch YouTube on my TV, and even then, only rarely. As soon as it shows me an ad, I close out of YouTube. Not skip ad, not go back, I close YouTube. I switch to audiobooks instead.
The algorithm wants to increase watch time, the only way it can do that is to not show me ads, so that’s what it does. It’s surprising how well it works.
But for real, after you explained what’s going on it makes perfect sense, I’m just suprised that “amount of ads delivered” is a watch time metric that the algo “optimizes” for.
I’ve trained the algorithm that I don’t tolerate ads.
I rarely see ads on YouTube. I use FreeTube and yt-dlp pretty much exclusively for my YouTube viewing. I only see ads when I watch YouTube on my TV, and even then, only rarely. As soon as it shows me an ad, I close out of YouTube. Not skip ad, not go back, I close YouTube. I switch to audiobooks instead.
The algorithm wants to increase watch time, the only way it can do that is to not show me ads, so that’s what it does. It’s surprising how well it works.
**It’s learning… **
But for real, after you explained what’s going on it makes perfect sense, I’m just suprised that “amount of ads delivered” is a watch time metric that the algo “optimizes” for.
does pihole work for the TV?
Not as far as I know, there’s no way to set custom DNS that I’ve found.