TL;DR version:
From June to August, the number of active users of the AdGuard Ad Blocker extension for Chrome dropped by about 8%. But in late August, the trend reversed. The temporary slump in user growth was offset by the increased demand in the second half of the year.
After a brief period of turbulence that lasted about a month, we saw the trend stabilize. And while the daily number of uninstalls was still higher than before YouTube’s crackdown, it remained consistently lower than the number of daily installs.
After media reports and YouTube’s own statements implied that ad blockers were doomed, and especially after more and more users started noticing that their ad blocking extensions were not working properly on YouTube, we did indeed see a spike in uninstalls. However, at the same time, the number of installs also increased significantly! It may well be that the way ad blockers’ woes were amplified in the media inadvertently boosted their popularity and helped them woo new users.
The takeaway from all of this is that ad blockers — first and foremost, ad-blocking extensions — were rocked by YouTube’s onslaught, but survived. And, moreover, the interest has rebounded, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of active users.
I wonder if they saw a large enough down tick is user traffic to realize that endlessly badgering people with 5 ads to watch a 30 second clip is driving away their user base.
I know my YouTube consumption has decreased by a factor of 10. I used to use it for almost all of my streaming entertainment. In conjunction with other streaming services’ password sharing crackdown, I am spending more time reading and going outside than I have in the past decade. That’s a trend these providers don’t want catching on.
My YouTube use is going down because the algorithm absolutely sucks now. I went to the gaming tab 2 hours after the state of play and it was nowhere to be found. But outdated years old crap was being shown.
But never had any ad issues with ublock origin or revanced.
If I had to watch ads, I would not use youtube. Period.
This. My preferred way of catching up to my favorite channels nowadays is watching their content on LibreTube with AdBlock and SponsorBlock on and supporting them on Patreon if they have one.
Yeah, recently had my Android with adblockers break, and my YT consumption is almost non-existent now as I watch more on mobile devices than on PC.
As an aside, if anyone has any advice for a ReVanced-like app for iOS, I’m all ears. I miss my Pixel 🥲