Life Hack - How to Bypass YouTube Commercials!

"When knowledge is limited - it leads to folly... When knowledge exceeds a certain limit, it leads to exploitation."
- Abu Bakr

In recent months,

Google, apparently having utterly abandoned it's "Don't Be Evil" stance, seems to have become desperate for advertising revenue. Here's one of the indicators telling me this: Although it used to be "standard practice," now only rarely am I allowed to skip the ads at the beginning of YouTube videos.

I, for one, have grown quite weary of being forced to sit through five or more minutes of commercial messages—platitudes about Google's revenue sources (e.g. hospitals and drug companies)—in order to be allowed to watch content that someone other than Google created.

How I feel waiting for my YouTube to begin... ~ Image source: Moviecracy

Know what I mean?

For a while, I would just let an ad blather on at a low volume in the background while I did something else... But then I'd find myself missing the start of the video I wanted to see.

Well, I have good news for you.

I've discovered a work-around that seems to let me escape the "Clockwork Orange" style force-feeding of commercial material. If you are a member of Steemit, this work-around is also readily available to you.

I was jazzed to discover this, and because life-hacks like this save a lot of time and annoyance, publishing this article has "jumped the queue." I'm writing this for you ahead of other planned posts, in the hope of saving you some frustration.

CLICK "SHARE" to copy a YouTube URL. ~ Image source: YouTube

It's a simple trick.

Just get the "SHARE" URL from YouTube by clicking the "SHARE" link as illustrated above. A pop-up will prompt you to click and copy YouTube's short-form URL for that video.

Here's an example URL for a video that tells how to revive a fully discharged Lithium-Ion battery:

If you simply click that link and open a browser tab to that YouTube page, because it is a very popular video, you'll more than likely be assaulted with one or more commercials before being allowed to see the video... Fun, right?

Now open your Steemit post editor.

Paste the YouTube video URL into the Steemit editor, and an embedded version of the video will appear in the WYSIWYG editor below, just like here:

Click the video to play it, and, guess what? It will play without commercials.

You're welcome. 😃

Although I've only tried it with Steemit, I suspect this will work with just about any web-editor user interface. Try it and let me know.

P.S.: This can be especially useful if you want to watch a series of videos (i.e. Part 1, Part 2, etc.) because YouTube will happily play ads at the beginning of every one of them unless you embed them!

If this trick addresses one of your frustrations,

please pass it along via whatever channels you may have available to you. I'd like to see this go viral. Sure, once more people know this, The GooG may somehow just eliminate the workaround... But that's OK! Skipping the ads can only hasten the demise of that "Now We're REALLY Evil" empire.

YouTube, Google, Facebook... these and myriad other power-suckers, have all become major leeches. They merchandise your privacy and your data, sucking the life and value out of you in exchange for a "mess of pottage" they give you in the form of "free" online services...

Isn't it about time for complete decentralization of the internet? For the revenue and power to be returned to the people? Let's hasten the day, shall we? Let's stop supporting Google and other evil online entities, and support decentralized, privacy-oriented initiatives like Arisen.

_FIN

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P.S. If you have an "in" with anybody at Steemit, Inc. - Would you please ask them to get rid of these damn, extremely annoying "off-website" arrow/boxes? The have, overnight, made Steemit ugly. There are much better solutions.

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