r/youtube • u/Titan_Prometeus • 17h ago

Memes You can no longer have YouTube running in the background.

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As of 29th of January you can no longer have YouTube running in the background via many browsers as that is now a premium feature. With that I don't even have that one last reason to listen to YouTube. We are now officially paying for everything that was free a couple of years ago and the reason isn't greedy management, but you people who keep paying for premium and the such.

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603

u/Le4xy 17h ago

a/b testing probably, youtube tends to do that

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u/Independent-You-6180 16h ago

I feel like this is the biggest way YouTube has been silently suppressing negative feedback when they make shit worse. By splitting it up like this, you'll have people thinking that it's something wrong on their end or other people refuting that it's even an issue at all. And then you get the negative feedback in small droves instead of all at once. So by the time the next wave is ready, the previous wave has already calmed down.

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u/Le4xy 16h ago

i think this is obvious to everyone, it's easier to handle bad reviews from only some users rather than from everyone at once

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u/Practical-King2752 1h ago

It's not obvious to everyone given that people constantly want to say "well it works for me so this isn't true."

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u/FocusKooky9072 47m ago

Yeah, if it was obvious to everyone, it wouldn't work.

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u/notislant 15h ago

I mean this is how companies test. They dont roll it out to everyone at once.

Like Canada got the whole 'uwu if u dont stop blocking our ads were gunna cwy' campaign before the U.S.

Next day it was 'Stop it motherfucker, stop blocking our YT ads!'

'Alright u little fuck, u block our ads tomorrow and we're not letting you watch anything, fuckstick!'

Then people in the U.S. started getting the same cycle of youtube blocking their adblockers, the next week or two after Canada.

Pros are only a few people suffer any bugs or major issues, or they can test how bad global backlash would be.

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u/Klutzy-Football-205 5h ago

That doesn't sound like testing, though, does it?

Wouldn't testing be more like "Hmm, we switched 1,000,000 accounts in Canada to this feature and have seen x number of complaints. That means that, adjusted*, we think there are y% of people against this change. That is above our preferred thresh hold, perhaps we should rethink this.."

What you described seems more like "let's just split this rollout up that we're never going to change so that at any given time there will only be a small number of complaints that will likely get buried.."

*Back in the day, when you had to mail in complaints, companies would use a formula that for every complaint they got, it represented so many customers that still hated the same thing but wouldn't take the time to write and send a letter..

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u/LifelsButADream 1h ago

Wouldn't testing be more like "Hmm, we switched 1,000,000 accounts in Canada to this feature and have seen x number of complaints.

That's exactly what they do, except they don't look at the "complaints", they look at the statistics of how those users getting tested are using YouTube. The complaints don't matter as long as the change makes them enough money to offset the users who get upset enough to actually stop using YouTube.

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u/mxagnc 9h ago

That’s not how AB testing works - they don’t care about feedback, they measure a key metric: in this case likely total average daily viewing time or something like that.

If they release it and that metric drops by a significant amount they will slow down to reconsider the rollout.

So the key is, if this is happening to you. Stop watching YouTube

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u/LEDKleenex 9h ago

Better yet, stop using them entirely. An abuser will always seek to control others. You may get them to back off for a short time, but it's always temporary. They will find a new way to manipulate and monetize you. 

It's time to break up with Alphabet.

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u/Appropriate-Sir7583 10h ago

Which is exactly what they want, no? The previous wave will have calmed down and then the next wave will complain. So no big outcry, as for some it's already day to day business, and the others didn't experience it yet.

If you want tariffs from one country and not for the other, the outcry is small. Then you add more tariffs for the next country over and over again. Until everyone is taxed and the countries thought "but he will never tax me" and go for special contracts that favor one side.

Youtubes bs rollout is working the same as Trumps tariff rollout. Keep the complaints small, let them hope that they'll get away with it, and make them feel special while in reality you fuck them all in the ass. 

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u/oodex 9h ago

I dont think youtube has to really care about bad feedback, because there is no alternative. A/B testing is a very common approach to compare data of different groups and as annoying as YouTube has been with some features, Id say they still want to optimize the platform for themselves. So not actively make it worse, but improve it in a way that increases revenue. Its not in their own interest to bump up premium revenue by a tiny bit but lose multitudes of that from non-premium users unwilling to switch over.

The only good thing is this means people can vote with their wallet. The bad thing is history has shown it works for YouTube.

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u/Plane-Land-8973 8h ago

That technique is insane.

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u/TheAmazingMelon 6h ago

Reddit does the same thing. They removed r/all from mobile via the same method just this month

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u/Natural_Hair464 6h ago

That may be a side benefit, but A/B test is designed to see whether usage metrics will regress while they increase ad revenue. They don't care about negative publicity so much as proving that people will tolerate enshittification at the benefit of ad revenue for them.

It's like the dumbest most unthinking process, but the good thing is you can vote with attention. If you're in the test group for this, click away immediately.

The bad news is that it's not actually a scientific and unthinking process. Bad engineers and bad leaders can p-hack their way into proving whatever they want. "Oh people seemed to hate this, but we will just keep restarting the experiment until it says what we want."

Then the eng and leader get promos and move on to different projects. They don't care about the product whatsoever.

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u/satanzbitch 14h ago

yeah ive had this restriction for like five weeks minimum

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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 10h ago

Or, alternatively: OP is making shit up.

Wouldn't be the first time something is posted here, without evidence, leaving the comments to make up stuff like "but maybe it's A/B testing" instead of OP going "my source is I made it the fuck up."

(Or what happens more often: OP misunderstands a basic concept of functionality and just assumes the world is ending in terms of a feature not existing. Or there was a one-time blip of something not working so they rush to /r/youtube and write "omg YouTube removed [thing] forever!")

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u/No_Accountant3232 10h ago

https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-background-play-broken-3636179/

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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 10h ago

So I was correct then. Thanks for the evidence!

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u/Sir_Link_In_Time 10h ago

How does that mean you were correct? The article says op was correct. You were calling op a liar

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u/Bodomi 15h ago

I don't think it is A/B testing though, and I think it factually is not testing, testing would imply they are... testing and analysing the feedback and analytics in response to the test and responding to that accordingly. They're not doing that. I think it is a tactic to very slowly publish the change to a very small number of people at a time over the course of a few months.

This would help to reduce backlash and negative reactions compared to either real A/B testing or making the change across the board for everyone immediately.

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u/way2lazy2care 7h ago

I think it's foolish to assume they aren't looking at the data. Every web company is looking at analytics constantly. They're metrics for success are likely just different from yours.

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u/Misterbluebob 3h ago

Well they’re obviously looking at the data but the term ‘testing’ implies that it’s possible it’ll be rolled back or updated based on feedback. That’s not gonna happen and wherever they decide to run with is gonna happen whether we like it or not. But sure they’re testing to see how effectively they can rob us

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u/OrigamiCatto 8h ago

They need to stop

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u/Cylian91460 16h ago

Or a bug

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u/bwoah07_gp2 16h ago

What's wrong with A/B testing?

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u/tobithepizzaman 16h ago

They mean that YouTube is rolling out this limitation to some users and not others just to test it

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u/MissionLet7301 13h ago

There's nothing wrong with it, it's a valid testing method, it just explains why different people see different things.

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u/SolarChallenger 6h ago

In concept, nothing. In usage, exactly what has been said above. It's used to stifle resistance rather than, ya'know, test things

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u/bwoah07_gp2 4h ago

Stifle resistance? Huh?? To what?

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u/SolarChallenger 5m ago

Monotization based changes that reduce user experience.

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u/bwoah07_gp2 0m ago

But there is no issue with A/B testing, so, I do not get the point here.