HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are YouTube ads getting worse?

64 points by Kye ↗ HN
I opened a ~1 hour video and saw notches in the timeline for 10 different ad breaks. This is as bad as live TV now. Ads play at the end of videos. More videos have long, unskippable ads. More ad breaks in the middle of videos.

Multiple people in my circles said they noticed this too when asked, but it could just be a fluke/some kind of group confirmation bias. Has anyone else experienced this? Or even better, collected data on it?

129 comments

[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] thread
Operyl
If I understand correctly from a friend, the problem is YouTubers (and YouTube/Google) are currently making _much less_ money per ad. It sounds like more are getting shoved per video to make up for it (iirc, it's up to YouTube to determine this?).
justaman
Recently ads have been getting through my adblockers or videos fail to load if the ad is blocked. Refreshing the page or adding a '.' to the url seems to fix this.
jasode
Yes, Youtube ads are getting more aggressive. Instead of just 1 ad per interruption (either pre-roll or mid-roll), it's multiple ads in succession. Instead of a few interruptions, it has increased to many interruptions. Unlike you, I don't get the yellow bars in the timeline that show where the ad spots are anymore.

Many Youtubers have made videos about the aggressive ad changes. Here's one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A

I don't know if any new definitive statistics are out but some Youtubers complain that they don't seem to be getting any additional money even though viewers are bombarded with more ads.

Kye
This is a large part of why I won't pay for the premium service. I don't know how much creators get, but I know they always work their way toward pitiful payouts like Spotify. For an example of this slide, see how microstock has gone from something you could make a living on to ever-shrinking payouts and increasingly opaque bonus structures.

A recent example is Shutterstock's change to the payout and bonus structure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/guv6s3/shutter...

https://xpiksapp.com/blog/2020/new-shutterstock-earnings-bre...

The minimum was 25 cents per image. That could add up fast when an agency buyer with a huge bulk credit plan took notice of your portfolio and bought it out, then returned every time you added more. It's now 10 cents per image.

Spotify got there fast. YouTube will get there if it isn't already.

flamtap
If there’s one ad I get the most, it’s the God damned YouTube premium ads. I don’t know how many times I have to say no to the prompts. I wish there were a way to say “I will delete the app before I buy this”.
Operyl
I’m constantly getting “trump approval” campaign ads. Oh the joy of living in Florida.
kazinator
The large part of why I would never pay for premium service is that most of the YouTube content consists of unauthorized reproductions of works.
Jommi
I'm not sure why you're attributing this to some bad will from the platform instead of just basic supply and demand economics?

Spotify directly removed massive barriers to entry in distributing music. So there are more artists available to you than ever. Listeners might have grown as well, but it seems not in the same scale.

This could also be the case in microstock (and it seems to make logical sense). More and more photos are posted, and more people are posting. So ofcourse as supply grows the price lowers.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
Kye
>> "I'm not sure why you're attributing this to some bad will from the platform instead of just basic supply and demand economics?"

I made no attribution to bad will. I described a phenomenon without judgment.

blahblahblogger
omg yes, I was noticing this over the past week specifically. I keep getting these crap ads multiple times in pretty short video (less than 20 min?)

Reminds me of watching TV when I was a kid :(

sharemywin
I'm not sure which is more surprising. That there are more ads or that anyone is surprised by this. It is owned by google.
Shoreleave
I've also notice a huge push for youtube premium on mobile. It used to be a once a week thing. Now almost every time I open the app I'm greeted by the popup asking me to upgrade.
dabeeeenster
I find this behaviour by Google really fucking annoying. Just leave me alone after I have said no 15 times in the last week.
dingaling
Would you prefer that they just put up a modal banner saying 'subscription required'?
dabeeeenster
Yes 100%. At least that doesnt require a tap
yummypaint
Most other companies would have deniability about doing it on purpose, but google probably keeps track of this stuff and runs A/B testing with it etc..
a2tech
The constant unskippable ads in the Youtube app meant I jettisoned the app on my mobile devices and just watch Youtube via the browser (even though they make it a terrible experience) because my ad blocker works in the browser.
tomjen3
I used to do that, but my phone now has youtube vanced - it can even play stuff in the background.
bebna
if you're using android, check out redtube.

I use Firefox to browse and with long click and open in app to let redtube handle it. it also is nice to have the option of watching the vid as popup and keep browsing around on YouTube

vangelis
Dangerous search right there.
fheilz
Does anybody else only get scam ads?
Niccizero
I get some weird ads of some Doomsday-esque vegan cult sometimes. It's super weird.
ravenstine
I don't see YouTube ads because of uBlock Origin, but from what I can tell from other people's computers not having any form of adblock, I've seen that Adsense serves scam ads all the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if YouTube ads were the same. (It's astounding how these corporations can hold the mantle of "fact checking" but are happy to serve potentially dangerous bullshit when it helps their bottom line)
fheilz
I use ublock too. I only see ads on mobile. I have started screenshotting all of the scams I see. Maybe I will send them all to the FTC at some point.
cocoa19
Not scams, I've been mostly getting ads related to my recent google searches.
gitgud
Yes, they seem to be targeting people affected by COVID, promising easy get-rich quick schemes online...
space-candy
I have gotten some scam ads recently, although I do not get them exclusively.

One was a 'Jeff Bezos bitcoin giveaway. Send up to 2 BTC to this address and Jeff will match you and send it back.'

kohtatsu
I wonder if the address has any tx.
space-candy
search 'jeff bezos/elon musk bitcoin giveaway scam' and youll see alot of people have taken the bait unfortunately
tomjen3
The few times I have seen ads they have been for local grocery stores, grammarly and such. Not really what I would call scammy.
frosted-flakes
I get a lot of "get rich quick selling stuff on Amazon" ads, that all seem to start with some guy pulling fistfuls of notes out of a cardboard box. Otherwise, Google seems to think I really like iced tea, Spotify, and Facebook.
michaelbrave
about 1 in 10 is a get rich quick scheme, and with no way to downvote it, meanwhile the ones for college courses which is slightly relevant to me can be downvoted. It makes no sense.
dyingkneepad
I get lots of scam ads on youtube. I noticed they started this year.

Also some porn-ish ads. Got one while trying to show a lego-related video to my kid on my phone...

Seeing the scam and porn-ish ads is almost good because in the entirety of 2019 all I saw was ads for insurance. There were days where every video had the same Liberty ad...

Seriously, I wish the content creators I follow would start submitting content to another platform.

[dead] hhtoyou
Yes getting much closer when the person puts the attention
sails
Yes. Watching youtube on a smart TV on the installed Youtube app is a nightmare. Time for a Raspberry Pi for media.
fargo
if you are going for a raspberry I would suggest using it for pihole instead. That would solve the ad issue for all your devices
majewsky
Does pi-hole remove Youtube ads? pi-hole can only block whole ad domains. I would be surprised if Youtube deliberately served ad videos from a different domain than regular videos.
hysan
It does not. YouTube, at least on my smart TV, serves ads from a domain that is indistinguishable from the domain that serves the video content.
zihotki
Pihole won't solve it, unfortunately. The only way to block it is to have a Chrome/FF on the media device plus adblocker. But that's very complicated topic and when I checked there were no suitable distributions and ways to get it. I ended up getting a proper PC and using it as a media server instead of pi-like devices.
nmeofthestate
The frequency of ads got bad enough that some months ago I changed over to an android YouTube client that doesn't show ads. I wouldn't watch YouTube otherwise.
sethammons
The one that grinds my gears is the apparent time between ads. I’m learning how to play the banjo and I watch tutorials. This means play, pause, go back to time X and play again. Every few iterations, I get interrupted with an ad or two. Arrrrrgggh!
xigoi
Install UBlock Origin.
bluedino
If I watch while not-signed in, I get an ad every couple minutes. Unwatchable.

If I'm signed into my Google account, I usually just get an ad at the start of a video, and they are usually skippable, so no big deal.

onion2k
That should be a strong signal about how much data about you is worth to Google.
tuna-piano
For $12 a month (40 cents a day) you can use YouTube ad free. Personally, I don't notice the missing $12 but I do notice the missing ads, so it's worth it to me.

If you don't want ads, this seems like a more than fair offer from YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/premium

vuln
I used Firefox with ublock origin[0] and never see an ad.

[0]https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

jasonv
I pay for YouTube Premium largely because the family watches YouTube on Roku, AppleTV, etc. For that, it’s worth it.

I wish YouTube music wouldn’t share subscriptions with YouTube proper, but I just pay for Spotify and ignore YouTube Music.

spacephysics
I use the same on desktop, but for an ad free mobile experience, and background audio play on an unjailbroken iPhone, coughing up the cash seems most appropriate.
anon73044
The uBlock plugin also works on the Firefox Android app!
MaxikCZ
or, for adfree youtube experience on android, I am using "youtube vanced" [0](like advanced, but without the ad), and heard lots of people vouching for opensource "newpipe"[1]

Edit: Be warned: just found out that theres a "Block All Ads For Youtube Vanced ads" in playstore thats a fake scam (it even contains ads on its own). Real Vanced isn't on playstore

[0]: https://vanced.app/

non root: https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk/

root: https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk-root/

[1]: https://newpipe.schabi.org/

bitwize
Thief!!!!

"Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing programming." --Jamie Kellner, former Warner executive

TheAdamAndChe
I'm okay with this. They've deplatformed or suppressed most of my favorite YouTubers anyway, and they are trying to push a culture that I don't agree with.
mikecoles
Then stop using YouTube. If I don't agree with the grocery store's business choices, I can steal from them?
TheAdamAndChe
They're a monopoly and the leader of a winner-take-all market. They leverage their power to control the narrative on many topics. I think of any company to not support, YouTube is a good one to do so.
tinus_hn
You wouldn’t download a car!
RestlessMind
> They've deplatformed or suppressed most of my favorite YouTubers anyway

> They're a monopoly and the leader of a winner-take-all market.

There is some cognitive dissonance in there, particularly with "deplatforming" and "monopoly" part. If your favorite creators are all gone, why don't you just stop using that service? (I have done exactly that, tbh).

TheAdamAndChe
There's no dissonance. A monopoly has the capacity to remove anyone from their platform with no real reprocussions, so that's what they do.

why don't you just stop using that service?

There are no real alternatives to YouTube that any real content creators are willing to move to, and there are still some users that I watch, so I download the videos and don't support the platform. I have my cake and eat it too, so to speak.

taylodl
Not supporting is not the same as stealing. It's your business as to whether you want to support YT or not, but your disagreeing with their business practices or business model does not give you the right to steal. Perhaps I've misunderstood you (I'm reading this in context of your previous comment where you said you were okay with this, which I take to mean you're okay with stealing their content)?
TheAdamAndChe
We have different ethical standards then. If a company is a monopoly that actively leverages its power to manipulate entire populations, then I am fine with exploiting services which it makes available. They have the ability to keep me from accessing the site if I use an ad blocker. If they want me off the platform that much, they can boot me off.
foolmeonce
True but this is a better argument for leaving. They will retain you without ad income largely because that is valuable to them compared to people leaving their platform and what a group of actual non-spectators might entail afa the marketplace.
TheAdamAndChe
I see what you're saying, but that's a prisoner's dilemma[1]. By that I mean it would require the coordination of millions of others who are also sick of the platform to behave irrationally. It also assumes that people who leech off of YouTube would be unwilling to try a different site because of their leeching.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

taylodl
This, I think, is your argument. It's helped me to see where you're coming from and - I don't disagree. This is a good point. Thanks for helping me see things differently!
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
decasteve
That’s not how the web works. The host (YouTube) serves the content, my user agent (Firefox and add-ons) renders it. Stop trying to turn the internet into cable TV.

YouTube can create its own client software (like it does for iOS/Android) and do what it wants. As long as it openly serves content via HTTP then I can render the content it sends anyway I want on my computer.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
Scoundreller
Works great on Desktop, but more complicated on iOS without a piHole.
wayneftw
I use iOS Safari with content blockers and never see YouTube ads.

However, if YouTube were to start annoying me I would just stop going there. Just like when I stopped watching TV due to the frequency of ads on American television.

Fortunately for me, I don't watch a lot of YouTube. More often I'm on Twitch, where I also don't see ads on my desktop at least. Unfortunately Twitch has started downgrading their mobile experience trying to force all mobile users to use the Twitch app instead. It's not big loss, I don't really watch Twitch on my phone. On my tablet, I just RDP into my Windows desktop and watch through there.

I would miss Twitch if I had to leave it, but I'm so anti-advertising that if they forced ads on me I wouldn't think twice about leaving.

vuln
Which content blocker(s) do you currently use on iOS Safari?
Balgair
Here's the browser add-on links for the curious:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/ublock-origin/9nblggh444l4...

Make sure to go into the Options > Filter Lists and check the Annoyances section. That'll get you through most soft-paywalls these days (WaPo, The Atlantic, etc).

Also, the Japanese Language section will trip a LOT for some reason, so you may want to skip that.

anoonmoose
and it comes with a streaming music service that I personally believe is better than Spotify
rosseloh
Yeah, I don't technically pay for "YouTube Premium" but since it comes for "free" with my Google Play Music sub....well, cool.

On desktop I'd never notice (I haven't run without an adblocker for probably ten years), but on mobile it's a sanity saver.

jaybeeayyy
It's unfortunate they're phasing out of google play music and putting everyone on the Youtube Music app. I had to transfer all my music to it the other day. I still pay $9.99 for everything though and get to watch youtube ad free so I don't really mind but it's a bit of a bummer.
parliament32
On a side note, I switched from Play to Spotify in the last month because they kept trying to push me towards YT Music. The mobile app for YT Music is pretty trash, and the less Google I have in my life the better. Not to mention I was still getting ads on YT even though I had premium, I think the no-ads deal is for music videos only, not other YT videos.
AjithAntony
Have you noticed any change in audio quality between the two, GPM and Spotify? I've tried to poke at all the settings, and googled to learn more, but the Spotify recordings sound different. I'm trying to decide which i like better.
parliament32
I haven't noticed a difference, but Spotify has like 5 different levels of quality for streaming in the settings. Were you using the equalizer in Play Music?
rosseloh
> I think the no-ads deal is for music videos only, not other YT videos.

Not in my experience - and I use the mobile app daily (my lunchbreaks generally consist of catching up on the few folks I subscribe to).

I also haven't noticed any sort of push towards YT Music...But then again, I don't really "browse" Play Music either; I just press play on one of my previously found artists (using the Start Radio button) or search if I'm looking for someone I've not listened to before.

tomjen3
That requires me to be logged in, which is a no-go for me because they still use it to track me and come up with suggestions based on what I have viewed, which means I get an abominable amount of crap that is suggested and which I am no longer interested in (I watched 3 videos about the subject already, thank you very much) and even less privacy.
SubuSS
FWIW I turned off suggestions and I don't get recommendations anymore. Doesn't solve the tracking problem though.
taylodl
I just wish they offered a bundle with YouTube TV. I'd add this in a heartbeat to my YouTube TV service if it were $5-$6 per month extra as part of a bundle.
superasn
Also it depends on the country too I guess. Like in India the same is available for 99 rs / month (129 rs if you wish to get yt music).

Not sure how long this will last but it's been the same since launch, so it's really a no brainer not to upgrade.

fastball
I use Brave and haven't seen a YouTube ad in a long time.
TheAdamAndChe
On Android, if you install f-droid, you can install newpipe and avoid all ads.

On Linux, ublock origin plus Firefox removes basically all ads. You can also use youtube-dl in the terminal, though that can be difficult.

opencl
Ublock origin also works in Firefox for Android.
tomjen3
If you install mpv you can stream the video straight to a player and so skip the entire download and all the ads.
Niccizero
uBlock Origin has worked perfectly for me on the desktop, I haven't seen an ad since forever.
totally_a_human
I honestly don't understand, why anybody would even use a web browser without proper Adblock technology.
zozbot234
ITT: people complaining about a free service. Why not just pay for YouTube Red?
p2t2p
Oh, where do I start:

- I don't want music and there is no discount for that - I don't like random benign channel removals/strikes - I don't like censorship - I don't like copyright situation - There is not option to pay for family for whole year - They are getting closer and closer to killing rss support.

My setup right now is that I receive youtube updates into my newsboat. I run a macro if I want to watch a video and it goes into download queue and is downloaded by youtube-dl. It synthing-ed onto every single of my devices (including Emby) and then I watch it whenever I feel like, offline, no adds, no nothing, through a normal video player.

zozbot234
YT has a lot less censorship than most cable TV packages, all things considered. And "I never watch video category X, so I'd rather not pay for it" is neither here nor there, unless you'd rather have to pay a la carte for every single YT category you may want to watch in the future. Having a single payment for the service as a whole is just better.
[dead] yeah986
pretty based desu
mumbisChungo
It’s not really free though is it? It just doesn’t cost money.
zozbot234
Yes, I meant free as in free beer of course. I thought that was fairly obvious.

(If you care about genuinely Free alternatives, they're out there but most people would have to self-host them.)

mumbisChungo
That’a just a very strange comment to make. Why is it commentworthy that people would criticize a product that they do make an exchange to use and that has gotten markedly worse over time?
yarapavan
Yes, it is from the recent changes in YouTube's manage ad breaks policy. Starting July, they will be doing mid-roll ads for videos longer than 8 minutes [1].

  Today, only videos longer than 10 minutes are eligible for mid-roll ads. Starting in late July, videos longer than 8 minutes will be eligible for mid-roll ads. As part of this change, mid-roll ads will be turned on for all eligible existing videos and future video uploads, including those videos where you may have previously opted out of mid-roll ads. Videos that already have mid-roll ads turned on will not be impacted. If mid-roll ads are not a good fit for your videos, you can indicate this preference in YouTube Studio by July 27, 2020.

  Mid-roll ads will be automatically placed at natural breaks in your videos to balance viewer experience and monetization potential for you. After these changes, you will still be able to turn mid-rolls off or adjust the placement in each video manually.
[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en
drcongo
I was happily blocking them with NextDNS and 1Blocker until about a week ago when suddenly they started getting past both blockers, multiple ads on every video.
princevegeta89
YouTube vanced on Android and Ublock origin on desktop. Problem solved. In my POV, the ads got worse a long time ago.
x87678r
Also product placement in the video is pretty common.

I'm starting to look at Twich, vimeo more, any other alternatives?

kobc
I think Google is preparing the axe, or at least something equally drastic.
Priem19
No idea. Since I'm using FireFox, Blokada (AdGuard DNS) on Android, and FireFox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix, NoScript on PC, my mental RAM does not get strained by ads and other nonsense.
Stubb
Most of the content creators I follow also upload to BitChute (or have been booted from YouTube), so I've moved all my playlists there. I also donate $5/month to BitChute.

Grabbing videos off YouTube with youtube-dl for local viewing is another way to skip ads. Given their censorious policies, I have zero interest in paying YouTube to go ad-free.

onhn
For me its also the quality of the ads which is a problem. Over and over I get Grammerly adverts even though I always flag them as repetitive, inappropriate or irrelevant (always signed in). They have nothing to do with my interests or viewing habits.

Twitch does an outstanding job by comparison.

Olumde
I hate, Hate, HATE grammerly ads.