There's something about Youtube ads that are particularly bad. Straight-up pyramid scams promising free money from Amazon or Elon Musk preying on the vulnerable, offensive videos, and so on. It's much worse than the ads I see in magazines, billboards, or on network television.
That’s one of the things I never understood about proponents of the open internet.
The most gullible decile of society has to spend their free time somewhere… and there will always be millions of scammers, scoundrels, lunatics, etc., looking for places to set up shop.
So it seems inevitable that the open part of the internet will eventually consist mostly of the worst parts of human society preying on the bottom decile.
And even the best parts of the open internet will get drowned out by 800 million voices…
Yep, I used to advocate against using adblock on youtube. Seriously. My original logic may not have been sound (ads support the platform, indirectly the creator[0]), but I would absolutely never make that argument today. The decline in user experience has made unhinged ads being shoved in your face intolerable for me.
[0] sure this still applies, but sponsors and Patreons exist at a far higher rate than in 2015 when I first thought this, and it's on Google/youtube to figure out their monetization policy, not me.
The quality of "ad user experience" (and the inevitable end state for the new platform) was well known back when you've come up with your original logic
(and the challenge with sponsors/patreons of not having micro-transactions and having more friction from users is also still there)
Yeah that's true. I was arguing with people about this in secondary school for what it's worth, all the while getting what I would call misfitting undergarment ads.
Would you elaborate on what you mean by friction with micro transactions?
That makes sense. I know youtube has added channel memberships as a built-in now, but it doesn't seem easy to toss a one-time payment outside of livestream superchats. And even that isn't particularly use based.
I installed an ad blocker because a webcomic I liked was letting ads at the top of the page click jack users for an extended period of time and I’d finally had enough.
The plans are bad for light users. Something like a non-renewing $3 day pass would be better for me. (And better for Google as far as profit from me is concerned, since I currently pay them nothing.)
I was disappointed to realize how thin the veneer really is. And sometimes a music-carrying video will be unavailable in the music app because YT music and YT as video service apparently aren't subject to the same region rules.
If you look at the price tiers per country (https://www.theworldranking.com/statistics/671/youtube-premi...), you'll be able to see why - as a user in Switzerland - so far I wasn't willing to pay 250$ every year for YouTube Premium, it"s simply not worth the price to me. With less steep pricing, I'd pay.
> Thousands of cloned irises have been stolen from illegal AdViewCoin mining operation. Auth Syndicate refuses to intervene on behalf of the original iris owners, instead accusing them of biometric fraud for allowing the clones to be made in the first place.
>If you look at the image closely, you’ll notice a ‘skipping ads’ button on the bottom left, which gives us clues about what could be happening. While none of these users have disclosed whether they are using an ad blocker, the second image clearly shows one in the works.
>It’s possible that if you are using an ad blocker, YouTube is able to detect it and present you with an absurdly long, unskippable ad. There’s also a possibility that the ad blocker itself is glitching out the ad and its duration. Some comments have mentioned that the ad blocker could have blocked the ‘Skip’ button from showing up and subsequently failed to block the long ad, worsening the ad situation.
The "Youtube vs users" battle about how complicated they can make of for ad lockers has been frustrating to watch already.
But if they follow through and just cut us off at some point then fine. I ditched the habits of Facebook and Twitter, I'll learn to live without YouTube.
And before anyone argues to just pay up, I'm already subscribed to enough creators directly. I'm not giving Google one cent.
I mean they (Google) do provide a service. One could possibly argue that the content creators should pay Google to distribute their material, kind of like an equivalent to a AWS bill, but is anyone arguing that?
It would actually be a kind of reasonable argument, or at least more reasonable than the currently popular "Google is rich so they should provide services for absolutely free".
> I mean they (Google) do provide a service. One could possibly argue that the content creators should pay Google to distribute their material, kind of like an equivalent to a AWS bill, but is anyone arguing that?
People have argued this but Google has made it clear why they won’t charge - that is their moat. By pricing the service as free, they price out all competing services by making it so that all creators, new and old, will use YouTube by default. Especially with new creators, with no startup cost and a huge audience, there is no reason for to use any service that requires payment. This effectively tanks all competitors and is why the only surviving competing streaming services target niche audiences. For example, established creators who have the sway to bring an audience with them.
At the same time, YouTube AFAIK is the highest paying platform for content creators. Presumably this is because ad spots on YouTube are associated closely with the content itself, so YouTube actually has a more direct model for paying out, but is there any reason they can't be taking a bigger (but still small) cut of this revenue stream?
Google does charge if you don’t want ads. It’s called YouTube Premium and if one doesn’t like watching ads but do like watching YouTube, I would suggest putting one’s money where one’s mouth is.
I don’t understand this reply. The suggestion I’m replying to is about charging people (e.g., creators) for hosting the videos. It’s not about charging viewers. Perhaps you replied to the wrong comment?
"I would suggest putting one’s money where one’s mouth is."
How about no.
Why would anyone that doesn't make their money by wasting everyone's time and working on ads or isn't a stock holder in Google waste their time with ads? Have you ever tracked your life wasted by ads?
They will never charge and are clearly afraid to actually block ad blockers, possibly because they know they can't. I know I would watch a black mute box before every video before ever seeing a YouTube ad and sponsor block makes the rest of YouTube tolerable.
By pricing the service as free, they price out all competing services
offering something for less than it costs to produce is illegal in some countries. and while being generous can be ok, doing so to keep out competitors is the reason why it is or should be illegal. it should at least be illegal for companies that have a monopolistic market share.
It does seem like they have destroyed most of the competition. I was frustrated with the ad-blocking the other day and looking for a video but the whole first page of links was all youtube. I guess that's why they are starting to crack down on adblockers since people don't have as many other places to go now.
> all creators, new and old, will use YouTube by default
I think plenty of established YouTubers would like to switch to a platform that gives them more control (even if they pay hosting) if it didn't incur a hit to their viewership. New YouTubers use it because it's free and has a network effect. Old YouTubers use it because they're locked in.
Google's cost is not simply distribution but also what's needed to support its advertising; the surveillance of keeping track of who you are, what you want, and when, and the bidding system so it can sell advertising.
If content creators pay Google to distribute, that wouldn't pay for the surveillance/sales infrastructure, and it would take away the advertising profit center.
There's no business reason for Google to change unless the creators also pay at least as much as the expected advertising profits, fully amortized.
If they do that, then it'll almost certainly be cheaper to host elsewhere.
Also, Google dropped "don't be evil" a long time ago. I don't feel ethically comfortable giving them money. I pay a lot of people on patreon more money than they'd make off me with YouTube ads.
I'm replacing my Roku TV with a Google TV next month so I can take advantage of these as well, it's been a pain having them only on my phones/computers.
Not especially relevant to the OP, but as a very light facebook user, I've noticed the same thing with reels in my feed. I assume they don't have enough info other than "male" to target me with.
Lots of people probably log out to look at things they don't want in their history/affecting the recommendation algorithms, etc skewing the algorithm for people who are not logged in.
I noticed this too. It appears to mostly be funnels into people’s onlyfans. Post some softcore porn on YouTube to bait people into purchasing an onlyfans subscription.
Same. I've never searched for anything close to that on YT as there are a plethora of other places for porn that don't even require a browser. Thankfully there are uBlock filters to get rid of shorts [1].
Right and Google likely doesn’t want to be responsible for using one of their customers ads as an antiadblocker attack. That could result in reputational damage for the brand.
haha. We're well into the "where else you gonna go" phase of this one. People who are willing to pay for a Nebula subscription aren't YouTube's target audience.
I routinely see >1hr skippable ads, whenever I make the mistake of attempting to watch on my iPhone instead of my PC (Where Adblock works). They are definitely intentional ads. I don’t know why. The products vary wildly, but are all scams or scam-adjacent at the very least.
Most of my experience with them is that if I ever fall asleep watching a YouTube video, I wake up halfway through an ad about how I can “improve my life with this one simple trick” or how “Jesus can help me if I donate now”
But they have gotten much more aggressive lately. I tried to watch a 30 minute podcast on YouTube from my phone, and gave up 15 minutes in after the fourth hour-long (skippable) ad. They don’t show the duration until you interact with the screen now, so if I’m doing something else and not able to touch my phone right away I get a good few minutes in before I think “is this ad going to end?”
Logged in I am wildly mistargeted. When I go anonymous via private browsing, the YT ads are soft core porn. Is Google having trouble with inventory or ???
Yeah, I'm totally shocked at the amount of soft core troll porn spread across Meta, TikTok, YouTube and probably any other main stream tech property. Is Apple allowing this at all? I'm no church lady but I don't want this stuff cast onto my screens unless I'm searching for it specifically. They are pushing it on people involuntarily.
The idea that creators are being impacted negatively is purposefully dishonest.
- It suggests that what youtube cares about is creators and not their own profit margin, which is false
- It suggests that adblock users should be the ones to change their behavior, where Google could immediately simply pay the creators more for a much larger impact
- It ignores the plain facts of youtubes consistently increasing revenue.(1)
Companies should be held to a basic level of honest communication that this fails to meet.
Using uBlock and SponsorBlock here. I subscribe to a handful of channels I regularly watch, all of which have Patreons I throw a couple bucks to every month (about $14 bucks). No regrets.
If you have an Android TV just install SmartTube. It’s a better YouTube in all regards: no ads, no sponsored segments, better UI (you can rearrange the categories), you can block Shorts…
Who would even produce a 1- or 10- or even 90-hours long ad? Like, what advertiser would put that into the exchange? What would be their expectations?
Seems more likely to me YouTube is playing tricks here and just playing regular ads on repeat. Or selecting random other regular videos and playing them as ads, or something.
In those cases, it would at least be a clear case of punishment against ad-blocking users and not a "malfunction".
(I assume that no one went through the trouble of actually leaving the video on for 90 hours. So unless someone captured the video file, we have no idea if the displayed duration is actually correct)
I haven’t seen any ads this long in a long time, but when I did they weren’t ads in the traditional sense. They were things like terrible talk shows with a thinly veiled agenda, or infomercials.
This is why I have stopped logging in to my Google account when watching videos on YouTube.
Google is still fingerprinting me, of course, and applying their recommendation algorithm to what they show me on the default page, but at least they can't ban my Google account for violating their terms.
I will never stop using ad blockers. If I that means I'm blocked from accessing some web sites, then so be it.
90 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadThe most gullible decile of society has to spend their free time somewhere… and there will always be millions of scammers, scoundrels, lunatics, etc., looking for places to set up shop.
So it seems inevitable that the open part of the internet will eventually consist mostly of the worst parts of human society preying on the bottom decile.
And even the best parts of the open internet will get drowned out by 800 million voices…
[0] sure this still applies, but sponsors and Patreons exist at a far higher rate than in 2015 when I first thought this, and it's on Google/youtube to figure out their monetization policy, not me.
(and the challenge with sponsors/patreons of not having micro-transactions and having more friction from users is also still there)
Would you elaborate on what you mean by friction with micro transactions?
But also it's impossible to allocate $1 to some creator you rarely watch because there are no micro transactions that are use-based (unlike with ads)
I'm honestly shocked every time I'm exposed to ads these days. It's gotten dire.
> Thousands of cloned irises have been stolen from illegal AdViewCoin mining operation. Auth Syndicate refuses to intervene on behalf of the original iris owners, instead accusing them of biometric fraud for allowing the clones to be made in the first place.
>It’s possible that if you are using an ad blocker, YouTube is able to detect it and present you with an absurdly long, unskippable ad. There’s also a possibility that the ad blocker itself is glitching out the ad and its duration. Some comments have mentioned that the ad blocker could have blocked the ‘Skip’ button from showing up and subsequently failed to block the long ad, worsening the ad situation.
But if they follow through and just cut us off at some point then fine. I ditched the habits of Facebook and Twitter, I'll learn to live without YouTube.
And before anyone argues to just pay up, I'm already subscribed to enough creators directly. I'm not giving Google one cent.
It would actually be a kind of reasonable argument, or at least more reasonable than the currently popular "Google is rich so they should provide services for absolutely free".
This is fine to think like this, there is no reason to care about the financials of billion dollars companies
People have argued this but Google has made it clear why they won’t charge - that is their moat. By pricing the service as free, they price out all competing services by making it so that all creators, new and old, will use YouTube by default. Especially with new creators, with no startup cost and a huge audience, there is no reason for to use any service that requires payment. This effectively tanks all competitors and is why the only surviving competing streaming services target niche audiences. For example, established creators who have the sway to bring an audience with them.
How about no.
Why would anyone that doesn't make their money by wasting everyone's time and working on ads or isn't a stock holder in Google waste their time with ads? Have you ever tracked your life wasted by ads?
They will never charge and are clearly afraid to actually block ad blockers, possibly because they know they can't. I know I would watch a black mute box before every video before ever seeing a YouTube ad and sponsor block makes the rest of YouTube tolerable.
I don't like watching Youtube. The quality is crap, search is horrible, you are tracked.
offering something for less than it costs to produce is illegal in some countries. and while being generous can be ok, doing so to keep out competitors is the reason why it is or should be illegal. it should at least be illegal for companies that have a monopolistic market share.
I think plenty of established YouTubers would like to switch to a platform that gives them more control (even if they pay hosting) if it didn't incur a hit to their viewership. New YouTubers use it because it's free and has a network effect. Old YouTubers use it because they're locked in.
If content creators pay Google to distribute, that wouldn't pay for the surveillance/sales infrastructure, and it would take away the advertising profit center.
There's no business reason for Google to change unless the creators also pay at least as much as the expected advertising profits, fully amortized.
If they do that, then it'll almost certainly be cheaper to host elsewhere.
Most recently, the ?si= tracker on URLs shared are a new low that lets YouTube map out how we interact with other people.
[1] - https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
The pictures seem to indicate that and I really doubt somebody is uploading a 2h52m ad to youtube.
haha. We're well into the "where else you gonna go" phase of this one. People who are willing to pay for a Nebula subscription aren't YouTube's target audience.
Most of my experience with them is that if I ever fall asleep watching a YouTube video, I wake up halfway through an ad about how I can “improve my life with this one simple trick” or how “Jesus can help me if I donate now”
But they have gotten much more aggressive lately. I tried to watch a 30 minute podcast on YouTube from my phone, and gave up 15 minutes in after the fourth hour-long (skippable) ad. They don’t show the duration until you interact with the screen now, so if I’m doing something else and not able to touch my phone right away I get a good few minutes in before I think “is this ad going to end?”
- It suggests that what youtube cares about is creators and not their own profit margin, which is false
- It suggests that adblock users should be the ones to change their behavior, where Google could immediately simply pay the creators more for a much larger impact
- It ignores the plain facts of youtubes consistently increasing revenue.(1)
Companies should be held to a basic level of honest communication that this fails to meet.
(1) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/you...
SmartTube is amazing.
Who would even produce a 1- or 10- or even 90-hours long ad? Like, what advertiser would put that into the exchange? What would be their expectations?
Seems more likely to me YouTube is playing tricks here and just playing regular ads on repeat. Or selecting random other regular videos and playing them as ads, or something.
In those cases, it would at least be a clear case of punishment against ad-blocking users and not a "malfunction".
(I assume that no one went through the trouble of actually leaving the video on for 90 hours. So unless someone captured the video file, we have no idea if the displayed duration is actually correct)
Google is still fingerprinting me, of course, and applying their recommendation algorithm to what they show me on the default page, but at least they can't ban my Google account for violating their terms.
I will never stop using ad blockers. If I that means I'm blocked from accessing some web sites, then so be it.