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Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?

132 points by sarreph ↗ HN
I never used to have a problem watching the first 5 seconds of a sponsored commercial on some of the more popular YouTube videos, but I've noticed a startling increase in the amount of ads being served to me. It is at the point where I would say 3 in every 4 videos plays an ad now. It's disgustingly frustrating.

Has anyone else noticed this?

If so, has there been an announcement regarding this that I've missed? Perhaps even something to do with Google+ IDs being used for user accounts?

124 comments

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OafTobark
Users enable ads on their account I believe. If people are choosing to monetize their videos, thats going to happen more and more.
HaEB4zcjbp
https://adblockplus.org/

https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl

herbig
After having used adblock plus for like the last 2 years, I disabled it the other day and have been amazed at how terrible the Internet is without it.
dethstar
Whenever I use someone else's computer I'm always amazed and wonder how can they stand it. I have noticed people actually getting frustrated at ads making sounds and what not.
yeukhon
You should read this: https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the-numbers

after hearing a talk Robert Hansen gave at AppSec USA, I then realize why adblock plus has been doing a poor job :( it can't stop most of the pop ups and ads anymore.

HaEB4zcjbp
It does if you uncheck "Allow some non-intrusive advertising"
nullymcnull
I think you misunderstand. AdBlock doesn't force this whitelisting, it merely defaults to using it.
yeukhon
Did you just say they default to use the whitelist ad program?
nullymcnull
Yes, I believe if you just blindly click through the initial install for the extension, the limited whitelisting (for 'unobtrusive ads') will be in effect. That's the whole idea, isn't it - to whitelist for the majority of users who don't read the fine print or tweak things, while still allowing anyone who cares to shut it off.
alan_cx
Could not agree more. Its almost frighting.

It kinda reminds me, as a long standing Formula 1 fan, of what NASCAR looked like on TV when I first started watching it. It was like being assaulted with brand names. Quite a culture shock.

However, these days, I try to be oh so generous and disable the adblock for sites that I, in my "wisdom", want to get the ad revenue. Hell, I'll even click a few if Im feeling especially generous!!!!

foobarqux
Don't you know it's your solemn duty to brainwash yourself so that others can get paid?
comex
Personally, while I'm almost frustrated enough with YouTube ads to use an ad blocker, I'm hesitant to do so because the authors of the videos I watch are often precisely the kind of people I want to support, and I've heard YouTube is hard enough to depend on for income without people blocking ads. I'd love to have an option to directly pay money instead, but I doubt it'll ever happen.

Twitch.tv is similar but considerably more annoying - but it provides such an option, and I'm considering buying it, although (unlike YouTube) I probably don't watch enough Twitch videos for it to be worthwhile.

chii
check out subbable.com , they sure trying to make content the same way npr does. thru donations and funding drives.
judk
I would guess most full time producers would have swag shops where you can spend money on them.
dredmorbius
For people who are missing your second link: youtube-dl is a video downloader, and it works on far, far more than just YouTube.

The benefits: you download videos at your discretion and preference. You can archive them if you want (I do this largely for documentary / lecture videos), and play them back locally using the video player of your preference. I generally prefer either mplayer or xine, both offer keyboard controls over playback, vastly better rewind / forward control than YouTube's default player (or anyone else's for that matter), consistent video controls for all videos, and the ability to speed up (I run most straight presentation videos at 120 - 160% of normal) or slow down (things going boom) videos as desired.

Embedded players are OK for getting a quick sample of something or very brief content, but not for serious viewing.

gizmo686
Also, using clive, I noticed that I get much more consistent download speed.
chaz
FF/RW problems may be your ISP and not YT. TWC is notorious for routing YT through its own servers and it's terrible; others may be just as bad. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5276772
dredmorbius
Not using TWC. It could be my ISP's peers, but my ISP itself is both rather competent and very network neutral.
cupcake-unicorn
Give AdblockEdge a try. It's a true open source clean fork of AdblockPlus, and it doesn't have the "acceptable ads" whitelisted, which are only whitelisted in some cases because Google/etc. paid them off.
dgesang
Agreed, "Adblock Edge" is the way to go. Original "Adbock Plus" gets money from Google to not filter their ads:

    Google has tried to fight back against Adblock, partly by paying Adblock to whitelist some of their ads. 
    Google’s business model is all about ads but as awareness of Adblock grows it’s increasingly difficult to get ads in front of online users.
src: http://socialtimes.com/youtube-pre-roll-ads-drive-users-inst...

Also: https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the-numbers

fhd2
I work on Adblock Plus and would like to clarify some things:

1. Adblock Plus is fully open source, has always been, will always be. Everything else we do is open source too, including our infrastructure and backend systems. (https://hg.adblockplus.org/)

2. Adblock Edge is an unmaintained (edit: Not true, there've been some changes lately) fork of an old Adblock Plus version, with the Acceptable Ads feature removed.

3. Acceptable Ads are an opt-out feature which whitelists ads that comply with the Acceptable Ads criteria. Large sites have to support the project in return, but there's no way around the criteria. (https://adblockplus.org/en/about)

As an aside, we're currently looking into a way of making it easy for users to whitelist ads on YouTube channels they like automatically. Pre-roll video ads will never be acceptable and hence never will be whitelisted for all users by default, but many people still want to support individual YouTubers.

spyder
I don't think it's fair to say that Adblock Edge is unmaintained when it has more recent updates than Adblock Plus:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/...

fhd2
Oh wow, you're right, there've been some changes lately. Edited that above. Last time I checked it seemed pretty dead.

I don't mind forks at all, that's why ABP is open source. Just thought it's a pity it was unmaintained, but it really looks like they're putting some effort into it now.

iamshs
Acceptable ads should be opt-in feature and not opt-out. You are just building an ecosystem where you hold ad networks hostage. And you are being paid by Google.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5995140

fhd2
The opt out rate is below 5% right now - that's what the opt in rate would be, probably even a bit less. There's no way to get any site interested in improving their ads like this. It's definitely controversial, I wasn't a fan of this at first either, but it really wouldn't change anything the other way around.

Also, we're clearly communicating this on our website, the first run page and in the settings UI and make it dead-simple to opt out. We're even planning to show a little notice next to whitelisted ads in the future.

zmitri
I noticed this recently as well. I had not seen any ads for a long time as I use AdBlock and AdBlockPlus for Chrome but they have started slipping through in the past few weeks.
yRetsyM
I've found that YouTube ramps up ad volume as you increase your viewing. I can do a short session of a video or two (5minutes) without any. But if I increase that to long form content or longer session then ads seem to get center stage.
alanctgardner2
I don't know why it did't happen sooner. I started pre-roll seeing ads on mobile as well, which I don't remember until recently.

I don't get why it's disgusting. This is how video creators and Google are supposed to get paid. It's annoying to me that people want free content, and they keep pushing companies to "get traction first, then monetize". This is what has to happen, or else Google has to keep subsidizing progressively larger bandwidth bills - and the people who are creating the content have to keep their day jobs.

cclogg
I guess it's just annoying that it's practically on everything now... like everyone is trying to make that 4 cents in ad revenue off of their kitten rolling around or whatever lol ><

I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started (as in I closed the browser tab after seeing I had to wait 15s or 30s). Youtube still has dominance now but if you keep getting in the way of people, something better will come along and usurp you (ie StackOverflow vs Experts Exchange).

enneff
> I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started

If you don't like ads, keep doing this. YouTube will notice and it will affect their decision making.

gizmo686
Youtube has 2 types of users it needs to worry about: viewers, and uploaders. One of its major offerings to uploaders is the ability to monotize. It is difficult to see how a competitor can offer this without advertisements.
daveid
Perhaps paid subscriptions per channel, with free tiers (or amounts) of content?
graeme
Here's one example use case where the ads are horrible: playlists.

Youtube has these "top tracks" playlists. When I discover a new artist, I'll often put that on and go do something else.

If a rollover ad comes on, I have to come back to the computer, and click the "skip" button, since I'm not sitting down.

One thing I was wondering: does the content creator make money when I skip the ad, or only when I take some kind of action based on it?

socillion
Advertisers do not pay for skipped ads.
phillmv
I'm sure they could drive some value out of a skipped ad. There's definitely some brand impression, and not to mention metrics on what works and what doesn't.
judk
Maybe Google is being non-evil, only accepting payment for ads users accept.
GauntletWizard
The content creator might get paid when you click, or might get paid per impression. The the creator is absolutely not paid is when you click Skip. Click skip when you don't like the ad; It drives up the price for a successful watch, because ads that get skipped don't get played. There's an ecosystem, it can be played, but it has the proper knobs and controls to combat the playing.
alan_cx
The creator will get zero if punters get irritated with having to run back and forth to their PC's, and just down load the work and consume it locally.
bryan_rasmussen
This is true, but really if you are running a playlist of music you are using it like a radio - I tend to get an ad per every video which is quite a bit more than other radio solutions, it breaks up the flow and so forth.
xerophtye
are the ads same? If so, either the system should be smart enough to not show me ad if i skipped it a few times. Or perhaps provide a "dont show me this ad" checkbox
icebraining
Click skip when you don't like the ad

I do, that's why I click it every time.

DatrixTSW
That would be gould if there weren't ads that last 20 seconds or 30seconds long without a skip feature which is what I have had to deal with and was forced to use Adblocker Plus. Now I don't have to see such stupid ads.

1. Presidential Smear Campaigns (I hate those because it really is a matter of choice for the person voting isn't it...Who cares who did what let the voter decide)

2. Movies I don't care to see (Reality TV Movies and those numerous remakes).

And anyothers I hate.

gcb0
It's pretty obvious why it didn't happen before... There were still competition.

Google is following Microsoft 90s playbook for a decade now.

brc
I personally have no problem with including ads with YouTube content- it was always going to end that way.

The problem is the fact you have to 'pay' before you get to play. When a FTA tv puts on a movie, they give you 10-15 minutes of content to hook you into he movie, then ramp up the ads toward the end, knowing hor going to stick around to see the end.

YouTube != TV movies, but it feels like you have to watch all the superbowl ads upfront before a player takes the field. When you're speculatively flicking through YouTube videos looking for the right one, it degrades the experience when you have to go through the ad process before even committing to watching even 10% of the video.

So to me it would be better if the ad cut in during the frat x seconds of the video. The video owner could pick a break-point when editing so the more pro channels could properly cut to an ad-break, and the viewers could could set through the dross to find the one without the cheesy music and graphic overlays or terrible quality.

judk
I would much rather wait five seconds than have the video ruined by an interruption. Yt videos are short. You don't have a 10 minute warm up.
sologrrl
Edit: Found the article, here it is http://socialtimes.com/youtube-pre-roll-ads-drive-users-inst...

Can't find the article now, but I recently read that the Youtube ads getting more obnoxious is hurting a lot of small advertizers and sites. Because of the annoyance, even many non tech people are increasingly looking for solutions and installing ad blocks, which block all ads and not just Youtube's. Google can get around this somewhat by paying Adblock Plus to unblock it's own text ads, but a number of small fish cannot.

Previous discussion of Youtube ads on Reddit here. http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/18m95j/has_anyo...

bad_user
To me they are annoying because they disallow you to skip them for the first few seconds. Their targeting also doesn't do a very good job.

But let me tell you the real problem with YouTube ads. Recently in my country there has been a public outcry against a mining project, which is dangerous not only because of ecological reasons, but also because it needs special laws that trump our constitutional rights and the whole deal is filled with documented corruption. Movies started popping on Youtube describing the perils of open-pit gold mining with cyanide.

Well guess what, the company behind the project started displaying ads on every one of those clips, showing local poor villagers crying for "jobs", with one of the big fat lies of the project being that it will create plenty of jobs. It won't of course, but that's besides the point.

The point is, say somebody believes in something and posts a video on YouTube. A company or an individual can always display ads right at the start of that clip in disagreement and there's no way in hell that you can stop it. If you report it, what are you going to report it for? Now, I believe in freedom of speech, but that's just immoral, as freedom of speech doesn't imply forcing your opposition to present your case in their argument. And it's not freedom of speech when your opposition is a multi-national with all the money it needs to buy whatever it wants.

So that's why YouTube ads are immoral. Because they are more intrusive than normal ads and can be used for disinformation. And because I don't use AdBlock, I limit my visits to YouTube. I used to use it for listening to music, but there are much better options for that.

What I don't get from such services ... maybe I'm willing to pay a monthly subscription. That's what I do with Google Apps. Why not give me the option to turn those ads off?

ejain
I don't think you can place ads in any movie--only movies that have the "monetization" feature enabled.

It's the same issue as with Google AdSense, though there you have options to exclude certain ads.

bad_user
I have a hard time believing that the radio select in YouTube's settings works, because I'm talking about dozens of videos, posted by different publishes, all of them with ads from the company I'm talking about. Maybe the publishers in question weren't aware of that setting.

Let me tell you more - I was visiting the US when the protests started and I posted YouTube links on my Facebook account, completely unaware that the videos in question were served with those ads, because those ads targeted only Romanians. The act of publishing a link is also an act of publishing. When I publish a link, I should be completely aware of what I'm publishing, OK?

Also, we go back full circle to monetization needs. I'm not seeing controls in YouTube for banning certain ads from happening. That radio select is a global switch. You either want ads or you don't. Also the question is stupid. Because it's an opt-out and if you are unaware of the setting, you're implicitly opted-in AND most importantly, that doesn't mean you'll receive any money from your views and likes [1]. Like, seriously?

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en

corobo
It's an account-wide setting to allow the monetize option. From there it's up to the account owner to enable/disable per video they upload [1]. There are other things in place such as the ContentID matching which will disable ads until you prove you're allowed to use the content if it matches anything but generally speaking it's up to whoever owns the channel you're viewing videos on. They would almost definitely know they have ads enabled - there's even a green dollar sign next to the video in the manager if ads are enabled

Advertising-wise you can target pretty much anything/anyone Google knows really - You could very easily (It's one of the easiest options to configure even) target people in a specific country. There's more advanced stuff such as re-targeting people who have already seen the ad/content specifically too. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to target a specific channel or at least whatever common content is in each of the videos (the most notable mine name involved, for example).

[1] http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png

xyproto
If anyone from Google is reading this: what happened to "don't be evil"?
matthewmacleod
1. Making money is not evil.

2. Adverts only appear on YouTube for videos where monetization has been enabled or a third party owns the rights to the content. The description given by the GP post is somewhat misleading.

bad_user
2. You're wrong. Monetization doesn't have to be enabled. The switch is in YouTube's settings and it's called "Allow advertisements to be displayed alongside my videos". That's not monetization.

I've also never met a single Romanian that earns money from YouTube videos. Google treats us as second-class citizens anyway (I still can't sell apps in Google Play btw). The clips I'm talking about have been in the dozens, many by volunteers, by different publishers, all of them with the ads in question. And as I was explaining in another comment, when I started distributing links, I wasn't aware of those ads because I was not targeted and publishing a link is also an act of publishing.

So yeah, rejoice in the availability of that checkbox. Everything is good.

itchitawa
The real problem is the viewer who get suckered. Let people watch both and learn to make decisions for themselves.
bad_user
I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about piggybacking the efforts of your opposition to get your message across. And when we are talking about a company that has been delivering advertisements for 10 years (I'm not kidding), to the point that during the protests there has been a total media blackout happening, probably because they were afraid of losing money, the fight is really not fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Romanian_protests_against_...

janlukacs
Rosia Montana Gold Corporation? :) nasol.
xerophtye
I guess "report" is too strong an option, but you tehy should provide you the ability to ive feedback. Even FB lets u tell them that this ad is against my beliefs and i dont want to see it.
jjkmk
I honestly would not be able to use 99% of the internet without adblock plus. I would end up infected with malware / spyware weekly, being misdirected.

Also to add to what you said, I personally don't care to see any more ad's. One can argue about the merits of this statement but I'm strictly approaching this from a pragmatic standpoint.

I wish there was a middle ground between using Adblock plus and helping content creators get paid; from what I can tell there currently isn't an option like this.

psathvik
There are initiatives like http://subbable.com that aim to help bridge this gap - Subscribers such as yourself can help fund your favorite channels and keep them ad-free
cpleppert
It's annoying because google has done the worst possible thing and put ads in front of every video because you even decide to watch it. It totally breaks the point of being able to browse selections of video if you can't do it without seeing an ad every time.

Google really needs to leverage all the screen real-estate on youtube or take advantage of the active video discovery process of its users. Youtube shouldn't just be a TV where ads are pushed every x minutes or every video like clockwork.

davedx
I'd rather pay a monthly subscription to YouTube than see the amount of ads they show. Instead I've installed AdBlock. Now they get 0 revenue from me.

Games on app stores have figured this out: many of them have "Ad supported" or "Paid" versions. Why can't Google?

zmonkeyz
I don't have a problem with their ads either. What I do have a problem with is that the videos sometime load really slow while the ads are always lightning fast :P
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sjtgraham
I have definitely noticed this too. It also brought to my attention how much I use YouTube as I noticed how often I felt pissed because of yet another pre-roll.
sudomal
Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.
hemdawgz
Eh, the ads are easy enough to circumvent on a PC. I think what OP is complaining about is just the fact that they're being pushed a lot harder recently.
hcarvalhoalves
I can confirm that.

It also used to skip pre-rolls when you reloaded the page, now it will keep displaying the pre-roll until you watch it.

simcop2387
I've had it show the pre-roll ad every time I watch a video before, i suspect it's a malfunction but can never be sure.
drawkbox
Compared to hulu and others they haven't yet but it is more pervasive.

The 'skip' link is still in after you watch one longer ad in a series. At least they have that because watching ads for online videos is not the same as TV.

Back in the day on TV you'd get 10-15 minutes of entertainment before a commercial. Here you are watching :30 spots for another minute long video or maybe a few minutes on most occasions. So ad sites really need to take that into consideration.

Noone wants to watch more ad time than actual video time, keep at least a sane balance. A balance that will keep people watching not turn them away forever.

razvanr
The problem is that most people go to YouTube for quick content. It becomes useless when you have to stop 3 out of 4 times for 5-30 seconds, as OP pointed out. It completely changes the YouTube experience and just doesn't feel "right" or scalable as a business model.

Or, if Google sticks to it then the sort of content that gets consumed might change. I already find myself skipping to see videos under 2 minutes if there's an ad before.

I never felt pushed around by ads on Netflix, South Park or any other premium content though.

Amadou
The net is soooo ripe for a distributed replacement of Youtube, Facebook, Gmail, etc. Once upon a time those sorts of sites provided real value in hosting files, pictures, video and providing a well-known endpoint like gmail.

But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables for finding files. Someone is going to come along with a distributed system that gains enough traction and just wipe all of these guys off the map.

To paraphrase the founder of RedHat, whatever comes next won't be the size of Youtube, it will make youtube the size of a bittorrent tracker.

ceejayoz
> But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables for finding files.

And 2 GB data caps. I don't want my phone's hard drive, processing power, and my cell phone bill all being used up for P2P videos.

Amadou
So, let your phone hold the canonical copy and let the swarm handle the efficient transfer of files -- not everybody will be on cellular data plans, hell you won't be on a cellular data plan when you are within range of a wifi AP like at home or the office.
eloff
If you think it's so easy, then you build it. Some of that has been done, some of it has yet to be done. But so far it sucks compared to the centralized system.
judk
Well how did YT make their money before Google acquired the-- oh. They didn't.
gojomo
Christmas marketing season?
rcthompson
Incidentally, I find that having a "skip" button available to me actually makes me more interested in the commercial, because I have to make an active decision about whether to watch it or not.
fierycatnet
Glad I am not the only one. In the last week or so I've noticed increase in ads as well. It's really annoying now, I frequently just skip watching video all together, I have a short attention span for this nonsense. 30 second ad so I can watch 1 minute video, no thank you.
tjmc
Frustrating yes. Disgusting no. YouTube is provided to you as a free service and advertisers pickup the tab.

Google paid over $1B for YouTube and people upload over 10 new hours of video every minute. Did you honestly expect they'd wear that kind of expense for ever?

ars_technician
The ads are mainly to spur content creation by the uploaders, not to foot google's bill.
cLeEOGPw
Is YouTube even profitable yet? A few years later, despite being one of the most visited websites on the internet, it still was at a loss I think.
nutanc
Skipping ads is so ingrained in us, YouTube has now taught my 6 year old daughter to skip ads. She was not doing that 2-3 months back. But now she does it and she does not even need help doing it.
aroman
Just today I started noticing this, yes. It's driving me insane.
robryan
Does youtube do anything smart around showing the same ads multiple times?

I watch a fair bit on twitch who don't have a lot of ads targeted at Australia. I think they do the advertiser and the viewer a disservice by repeating the same ad over and over again.

Say for example they are running an xbox one ad, after I have seen it for the 10th time in say a week I think it has really reached the maximum effectiveness that it is ever going to on me, showing it more is likely just blowing Microsoft's money.

We have a platform where everything can be precisely measured but the advertising is being shown like the traditional TV medium where there was no way to track how many times something was view by each viewer.

Guest2931
It would be up to the advertiser and if they want to cap impressions per user or not. Some advertisers simply don't care, and they'll pay to show their ad to the same person hundreds of times. Others will cap it at 3 impressions per user. YouTube/Google doesn't care, they'll show the ads for whoever is willing to pay the most.
byjove
Since when did HN become a YouTube support area?!

I personally haven't seen any uptake in ads nor will your anecdotal observations attract any sort of factual comments.

Also I don't think that a supposed 75% of videos showing ads is excessive (to get a perspective on "exessive" I suggest you take a look at Hulu).

Bandwidth isn't cheap and video creators deserve a paycheck, whinning about this sort of stuff strikes me as petty and a mark of false entitlement, also the FUD about G+ is unwarranted.

If you're truly wondering about related updates check their blogs, it's where the announcements usually are.

Detrus
It's totally obnoxious now and destroys usability. I was on a slow internet for a while and youtube mercilessly shoved ads on it. It was impossible to use. I found Youtube center and it smoothed the experience, allows me to disable ads and download video easily.

I also got it on the faster connection. It really makes life better. I'm willing to pay a few bucks to never see ads. Until that's an option youtube and deserving content creators will lose a few bucks.

Oh well. Just won't tolerate the current volume of ads.

judk
Are the ads higher bandwidth than the content?
Detrus
If you intend to watch content in 360p the ad may be 480p. Either way you have to wait for the ad to finish before the video would begin to buffer. And one in 5 ads didn't forward to the video because of some bug, so you have to refresh the page, watch the ad again.

On fast connections youtube often doesn't switch quality to 720p fast enough, so if you switch it yourself it will often stall. Then you have to refresh the page, watch an ad, then see updated quality.

YouTube center fixes this.

eru
> Until that's an option youtube and deserving content creators will lose a few bucks.

Not necessarily. Allowing the people most willing to spend money to opt out of ads, removes exactly the people someone would want to advertise to.

Detrus
Not sure what profit is from the average youtuber, but if it's $5 or lower that could work. Enough people might pay the fee instead of blocking ads and eating bandwidth.
Resident_Geek
It's important to remember that the ads you're shown on Youtube videos are controlled by the channel owner, not by Google. Youtube itself doesn't have much control over how many ads you see.
judk
Do paid videos (like GoT and BrBa) have these ads?