this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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We've gone full circle
I certainly prefer fewer and longer ad breaks, over several short ones, but this still sucks.
Why prefer any of it...block em all and tell corporations to pound sand.
Don't negotiate with terrorists.
This will probably pull down votes, but I really do want the discuss this honestly.
I despise ads. I block them on everything that I can. I am fine with anyone and everyone blocking anything they don't want to see.
What I don't understand is why everyone is so upset with YouTube for trying to get people watch ads?
They have to pay for all the infrastructure somehow and I'm sure it isn't cheap. What are they supposed to do?
This isn't rhetorical or argumentive, I'm genuinely asking what the ethical approach to maintaining this infrastructure is.
Personally, I don’t mind the idea of paying YouTube to remove ads. I’m pragmatic enough to understand that you don’t get shit for free, particularly when that shit is using unimaginable amounts of data.
What I object to is that the YT Premium family plan is now more than £20 a month.
For the cost of Disney+ and Apple TV+ I can watch semi-professional video makers talking at a camera for ten minutes. Video makers who aren’t getting paid all that much for what they do. Video makers who also include sponsors reads.
So I fired up the trusty VPN, “flew to Ukraine” and signed up for around £3 a month. Fuck ‘em.
The mad thing is; if there was a £5 a month tier that only removed ads and didn’t include YT Music, I’d sign up to that without question. I watch a good amount of YouTube content on my Apple TV; I’m happy to pay. But I’m not happy to pay what YT are asking.
THANK YOU. I've been saying this for ages. I really wouldn't mind even £8 a month for the no ads since I spend a lot of time on YouTube, but I am in no way paying extra for bells and whistles I don't need. I already have Spotify, I don't want to and nor am I going to pay for an extra music service that I just won't use. I'm on an unlimited data plan for god's sake, I don't care about downloading videos.
It's the progressive intrusion and shady tactics. Going from multiple short ads to fewer longer ads seems like a small step. But from the original of maybe a static banner ad to the multiple full screen pop-ups, moving banners, unclosable ads, and whatever other bullshit they pull, we've come a long fucking way. Add onto that, harvesting data for ads and being incentivized to do so questions security.
It's more a protest to marketing in general trying to face fuck the world for another penny and enshittified products or services gleefully ruining what was once good for a penny.
I know others have said previously, but for me I hate the amount of tracking and targeting that gets thrown into the ads that try to pull as much personal information from you as possible so they can make every cent from that info. I like to keep my life as private as I can online. YouTube by no means has any respect for that.
Having an ad here and there wouldn’t normally bother me so much if it also wasn’t for the complete lack of filtering YouTube does on what ads are “acceptable”. So many ads have been misleading, contain false information, and are just down right inappropriate. An ad for a product is fine but I really don’t want to listen to another ad with an AI voice telling me to buy a product that is a blatant scam. If they are this strict on making creators follow the YouTube Guidelines, they should make ads follow them too.
I do understand that things aren’t free and I do support the creators I watch with buying merch or through donations, wherever that may be (KoFi, Patreon, etc). I would pay for YouTube premium but it’s just way too much money for the little that I would actually benefit from it. I don’t need or want YouTube Music. I just don’t want to have ads. But for $18.99 a month, no thank you.
TL;DR: Too much tracking and privacy invasive, ads don’t follow YouTube’s own guidelines and too expensive just to simply stop ads.
On top of the tracking within the ads themselves, you also have all of the general usage data that Google sells. They're double-dipping.
Right!? It’s insane how much data they pull from you and just the shear amount of trackers in general
My major grip with the current ads are that they are obtrusive and repetitive.
On broadcast TV, I dont mind ads as much because the shows were written, filmed, and edited with predictable ad breaks in mind. I have a good idea how long the ad break will be and when they happen. Makes it easy to plan bathroom breaks, drink refills, or discuss what we're watching.
On Youtube, the ads seemingly pop up at random, usually in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes, there will be 2 ad breaks, and other times, there are 4 ad breaks for similar videos. If youtube would make ads consistent (30 second ad break at the half way point for < 10 mins vids; 15 second at break at 1/3 of the way through the video and a second one at 2/3 of the video for 10 - 30 min vids; etc) and content creators would edit their vidoes for these predetermined ad breaks, they would be much more palatable.
I get that the ad pool is based on tracking data/video content, but watching the same pool of 3 or 4 ads makes me less likely to buy something. Throw in some random ads in there, too, to break up the monotony.
This seems like a crazy amount of ads to me. On live TV, I wouldn't expect more than one ad break every 15 minutes of broadcast, with fewer on things like feature films. YouTube is mostly short form content; there's no reason why there couldn't just be ads at the beginning for the vast majority of content, with only the longer videos needing a different approach. If you're mostly watching <20 minute videos, you're still getting a similar number of "ad breaks" per viewing hour.
The idea of having a 30 second ad break 5 minutes into a 10 minute video would 100% be unacceptable to me.
It was just an example of different ad structures for different length videos, not anything close to a final proposal. I mostly watch very long form content (>30mins), so my example is probably not the best for shorter vids.
It's sadly not when compared to live TV. The thing to remember about live TV ad breaks is that commercials are longer, and so are the breaks. On TV, each commercial is closer to 30 seconds, and the breaks are closer to 3 minutes. ~12 mins/hour (4x 3 mins breaks per hour) for TV vs ~3 mins/hour (6x 30s breaks) for my example. Even if youtube doubled up and put 2x 30s ad breaks in a 10 mins vid, that's still 6min/hour of ads.
Front-loading the ads makes sense for shorter vids. I chose the middle because youtube seems to want to put them during the video, even on the shorter vids. I chose 30 seconds based on ads being 2x 15 seconds long each, which is what I normally see while watching Youtube without adblockers. Maybe prioritize shorter ads in shorter vids? So, 2x 5 second ads instead of the 2x 15 second ads.
I honestly don't see the problem with video ads embedded in the video stream. It seems like it'd be far harder to slip something malicious to the computer in there than banner ads served from somewhere else. It's a system that worked for broadcast TV for decades.
To the extent they offer a paid service with no ads, that also seems ethical to me.
The part where Youtube kind of falls down for me is unlike TV shows where the broadcaster is paying for the content, youtube content is basically free to Youtube. So them collecting money seems unfair and leaves the content creators to do sponsored / ad breaks themselves to pay for the content.