7 ms·

YouTube has definitely become more and more ad-ridden since its inceptions, and the ads are definitely personalized (though badly). There are now videos with mu

YouTube has definitely become more and more ad-ridden since its inceptions, and the ads are definitely personalized (though badly). There are now videos with multiple ad interruptions, a bit like ye olde TV. I do think one difference here is that on YouTube, if a video is full of ads, I won't keep watching long unless the content is solid and interesting. I, as a watcher, have a choice as to what I watch. Though of course, YouTube could fix that by imposing the same amount of ads on all videos.

zwkrt 8y ago
Just today I swear I was served an ad that didn't have a yellow bar, so we can all look forward to that hell. At least cable is produced to have ad breaks that make sense, as opposed to cutting sentences in half.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  What's the point of the yellow bars? I'm a little surprised they exist in the first place. What were they added in response to?
  - therealx 8y ago
    To let you skip the ad before it's over. You typically have to wait a few seconds but it's less than the full wait.
pjc50 8y ago
Adblockers (and youtube-dl and newpipe) still work on youtube, fortunately. It'll be a sad day when they ban those.
- jchw 8y ago
  youtube-dl already violates the ToS, of pretty much any service it supports. But I doubt it'll ever make up a noticeable amount of traffic and it's certainly very useful, so my personal bet is tools like this will mostly continue to work unless they somehow become a threat to services in some way.
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  In the last two weeks youtube started having problems with uBlock. If it's on, youtube refuses to play videos that have ads on. At least for me. Maybe they are testing the ad-block-blockers, and I'm one of the subjects.
  - 14 8y ago
    any videos in particular not having any issues myself
mancerayder 8y ago
I pay for Premium because I have zero tolerance for ads. I think PBS Eons, Kurgesacht, Rogan podcasts and random searches for stand-up are worth their weight in gold. I'll pass on insurance and web design ads, thanks.
assblaster 8y ago
I use YouTube Red, no ads, ever. And you get access to the entire Google music library. Can't beat it for $7.99/month.
- biglenny 8y ago
  I use uBlock Origin. No ads, ever. And you get access to all the music uploaded to YouTube. $0.00/month
  - userbinator 8y ago
    For many years I've used a few shell scripts to turn YouTube into a "radio" of sorts, basically going through search results for a specific term (usually a music genre) and playing each one. It works pretty well, and the only ad-like experience is when it decides to play something not-really-related-nor-actually-music that just showed up in the results, but IMHO the "what was that?" aspect is part of the fun. I'm clearly not the only one who came up with such an idea: https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
- gtirloni 8y ago
  It makes me sad your comment is being downvoted. If people aren't happy with ads, they aren't happy paying for anything, then what's the alternative? I don't see any. Those people need to get paid for their work somehow.
  - msla 8y ago
    It's getting downvoted because paid options grow ads, like most cable channels did. (Not all of them. I think TCM is still ad-free.) Plus, a comment sibling to this one said YouTube Red has ads, so there's that.
    - gtirloni 8y ago
      What does grow ads mean? FUD? YouTube Premium is ad-free, it says so in their frontpage. Are you saying that's a blatant lie? That doesn't address my point that content producers should get paid. From YouTube Premium ad: "Ad-free YouTube, and our new music streaming service, YouTube Music. Services: No ads, Downloads, Background play."
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Of course, Youtube is free, unless you have a Youtube Red subscription, in which case you don't see ads. And the fact of the matter is, the ads they do have don't produce enough revenue to support most creators. I suppose you could argue that's because Google's cut is too high, but in Youtube's case (as opposed to, say, Apple's App Store), I feel Google is providing a substantial service—hosting, encoding, and distributing a huge amount of data.
pier25 8y ago
I have a Play Music subscription which includes YouTube Red. I haven't seen an ad in years.

zwkrt 8y ago

Just today I swear I was served an ad that didn't have a yellow bar, so we can all look forward to that hell. At least cable is produced to have ad breaks that make sense, as opposed to cutting sentences in half.

Waterluvian 8y ago
What's the point of the yellow bars? I'm a little surprised they exist in the first place. What were they added in response to?
- therealx 8y ago
  To let you skip the ad before it's over. You typically have to wait a few seconds but it's less than the full wait.

pjc50 8y ago

Adblockers (and youtube-dl and newpipe) still work on youtube, fortunately. It'll be a sad day when they ban those.

jchw 8y ago
youtube-dl already violates the ToS, of pretty much any service it supports. But I doubt it'll ever make up a noticeable amount of traffic and it's certainly very useful, so my personal bet is tools like this will mostly continue to work unless they somehow become a threat to services in some way.
bufferoverflow 8y ago
In the last two weeks youtube started having problems with uBlock. If it's on, youtube refuses to play videos that have ads on. At least for me. Maybe they are testing the ad-block-blockers, and I'm one of the subjects.
- 14 8y ago
  any videos in particular not having any issues myself

mancerayder 8y ago

I pay for Premium because I have zero tolerance for ads. I think PBS Eons, Kurgesacht, Rogan podcasts and random searches for stand-up are worth their weight in gold. I'll pass on insurance and web design ads, thanks.

assblaster 8y ago

I use YouTube Red, no ads, ever. And you get access to the entire Google music library. Can't beat it for $7.99/month.

biglenny 8y ago
I use uBlock Origin. No ads, ever. And you get access to all the music uploaded to YouTube. $0.00/month
- userbinator 8y ago
  For many years I've used a few shell scripts to turn YouTube into a "radio" of sorts, basically going through search results for a specific term (usually a music genre) and playing each one. It works pretty well, and the only ad-like experience is when it decides to play something not-really-related-nor-actually-music that just showed up in the results, but IMHO the "what was that?" aspect is part of the fun. I'm clearly not the only one who came up with such an idea: https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
gtirloni 8y ago
It makes me sad your comment is being downvoted. If people aren't happy with ads, they aren't happy paying for anything, then what's the alternative? I don't see any. Those people need to get paid for their work somehow.
- msla 8y ago
  It's getting downvoted because paid options grow ads, like most cable channels did. (Not all of them. I think TCM is still ad-free.) Plus, a comment sibling to this one said YouTube Red has ads, so there's that.
  - gtirloni 8y ago
    What does grow ads mean? FUD? YouTube Premium is ad-free, it says so in their frontpage. Are you saying that's a blatant lie? That doesn't address my point that content producers should get paid. From YouTube Premium ad: "Ad-free YouTube, and our new music streaming service, YouTube Music. Services: No ads, Downloads, Background play."

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

Of course, Youtube is free, unless you have a Youtube Red subscription, in which case you don't see ads. And the fact of the matter is, the ads they do have don't produce enough revenue to support most creators. I suppose you could argue that's because Google's cut is too high, but in Youtube's case (as opposed to, say, Apple's App Store), I feel Google is providing a substantial service—hosting, encoding, and distributing a huge amount of data.

pier25 8y ago

I have a Play Music subscription which includes YouTube Red. I haven't seen an ad in years.