5 ms·

> YouTube pre-roll ads God those are so awful. I wasn't running adblock on youtube, but that shit made me install one. I could be listening to a nice playlist

by Asooka 8y ago

> YouTube pre-roll ads God those are so awful. I wasn't running adblock on youtube, but that shit made me install one. I could be listening to a nice playlist and suddenly some ad at 200% volume blares in my ear "YOU NEED TO BUY THIS TOOTHPASTE" or whatever. I wouldn't mind being forced to watch ads before being allowed to watch other videos, but let me bank watch time. Tell me how much time I have left before the next ad and let me watch enough ads that I don't see any in the next e.g. 3 hours. Or okay let's say the ads I get depend on the videos I watch, then put the ads on my tab and let me watch them later. Whatever arrangement works, just let me control when the ads happen, because right now it's maximum obnoxious.

derefr 8y ago
> just let me control when the ads happen That is exactly what would make YouTube ads useless, from the advertisers' perspective. The key to "impressonability", from advertisers' PoV, is attention. You need to actually be looking at the ad. You don't have to think you're looking at the ad—you might think you're just looking at the "seconds until you can skip" timer—but you're looking (and listening) all the same, at least peripherally, and advertisers think that that's time they have power over you, in at least some subliminal sense. But if you let users bunch up twenty ads in a row? They're going to queue them up and then go get a drink. The audience won't be looking; won't be listening. The ability to control ads inherently means the ability to ignore ads. Ignored ads aren't impressions. The only valuable ad is an ad that sits on your attention stack on top of something that was getting your full attention, such that you have to (still with full attention) pop the ad from the stack to return your attention to the previous stack frame. Whether that's an ad in a newspaper between two columns where you have to pass "through" the ad content to find the next article; or an ad on YouTube where you have to wait; or a Google Sponsored link you have to read "past" to find the regular links; or a modal ad on a website that only appears five seconds after (the heuristic on the site says) you've started reading the content. The goal is to put the ad where your active attention is, such that the ad "impresses" upon your attention, however fleetingly. Anything else is a failed ad. And yes, it's obnoxious. But that's... what advertising is. Those are the only ads that are really doing their job. The ads that don't end up on top of your attention stack? Subtract those from your perception of the field—they're just cargo-cult attempts to advertise that persist because it's really hard to measure the success of ad campaigns. What's left when you subtract those nice, unobtrusive ads, is what advertising as a field is really "about." It's what advertising would be, exclusively, if they got better at measuring things. And it's awful.
- keepmesmall 8y ago
  Actually, it would be somewhat consensual if it were a setting with a time lock after the first change (e.g. you explicitly commit to the settings you choose for a set time). And there's zero issue with limiting ad distribution, you don't have to allow for queuing 20 ads in a row, just like your human cattle isn't obliged to keep the volume on and their eyes peeled. It's just that ads are irrelevant, disruptive, and non-consensual at the same time. The whole "ad impressions as subliminal messages" idea is a normalized form of non-consensual (senti-)mental assault or penetration, depending on whether it results in a headache or a purchase.
username223 8y ago
> some ad at 200% volume Advertisers are shameless, and will exploit anything until they are smacked down by laws. Congress and the FCC had to step in and regulate commercials' volume on TV (https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials), and I suspect the same will have to happen online as well. youtube-dl is the only thing that makes the site usable these days. It gets rid of ads and pop-ups, and decreases "engagement" by forcing you to copy the link over to the terminal to download and watch a video. It's even better than how people watched TV back in the day, by recording it to VHS tapes, then fast-forward through the ads.

by Asooka 8y ago

derefr 8y ago

> just let me control when the ads happen That is exactly what would make YouTube ads useless, from the advertisers' perspective. The key to "impressonability", from advertisers' PoV, is attention. You need to actually be looking at the ad. You don't have to think you're looking at the ad—you might think you're just looking at the "seconds until you can skip" timer—but you're looking (and listening) all the same, at least peripherally, and advertisers think that that's time they have power over you, in at least some subliminal sense. But if you let users bunch up twenty ads in a row? They're going to queue them up and then go get a drink. The audience won't be looking; won't be listening. The ability to control ads inherently means the ability to ignore ads. Ignored ads aren't impressions. The only valuable ad is an ad that sits on your attention stack on top of something that was getting your full attention, such that you have to (still with full attention) pop the ad from the stack to return your attention to the previous stack frame. Whether that's an ad in a newspaper between two columns where you have to pass "through" the ad content to find the next article; or an ad on YouTube where you have to wait; or a Google Sponsored link you have to read "past" to find the regular links; or a modal ad on a website that only appears five seconds after (the heuristic on the site says) you've started reading the content. The goal is to put the ad where your active attention is, such that the ad "impresses" upon your attention, however fleetingly. Anything else is a failed ad. And yes, it's obnoxious. But that's... what advertising is. Those are the only ads that are really doing their job. The ads that don't end up on top of your attention stack? Subtract those from your perception of the field—they're just cargo-cult attempts to advertise that persist because it's really hard to measure the success of ad campaigns. What's left when you subtract those nice, unobtrusive ads, is what advertising as a field is really "about." It's what advertising would be, exclusively, if they got better at measuring things. And it's awful.

keepmesmall 8y ago
Actually, it would be somewhat consensual if it were a setting with a time lock after the first change (e.g. you explicitly commit to the settings you choose for a set time). And there's zero issue with limiting ad distribution, you don't have to allow for queuing 20 ads in a row, just like your human cattle isn't obliged to keep the volume on and their eyes peeled. It's just that ads are irrelevant, disruptive, and non-consensual at the same time. The whole "ad impressions as subliminal messages" idea is a normalized form of non-consensual (senti-)mental assault or penetration, depending on whether it results in a headache or a purchase.

username223 8y ago

> some ad at 200% volume Advertisers are shameless, and will exploit anything until they are smacked down by laws. Congress and the FCC had to step in and regulate commercials' volume on TV (https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/loud-commercials), and I suspect the same will have to happen online as well. youtube-dl is the only thing that makes the site usable these days. It gets rid of ads and pop-ups, and decreases "engagement" by forcing you to copy the link over to the terminal to download and watch a video. It's even better than how people watched TV back in the day, by recording it to VHS tapes, then fast-forward through the ads.