23 ms·

Ask HN: Are YouTube ads getting worse?

64 points by Kye 6y ago

I opened a ~1 hour video and saw notches in the timeline for 10 different ad breaks. This is as bad as live TV now. Ads play at the end of videos. More videos have long, unskippable ads. More ad breaks in the middle of videos. Multiple people in my circles said they noticed this too when asked, but it could just be a fluke/some kind of group confirmation bias. Has anyone else experienced this? Or even better, collected data on it?

justaman 6y ago
Recently ads have been getting through my adblockers or videos fail to load if the ad is blocked. Refreshing the page or adding a '.' to the url seems to fix this.
- mtmail 6y ago
  If anybody wonders at which position: 'youtube.com.' instead of 'youtube.com', background discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435
  - nickthegreek 6y ago
    pretty sure they patched this a week or 2 ago.
Operyl 6y ago
If I understand correctly from a friend, the problem is YouTubers (and YouTube/Google) are currently making _much less_ money per ad. It sounds like more are getting shoved per video to make up for it (iirc, it's up to YouTube to determine this?).
jasode 6y ago
Yes, Youtube ads are getting more aggressive. Instead of just 1 ad per interruption (either pre-roll or mid-roll), it's multiple ads in succession. Instead of a few interruptions, it has increased to many interruptions. Unlike you, I don't get the yellow bars in the timeline that show where the ad spots are anymore. Many Youtubers have made videos about the aggressive ad changes. Here's one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A I don't know if any new definitive statistics are out but some Youtubers complain that they don't seem to be getting any additional money even though viewers are bombarded with more ads.
- Kye 6y ago
  This is a large part of why I won't pay for the premium service. I don't know how much creators get, but I know they always work their way toward pitiful payouts like Spotify. For an example of this slide, see how microstock has gone from something you could make a living on to ever-shrinking payouts and increasingly opaque bonus structures. A recent example is Shutterstock's change to the payout and bonus structure. https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/guv6s3/shutterstock_slashes_contributor_payout_by_up_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/guv6s3/shutter... https://xpiksapp.com/blog/2020/new-shutterstock-earnings-breakdown/ https://xpiksapp.com/blog/2020/new-shutterstock-earnings-bre... The minimum was 25 cents per image. That could add up fast when an agency buyer with a huge bulk credit plan took notice of your portfolio and bought it out, then returned every time you added more. It's now 10 cents per image. Spotify got there fast. YouTube will get there if it isn't already.
  - flamtap 6y ago
    If there’s one ad I get the most, it’s the God damned YouTube premium ads. I don’t know how many times I have to say no to the prompts. I wish there were a way to say “I will delete the app before I buy this”.
    - Operyl 6y ago
      I’m constantly getting “trump approval” campaign ads. Oh the joy of living in Florida.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    The large part of why I would never pay for premium service is that most of the YouTube content consists of unauthorized reproductions of works.
  - Jommi 6y ago
    I'm not sure why you're attributing this to some bad will from the platform instead of just basic supply and demand economics? Spotify directly removed massive barriers to entry in distributing music. So there are more artists available to you than ever. Listeners might have grown as well, but it seems not in the same scale. This could also be the case in microstock (and it seems to make logical sense). More and more photos are posted, and more people are posting. So ofcourse as supply grows the price lowers.
sharemywin 6y ago
I'm not sure which is more surprising. That there are more ads or that anyone is surprised by this. It is owned by google.
Shoreleave 6y ago
I've also notice a huge push for youtube premium on mobile. It used to be a once a week thing. Now almost every time I open the app I'm greeted by the popup asking me to upgrade.
- dabeeeenster 6y ago
  I find this behaviour by Google really fucking annoying. Just leave me alone after I have said no 15 times in the last week.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    Would you prefer that they just put up a modal banner saying 'subscription required'?
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I would.
    - dabeeeenster 6y ago
      Yes 100%. At least that doesnt require a tap
  - yummypaint 6y ago
    Most other companies would have deniability about doing it on purpose, but google probably keeps track of this stuff and runs A/B testing with it etc..
- a2tech 6y ago
  The constant unskippable ads in the Youtube app meant I jettisoned the app on my mobile devices and just watch Youtube via the browser (even though they make it a terrible experience) because my ad blocker works in the browser.
  - tomjen3 6y ago
    I used to do that, but my phone now has youtube vanced - it can even play stuff in the background.
fheilz 6y ago
Does anybody else only get scam ads?
- Niccizero 6y ago
  I get some weird ads of some Doomsday-esque vegan cult sometimes. It's super weird.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  I don't see YouTube ads because of uBlock Origin, but from what I can tell from other people's computers not having any form of adblock, I've seen that Adsense serves scam ads all the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if YouTube ads were the same. (It's astounding how these corporations can hold the mantle of "fact checking" but are happy to serve potentially dangerous bullshit when it helps their bottom line)
  - fheilz 6y ago
    I use ublock too. I only see ads on mobile. I have started screenshotting all of the scams I see. Maybe I will send them all to the FTC at some point.
- cocoa19 6y ago
  Not scams, I've been mostly getting ads related to my recent google searches.
- gitgud 6y ago
  Yes, they seem to be targeting people affected by COVID, promising easy get-rich quick schemes online...
- space-candy 6y ago
  I have gotten some scam ads recently, although I do not get them exclusively. One was a 'Jeff Bezos bitcoin giveaway. Send up to 2 BTC to this address and Jeff will match you and send it back.'
  - 6y ago
hhtoyou 6y ago
Yes getting much closer when the person puts the attention
sails 6y ago
Yes. Watching youtube on a smart TV on the installed Youtube app is a nightmare. Time for a Raspberry Pi for media.
- fargo 6y ago
  if you are going for a raspberry I would suggest using it for pihole instead. That would solve the ad issue for all your devices
  - majewsky 6y ago
    Does pi-hole remove Youtube ads? pi-hole can only block whole ad domains. I would be surprised if Youtube deliberately served ad videos from a different domain than regular videos.
    - hysan 6y ago
      It does not. YouTube, at least on my smart TV, serves ads from a domain that is indistinguishable from the domain that serves the video content.
  - zihotki 6y ago
    Pihole won't solve it, unfortunately. The only way to block it is to have a Chrome/FF on the media device plus adblocker. But that's very complicated topic and when I checked there were no suitable distributions and ways to get it. I ended up getting a proper PC and using it as a media server instead of pi-like devices.
nmeofthestate 6y ago
The frequency of ads got bad enough that some months ago I changed over to an android YouTube client that doesn't show ads. I wouldn't watch YouTube otherwise.
sethammons 6y ago
The one that grinds my gears is the apparent time between ads. I’m learning how to play the banjo and I watch tutorials. This means play, pause, go back to time X and play again. Every few iterations, I get interrupted with an ad or two. Arrrrrgggh!
- xigoi 6y ago
  Install UBlock Origin.
bluedino 6y ago
If I watch while not-signed in, I get an ad every couple minutes. Unwatchable. If I'm signed into my Google account, I usually just get an ad at the start of a video, and they are usually skippable, so no big deal.
- onion2k 6y ago
  That should be a strong signal about how much data about you is worth to Google.
tuna-piano 6y ago
For $12 a month (40 cents a day) you can use YouTube ad free. Personally, I don't notice the missing $12 but I do notice the missing ads, so it's worth it to me. If you don't want ads, this seems like a more than fair offer from YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/premium https://www.youtube.com/premium
- vuln 6y ago
  I used Firefox with ublock origin[0] and never see an ad. [0]https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I pay for YouTube Premium largely because the family watches YouTube on Roku, AppleTV, etc. For that, it’s worth it. I wish YouTube music wouldn’t share subscriptions with YouTube proper, but I just pay for Spotify and ignore YouTube Music.
  - spacephysics 6y ago
    I use the same on desktop, but for an ad free mobile experience, and background audio play on an unjailbroken iPhone, coughing up the cash seems most appropriate.
  - anon73044 6y ago
    The uBlock plugin also works on the Firefox Android app!
    - MaxikCZ 6y ago
      or, for adfree youtube experience on android, I am using "youtube vanced" [0](like advanced, but without the ad), and heard lots of people vouching for opensource "newpipe"[1] Edit: Be warned: just found out that theres a "Block All Ads For Youtube Vanced ads" in playstore thats a fake scam (it even contains ads on its own). Real Vanced isn't on playstore [0]: https://vanced.app/ https://vanced.app/ non root: https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk/ https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk/ root: https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk-root/ https://www.xda-developers.com/youtube-vanced-apk-root/ [1]: https://newpipe.schabi.org/ https://newpipe.schabi.org/
ChadTheNomad 6y ago
Yes, I use Brave which has always blocked the ads, but they've been coming through since ~1-2 weeks ago.
- KKPMW 6y ago
  Was the same for me. I updated Brave yesterday which fixed it.
  - j-james 6y ago
    YouTube recently made changes to how they display their ads that affected a fair amount of filter lists. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/7519 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/7519
fastball 6y ago
I use Brave and haven't seen a YouTube ad in a long time.
TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
On Android, if you install f-droid, you can install newpipe and avoid all ads. On Linux, ublock origin plus Firefox removes basically all ads. You can also use youtube-dl in the terminal, though that can be difficult.
- opencl 6y ago
  Ublock origin also works in Firefox for Android.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  If you install mpv you can stream the video straight to a player and so skip the entire download and all the ads.
Niccizero 6y ago
uBlock Origin has worked perfectly for me on the desktop, I haven't seen an ad since forever.
- totally_a_human 6y ago
  I honestly don't understand, why anybody would even use a web browser without proper Adblock technology.
zozbot234 6y ago
ITT: people complaining about a free service. Why not just pay for YouTube Red?
- p2t2p 6y ago
  Oh, where do I start: - I don't want music and there is no discount for that - I don't like random benign channel removals/strikes - I don't like censorship - I don't like copyright situation - There is not option to pay for family for whole year - They are getting closer and closer to killing rss support. My setup right now is that I receive youtube updates into my newsboat. I run a macro if I want to watch a video and it goes into download queue and is downloaded by youtube-dl. It synthing-ed onto every single of my devices (including Emby) and then I watch it whenever I feel like, offline, no adds, no nothing, through a normal video player.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    YT has a lot less censorship than most cable TV packages, all things considered. And "I never watch video category X, so I'd rather not pay for it" is neither here nor there, unless you'd rather have to pay a la carte for every single YT category you may want to watch in the future. Having a single payment for the service as a whole is just better.
  - yeah986 6y ago
    pretty based desu
- mumbisChungo 6y ago
  It’s not really free though is it? It just doesn’t cost money.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    Yes, I meant free as in free beer of course. I thought that was fairly obvious. (If you care about genuinely Free alternatives, they're out there but most people would have to self-host them.)
yarapavan 6y ago
Yes, it is from the recent changes in YouTube's manage ad breaks policy. Starting July, they will be doing mid-roll ads for videos longer than 8 minutes [1]. Today, only videos longer than 10 minutes are eligible for mid-roll ads. Starting in late July, videos longer than 8 minutes will be eligible for mid-roll ads. As part of this change, mid-roll ads will be turned on for all eligible existing videos and future video uploads, including those videos where you may have previously opted out of mid-roll ads. Videos that already have mid-roll ads turned on will not be impacted. If mid-roll ads are not a good fit for your videos, you can indicate this preference in YouTube Studio by July 27, 2020. Mid-roll ads will be automatically placed at natural breaks in your videos to balance viewer experience and monetization potential for you. After these changes, you will still be able to turn mid-rolls off or adjust the placement in each video manually. [1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en
drcongo 6y ago
I was happily blocking them with NextDNS and 1Blocker until about a week ago when suddenly they started getting past both blockers, multiple ads on every video.
princevegeta89 6y ago
YouTube vanced on Android and Ublock origin on desktop. Problem solved. In my POV, the ads got worse a long time ago.
x87678r 6y ago
Also product placement in the video is pretty common. I'm starting to look at Twich, vimeo more, any other alternatives?
- timbit42 6y ago
  lbry.tv
kobc 6y ago
I think Google is preparing the axe, or at least something equally drastic.
Priem19 6y ago
No idea. Since I'm using FireFox, Blokada (AdGuard DNS) on Android, and FireFox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix, NoScript on PC, my mental RAM does not get strained by ads and other nonsense.
Stubb 6y ago
Most of the content creators I follow also upload to BitChute (or have been booted from YouTube), so I've moved all my playlists there. I also donate $5/month to BitChute. Grabbing videos off YouTube with youtube-dl for local viewing is another way to skip ads. Given their censorious policies, I have zero interest in paying YouTube to go ad-free.
onhn 6y ago
For me its also the quality of the ads which is a problem. Over and over I get Grammerly adverts even though I always flag them as repetitive, inappropriate or irrelevant (always signed in). They have nothing to do with my interests or viewing habits. Twitch does an outstanding job by comparison.
- Olumde 6y ago
  I hate, Hate, HATE grammerly ads.
kohtatsu 6y ago
I'm getting ads to porn (non-video, I have that blocked). I don't have an account and frequently flush cookies. I just didn't think I'd see the day, especially because they have no way of knowing if I'm older than 18.
yeah986 6y ago
use ublock origin on pc and something like newpipe or skytube on mobile. better yet, stop wasting your time on youtube and do something that isn't as mind-numbing.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> Are YouTube ads getting worse? Yes. Longer, more consistent, and so wildly off the mark at times I feel like I should be offended.
bradgranath 6y ago
Also, the advertisers are savvy to how long they have before you're allowed to hit that skip, and so pitching in the first 5 seconds is getting more common, leading to some pretty absurd copy/delivery. I just love that guy who grabs me on the street shouting in my face about free energy.
Yetanfou 6y ago
Youtube has ads? I never see them since I never use the Youtube site directly, only through an intermediate like youtube-dl or streamlink and programs which integrate this type of functionality, NewPipe on Android, etc. Once they start splicing ads directly into the video stream on the server I might start to get ads but by that time there will either be a way to rip them out again or I'll just keep from using Youtube - something which is getting easier with time by them de-platforming anyone who doesn't abide by the vague and ever-shifting set of rules the censors use to keep the platform palatable to those same advertisers who are making things worse as well as the screeching cancel mobs which are popping up left and right on the 'net. Eventually they might manage to cancel each other out upon which there will be a day of celebration. Peace will return (with or without a platform named Youtube), until such a time I will flaunt the DMCA at hearts content to keep myself and those around me sane. Call me a thief, call me a pirate, call me anything you want but after decades of ever more abusive ad tech the time is long past to make a stance: the only good ad is a skipped ad. Don't like it? I understand, but the solution does not lie with me. It lies with the shysters in the ad tech industry. Line 'm up against the wall, shame them for life and never let them near a computer again and we'll talk, until such time I say Sayonara.
tmaly 6y ago
I saw two ads right in the middle of a 5 min kids video. It is getting pretty bad. I did not mind the mandatory ad right in the beginning.
jonplackett 6y ago
Youtube on my Apple TV is going bananas for ads. They're everywhere! I don't know how this feels for US users where you guys have a lot more ads in TV in general. But it's starting to feel pretty hostile with my UK sensibilities.
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idkcd 6y ago
Open source front-end for YouTube https://invidio.us https://invidio.us It has no ads, no trackers , no Google account required
- fiss 6y ago
  this is amazing!
kindly_fo 6y ago
1) Try not to use youtube 2) if u really need to watch smth that's on yt use browser with adblock or newpipe app
oijewoif32m 6y ago
Install uBlock Origin and you will never see an ad again
szszrk 6y ago
I recently got a survey on youtube. On TV. I won't file a survey on TV!
rcarmo 6y ago
Yes. I have been getting ads on my Apple TV at a much higher rate over the past few weeks, which is putting me off a fair bit. Enough to consider auto-downloading certain channels and shoving them into Plex.

bitwize 6y ago

Thief!!!! "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing programming." --Jamie Kellner, former Warner executive

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
I'm okay with this. They've deplatformed or suppressed most of my favorite YouTubers anyway, and they are trying to push a culture that I don't agree with.
- mikecoles 6y ago
  Then stop using YouTube. If I don't agree with the grocery store's business choices, I can steal from them?
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    They're a monopoly and the leader of a winner-take-all market. They leverage their power to control the narrative on many topics. I think of any company to not support, YouTube is a good one to do so.
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      You wouldn’t download a car!
    - RestlessMind 6y ago
      > They've deplatformed or suppressed most of my favorite YouTubers anyway > They're a monopoly and the leader of a winner-take-all market. There is some cognitive dissonance in there, particularly with "deplatforming" and "monopoly" part. If your favorite creators are all gone, why don't you just stop using that service? (I have done exactly that, tbh).
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        There's no dissonance. A monopoly has the capacity to remove anyone from their platform with no real reprocussions, so that's what they do. why don't you just stop using that service? There are no real alternatives to YouTube that any real content creators are willing to move to, and there are still some users that I watch, so I download the videos and don't support the platform. I have my cake and eat it too, so to speak.
    - taylodl 6y ago
      Not supporting is not the same as stealing. It's your business as to whether you want to support YT or not, but your disagreeing with their business practices or business model does not give you the right to steal. Perhaps I've misunderstood you (I'm reading this in context of your previous comment where you said you were okay with this, which I take to mean you're okay with stealing their content)?
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        We have different ethical standards then. If a company is a monopoly that actively leverages its power to manipulate entire populations, then I am fine with exploiting services which it makes available. They have the ability to keep me from accessing the site if I use an ad blocker. If they want me off the platform that much, they can boot me off.
        foolmeonce 6y ago
        True but this is a better argument for leaving. They will retain you without ad income largely because that is valuable to them compared to people leaving their platform and what a group of actual non-spectators might entail afa the marketplace.
        TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        I see what you're saying, but that's a prisoner's dilemma[1]. By that I mean it would require the coordination of millions of others who are also sick of the platform to behave irrationally. It also assumes that people who leech off of YouTube would be unwilling to try a different site because of their leeching. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
        taylodl 6y ago
        This, I think, is your argument. It's helped me to see where you're coming from and - I don't disagree. This is a good point. Thanks for helping me see things differently!
  - decasteve 6y ago
    That’s not how the web works. The host (YouTube) serves the content, my user agent (Firefox and add-ons) renders it. Stop trying to turn the internet into cable TV. YouTube can create its own client software (like it does for iOS/Android) and do what it wants. As long as it openly serves content via HTTP then I can render the content it sends anyway I want on my computer.
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