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I would bet real money that YouTube has created very accurate estimates of how many ads they can show each user before they'll reduce their consumption, and aut

by mabbo 5y ago

I would bet real money that YouTube has created very accurate estimates of how many ads they can show each user before they'll reduce their consumption, and automatically adjust the number of ads accordingly. Thus leaving us all permanently annoyed by the number of ads, but not quite enough to leave.

ceeplusplus 5y ago
I've noticed that the first ad is often unskippable and the second ad will be 5-second skippable for me. I wonder if you exit YouTube when you see the 2nd ad if the ad system will learn to give you less ads?
ImprovedSilence 5y ago
Probably. What drove me away more than ads is that I can’t find any good content that is less than 20min long. The “algorithm” feeds me shit that, yes I’m interested in, but is longer than a sitcom! (and drove creators to optimize for longer format,I know) I realize this is by design and blah blah engagement blah blah ad revenue etc. but I yearn for the days of good interesting shit where I could queue up 10 vids and it doesn’t take me a month to burn through it all…. I want an option to tell suggestions to keep it between 3-8min long content!!!
- tmaly 5y ago
  As a creator it takes a ton of time to do editing on something 15 min vs 2 min. I would much rather created a series of 2 min videos.
- newsclues 5y ago
  As a person I have silos of interests and ideal content desires. Sometimes I want to watch long podcasts about war and other times I want 30 second puppy videos and I don’t understand why I can’t have algorithms for both silos without separate accounts.
- mabbo 5y ago
  This is why I love LockPickingLawyer. Generally never more than 3 minutes long. Yet by confining himself to such short videos, he has to maximize the time used.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  For a while it was comical because there was some 10 minute magic threshold, and so many videos danced around and around to get to that 10 min mark. I agree through, I HATE it, I've started always trying to find written articles and reviews to shortcut this misery. TikTok is capitalizing on this too - going to be much easier to digest a ton of tiktok then a ton of long meandering youtube videos.
subpixel 5y ago
I just pay to remove them. It's pricey, but there is fabulous stuff on youtube I find no place else, and something for the whole family to boot.
- hnburnsy 5y ago
  You can remove the ads but not the fluff content that pads the videos to make them longer. How about a subscription for concise and direct content?
  - scottyah 5y ago
    I think it's great that they let the content creators decide if they want to include their own ads or not. You can always skip their ads, and some of the better channels have a progress bar for the ad portion.
  - samhw 5y ago
    YouTube shows you the parts most users skipped: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9314415 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9314415 (That link is for creators, but the graph overlay is shown to everyone.) I can't imagine a better tool for doing exactly what you're requesting.
    - gundmc 5y ago
      This is only available to the creators, isn't it? I don't recall ever seeing this as a viewer on YouTube. I have seen it on some...less savory video sites.
      - samhw 5y ago
        That YouTube link says that it's available to viewers, and I've certainly seen it before. Perhaps there's some A/B testing still going on?
  - subpixel 5y ago
    The stuff I watch is repurposed public tv from around the world and doesn’t include that, yet.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
I think it's heavily weighed by type of device, more than an user. I pretty much never get ads at mobile, but get them all the time on TV - both via app on smart TV, and PS5.
dekhn 5y ago
ad fatigue is a feature column, this is just learned directly as part of training watch next and ads serving.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
If you use YouTube regularly and you have some music subscription, I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just buy YouTube+ or whatever it's called that gives you free streaming music + no ads on YouTube. I bought it right when it came out just to not have ads on YouTube. Then when you got free streaming music included, it was impossible to turn down. The plus side is that YouTube music recommendations seem to be quite good.
- inerte 5y ago
  YouTube Premium is a necessity at this point, specially with kids. Also a better business model.
  - pgrote 5y ago
    It is a fantastic service. It is a little concerning Google hasn't touched it since it matured. $17.99 for commercial free YT for a family is a bargain considering how much we use it. I have to think there is a major price increase coming.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      That's already substantially more expensive than a 1080p Netflix subscription!
    - scottyah 5y ago
      The rates can get grandfathered in, I still pay $14.99 for the family plan (hopefully they don't see this and come after my $3/mo)
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Hmm. Grandfathered? I've had YouTube Premium Family plan for years, since it was called YouTube Red, and I think mine recently went up to $19.99
- omginternets 5y ago
bawolff 5y ago
The problem is that youtube doesn't have effective competition in its niche, so most people don't have anywhere to go (tiktok and tv overlap a bit, but for lots of content types they dont)
- majormajor 5y ago
  Non-video content is also a Youtube competitor in many genres/content types. Usually the ads for it are way less annoying, too!
majormajor 5y ago
This is one of those fun things that you might shoot yourself into the foot by trying to estimate. Piss a user off once and you may have a much harder chance of bringing them back. Sure, you can use the fact you drove away user X in your model for how much to annoy user Y, but that doesn't un-piss-off user X. Sooner or later, there might be a significant number of users X! For instance, I've specifically avoided "real TV" cable packages even when I can get them for cheaper than streaming TV because my use case (sports playoffs and such) is on and off, and Comcast et al have successfully trained me that it's extremely unpleasant to cancel wired cable TV, so I'd rather pay more for something less obnoxious. It's easy to be both "data driven" and foolishly short-sighted.

by mabbo 5y ago

ceeplusplus 5y ago

I've noticed that the first ad is often unskippable and the second ad will be 5-second skippable for me. I wonder if you exit YouTube when you see the 2nd ad if the ad system will learn to give you less ads?

ImprovedSilence 5y ago

Probably. What drove me away more than ads is that I can’t find any good content that is less than 20min long. The “algorithm” feeds me shit that, yes I’m interested in, but is longer than a sitcom! (and drove creators to optimize for longer format,I know) I realize this is by design and blah blah engagement blah blah ad revenue etc. but I yearn for the days of good interesting shit where I could queue up 10 vids and it doesn’t take me a month to burn through it all…. I want an option to tell suggestions to keep it between 3-8min long content!!!

tmaly 5y ago
As a creator it takes a ton of time to do editing on something 15 min vs 2 min. I would much rather created a series of 2 min videos.
newsclues 5y ago
As a person I have silos of interests and ideal content desires. Sometimes I want to watch long podcasts about war and other times I want 30 second puppy videos and I don’t understand why I can’t have algorithms for both silos without separate accounts.
mabbo 5y ago
This is why I love LockPickingLawyer. Generally never more than 3 minutes long. Yet by confining himself to such short videos, he has to maximize the time used.
tempnow987 5y ago
For a while it was comical because there was some 10 minute magic threshold, and so many videos danced around and around to get to that 10 min mark. I agree through, I HATE it, I've started always trying to find written articles and reviews to shortcut this misery. TikTok is capitalizing on this too - going to be much easier to digest a ton of tiktok then a ton of long meandering youtube videos.

subpixel 5y ago

I just pay to remove them. It's pricey, but there is fabulous stuff on youtube I find no place else, and something for the whole family to boot.

hnburnsy 5y ago
You can remove the ads but not the fluff content that pads the videos to make them longer. How about a subscription for concise and direct content?
- scottyah 5y ago
  I think it's great that they let the content creators decide if they want to include their own ads or not. You can always skip their ads, and some of the better channels have a progress bar for the ad portion.
- samhw 5y ago
  YouTube shows you the parts most users skipped: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9314415 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9314415 (That link is for creators, but the graph overlay is shown to everyone.) I can't imagine a better tool for doing exactly what you're requesting.
  - gundmc 5y ago
    This is only available to the creators, isn't it? I don't recall ever seeing this as a viewer on YouTube. I have seen it on some...less savory video sites.
    - samhw 5y ago
      That YouTube link says that it's available to viewers, and I've certainly seen it before. Perhaps there's some A/B testing still going on?
- subpixel 5y ago
  The stuff I watch is repurposed public tv from around the world and doesn’t include that, yet.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

I think it's heavily weighed by type of device, more than an user. I pretty much never get ads at mobile, but get them all the time on TV - both via app on smart TV, and PS5.

dekhn 5y ago

ad fatigue is a feature column, this is just learned directly as part of training watch next and ads serving.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

If you use YouTube regularly and you have some music subscription, I'm not sure why anyone wouldn't just buy YouTube+ or whatever it's called that gives you free streaming music + no ads on YouTube. I bought it right when it came out just to not have ads on YouTube. Then when you got free streaming music included, it was impossible to turn down. The plus side is that YouTube music recommendations seem to be quite good.

inerte 5y ago
YouTube Premium is a necessity at this point, specially with kids. Also a better business model.
- pgrote 5y ago
  It is a fantastic service. It is a little concerning Google hasn't touched it since it matured. $17.99 for commercial free YT for a family is a bargain considering how much we use it. I have to think there is a major price increase coming.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    That's already substantially more expensive than a 1080p Netflix subscription!
  - scottyah 5y ago
    The rates can get grandfathered in, I still pay $14.99 for the family plan (hopefully they don't see this and come after my $3/mo)
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Hmm. Grandfathered? I've had YouTube Premium Family plan for years, since it was called YouTube Red, and I think mine recently went up to $19.99
omginternets 5y ago

bawolff 5y ago

The problem is that youtube doesn't have effective competition in its niche, so most people don't have anywhere to go (tiktok and tv overlap a bit, but for lots of content types they dont)

majormajor 5y ago
Non-video content is also a Youtube competitor in many genres/content types. Usually the ads for it are way less annoying, too!

majormajor 5y ago

This is one of those fun things that you might shoot yourself into the foot by trying to estimate. Piss a user off once and you may have a much harder chance of bringing them back. Sure, you can use the fact you drove away user X in your model for how much to annoy user Y, but that doesn't un-piss-off user X. Sooner or later, there might be a significant number of users X! For instance, I've specifically avoided "real TV" cable packages even when I can get them for cheaper than streaming TV because my use case (sports playoffs and such) is on and off, and Comcast et al have successfully trained me that it's extremely unpleasant to cancel wired cable TV, so I'd rather pay more for something less obnoxious. It's easy to be both "data driven" and foolishly short-sighted.