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Very few people are objecting to the presence of ads, but instead the fact that Google tries to trick you into watching more ads and blame yourself for doing so
by throw10920 4y ago
Very few people are objecting to the presence of ads, but instead the fact that Google tries to trick you into watching more ads and blame yourself for doing so.
In an alternate universe without this dark pattern, there would still be ads - they would just have a consistent design that allowed you to skip the skippable ones without any thought, or alternatively longer/unskippable ads.
- duxup 4y agoThe fact that you can or can't skip ads doesn't imply any "blame" to me.
- zerocrates 4y agoI think the complaint here is not exactly about the fact that you can't skip some of the ads, but that by varying the UI a bunch, users don't reliably "catch" all the skippable ads, so they watch more of them or take longer to skip them than would be the case if it was always immediately obvious what you could and couldn't skip.
- duxup 4y agoI find the idea of "varying the UI" to be way far form the ethical ethical dilemma presented.
- throw10920 4y agoAh, then let me explain it to you: The reason why Google doesn't just take a 15-second ad with a 5-second unskippable section and turn it into a 15-second unskippable ad is because people will get frustrated with Google/YouTube and leave. The current system causes people to stay, and blame themselves for not skipping the ad - "I'm just being lazy, it's only a few extra seconds." That is the dark pattern.