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They had to make this change because they increased the number of ads. If the result is paginated, a high percentage of links in the first page would be ads. Wi

• vram22 3y ago
  Nowadays while watching videos in YouTube, I get more occurrences of ads, even in short videos, compared to just a few days back. Very irritating. Started looking out for other options than YouTube.
  • Dudester230602 3y ago
    I often forget YouTube even has any ads, but then again I am using uBlock Origin.
    • rtsil 3y ago
      Youtube without uBlock origin is a traumatizing experience, and it's gotten worse in the last month or so. It went from bearable to let's plug the laptop to the TV unbearable. A couple of weeks ago, I had 3 blocks of ads in 10 minute-videos for the first time. Now, I have 3 blocks of ad (before/middle/after) in 5 minute videos.
      • climb_stealth 3y ago
        What boggles my mind is that for many many people this is their lived experience. They experience an internet inundated by ads. It's in equal parts incredible, sad and depressing. Shakes fist at sky. Saying that as someone who has always used ad blockers but is also paying for the youtube premium family plan.
        • rtsil 3y ago
          Seeing normal people navigating the Internet is always a sobering experience. The way they use it is so far from my own that I learned to stop relying on my instincts when arguing about a website feature.
      • specproc 3y ago
        Yeah, I was staying at an Airbnb last week and they had a TV with YouTube. Absolutely horrendous, I couldn't get through a short video without it being cut in the middle. Was quite a shock after getting so used to Ublock.
    • kikokikokiko 3y ago
      I find it infinitely amusing the number of people, in HN for God's sake, that DO NOT use uBlock origin on every device they own. Every time I read that "40% of people use adblockers", I think about the average HN user and say to myself: "No way that stat is real".
      • namtab00 3y ago
        if only there was a way to block ads on WebOS on a LG TV... I only consume YouTube via its official app on the TV. There are no alternatives that allow ad blocking. It's utter shit without Premium... And I'm saying this while holding some non marginal number of GOOGL class A..
        • kikokikokiko 3y ago
          Smartvs are a joke. Once again: it amazes me that I'm an exception among this crowd, in having a laptop connected to my living room TV HDMI port 100% of the time. It's my workstation, and it's my entertainment center. Wireless mouse + wireless keyboard, the ultimate input medium. Whyyyyy don't ALL tech savy people do this is beyond my comprehension.
          • stOneskull 3y ago
            i have my desktop pc connected to a tv hdmi port (and playstation and a raspberry pi) and i can plug my laptop in with vga too but i have it networked to my pc anyway and don't bother much. i used to use a wireless keyboard but it made me too lazy to sit at the desk and work.
          • graftak 3y ago
            I perform my daily work duties on a computer, I’m (mentally) done with them by the time I get to relax. I never see ads however, YouTube is not really a tv worthy outlet for me and otherwise I just AirPlay it (ad blocked).
        • addandsubtract 3y ago
          The solution, is unfortunately, to get a smart stick, such as the Android TV Chromecast or Nvidia Shield, to have Android and sideload all the apps you want.
    • benhurmarcel 3y ago
      Right, for now that still works
  • spaceman_2020 3y ago
    They got me to pay for premium just to avoid ads. But I’m really struggling to justify paying for it, and its more likely that I’ll abandon the platform altogether.
    • quechimba 3y ago
      I'm paying and I find it worth it because YT Music is included so I could cancel my Spotify subscription.
      • aprdm 3y ago
        Yep same here. If Apple had something similar to YouTube I’d ditch paying them tho for Apple one
    • wildrhythms 3y ago
      Only a matter of time now before Premium goes from no-ads to 'reduced-ads' ... bet on it
      • maxlamb 3y ago
        I've actually started to get short ads (3-4s) on YT starting about 3-4 months ago even though I've been paying YT premium for years at $18/month. I realized it's only when I cast it to my TV, so maybe that's how they can get away with it. It doesn't happen every time but was still pretty pissed about it.
        • j16sdiz 3y ago
          > .. only when I cast it to my TV Was it a LG TV? it could be the LG's own ad.
          • maxlamb 3y ago
            No it's clearly within Youtube, you can see the countdown within the app. My TV is over 10 years old and I've never seen an ad like this.
  • interestica 3y ago
    YouTube web on chrome seems to not have (interstitial video) ads while iOS native app has an absurd number. It almost seems like a ‘bug’
    • cheschire 3y ago
      Adblockers work to block them. If you use an Adblock in chrome that’s likely why you don’t see them. I use an iOS Adblock tool and have replaced my native YouTube app with a shortcut to the safari site. That way Adblock works there too.
      • interestica 3y ago
        I don’t have any adblocker installed in iOS / Chrome. Chrome does have a native setting to block popups.
  • waif 3y ago
    I think I broke YouTube? I signed up for the Premium trial. The day before the trial expired, I cancelled and deleted my card info. This was weeks ago, and I still haven't seen a single ad ever since. There are ads in the home feed, but none in the video streams themselves. I'm not using an ad blocker.
    • ipaddr 3y ago
      They won't bill you until the end of the month
• vitro 3y ago
  > number of ads ... also in Gmail I wonder when they cut IMAP/POP3 access to Gmail.
  • TeMPOraL 3y ago
    They won't. They'll find some bullshit "security" justification to force 2FA with 30 minute oauth tokens or something else that will make using IMAP too annoying for most, and which'll be difficult to automate.
    • rtsil 3y ago
      That's exactly what they did with imap. I had scripts checking my gmail accounts using imap with password-based authentication, and for a while they allowed that as long as you expressly accepted that it was less secure, but not it's gone completely.
• bushbaba 3y ago
  Wall Street demands growth of top line or greater profitability. This is Google’s way of meeting shareholder demands. Yes short sighted. And yes opens the door for chatGPT
  • samwillis 3y ago
    It's not just investors, Google is the quintessential example of a company that has taken metric based decision making too far. Everyone in the organisation has metrics to meet, and those KPIs affect promotions and pay. If your KPIs are entirely driven by revenue/profit it distorts the decision making of everyone and focuses on what large impact an individual or team can make to their bottom line, no mater what the collateral is. This is I think a good example of that in action. Another is the Google Domains shutdown. Domain names are a low margin commodity market, with a lot of competition. Someone somewhere in Google decided that for their own personal metrics selling the product was good for them. Removing a fairly thinly profitable team, and at the same time a windfall generated by them personally. It clearly should have been treated as an important value add for UX. I do believe the penny is dropping and advertisers are beginning to see just how little Google cares about how well they are doing. As long as you continue to spend more, Google are happy, even if I'm you are making less yourself. Your advertising rep isn't their to help you improve your ads and make them more cost effective, they are there to extract more of your margin from you.
    • gerdesj 3y ago
      "Everyone in the organisation has metrics to meet, and those KPIs affect promotions and pay. If your KPIs are entirely driven by revenue/profit it ..." That is how a publicly traded corporation works, whether you or I like it or not. When you get a listing on stock exchanges you are asking for investment from Tom, Dick and Harry. In return you sell your soul errr provide a return on that investment, in return for more investment. I remember when I dumped Altavista from my browser and started using the cool new Google "Do no evil". I still have a pretty early gmail address, when it was invite only and 1GB looked like close to infinity or at least pretty bloody huge. I don't put anything useful into a Google thingie because I value my stuff. I'll be changing my search engine quite soon too. It is all rather soulless and that is what saddens me. The whole raison d'etre for Google in the early days was to do good stuff, innovative engineering and so on. Then the profit motive or bust took over. It doesn't _have_ to but it did. Sadly the two cool kids with wonderful ideas were infected with the lust for world dominance or avarice or both. I don't know what Google would look like if it had stayed private and stuck to what appear to be its initial values. I do suspect that Brin and his mate would still have been rich beyond my wildest dreams, along with a lot of other people. MS would have probably bought them or tried to.
• TX81Z 3y ago
  It’s all very simple, the people who make the biggest decisions have the biggest percentage of their income derived from stock grants. Ergo they do whatever will make the stock price go up. Functionality, ethics/legality, and user needs are only important if they are part of the stock price calculus in the short term.
• tslmy 3y ago
  > there are an infinite number of links on "the first page". Advertisers won't buy it. They'll demand Google to measure "number of links on first load" instead.
  • wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
    Advertisers been paying for overpriced Google real estate for decades. Just look at all those brands advertising on their own brand names to ensure they are at the top. Quite the Google tax.
    • samwillis 3y ago
      It's basically a protection racket. Don't buy your name? Someone else will.
• RektBoy 3y ago
  You're seeing ADs on google? Lol.
• stn8188 3y ago
  I'm almost positive they are putting ads at the start of (and maybe in the middle of) podcasts in their Google Podcast player as well. I only noticed because the initial ad in a podcast was for a regional store that would not have been included in a national podcast ad read by the host.
• firecall 3y ago
  They also made it harder and harder for creators to earn revenue from Ads. This keeping more profit for themselves. Which is a shame for society, as there was a real movement of people being inspired to make content because they could immediately begin earning! Which gave us the breadth of content creators and the YouTube culture we have today. But sadly, like many businesses, Google pulled up the drawbridge and made revenue earning creators into an exclusive club.