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Frustrated YouTube viewers seek explanation for hour-long unskippable ads
- anigbrowl 2y agoI wouldn't be blocking ads if they weren't so trash. For a long time I had YouTube whitelisted, but they kept abusing their users.
- DoctorOW 2y agoSame here. I'm sympathetic to the argument that creators use the ads to survive, but I'm not a woman of unlimited patience.
- compootr 2y agothis basically summarizes the advertising industry + the internet
- mitthrowaway2 2y agoThere's something about Youtube ads that are particularly bad. Straight-up pyramid scams promising free money from Amazon or Elon Musk preying on the vulnerable, offensive videos, and so on. It's much worse than the ads I see in magazines, billboards, or on network television.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoThat’s one of the things I never understood about proponents of the open internet. The most gullible decile of society has to spend their free time somewhere… and there will always be millions of scammers, scoundrels, lunatics, etc., looking for places to set up shop. So it seems inevitable that the open part of the internet will eventually consist mostly of the worst parts of human society preying on the bottom decile. And even the best parts of the open internet will get drowned out by 800 million voices…
- compootr 2y agoIll tell you my secret about how I made infinite money! Just sign up for my course!!
- christianqchung 2y agoYep, I used to advocate against using adblock on youtube. Seriously. My original logic may not have been sound (ads support the platform, indirectly the creator[0]), but I would absolutely never make that argument today. The decline in user experience has made unhinged ads being shoved in your face intolerable for me. [0] sure this still applies, but sponsors and Patreons exist at a far higher rate than in 2015 when I first thought this, and it's on Google/youtube to figure out their monetization policy, not me.
- eviks 2y agoThe quality of "ad user experience" (and the inevitable end state for the new platform) was well known back when you've come up with your original logic (and the challenge with sponsors/patreons of not having micro-transactions and having more friction from users is also still there)
- christianqchung 2y agoYeah that's true. I was arguing with people about this in secondary school for what it's worth, all the while getting what I would call misfitting undergarment ads. Would you elaborate on what you mean by friction with micro transactions?
- eviks 2y agoIf you watch 100 creators and have a budget of $100, not only is it tedious to set up (and update) 100 subscriptions (high friction) But also it's impossible to allocate $1 to some creator you rarely watch because there are no micro transactions that are use-based (unlike with ads)
- christianqchung 2y agoThat makes sense. I know youtube has added channel memberships as a built-in now, but it doesn't seem easy to toss a one-time payment outside of livestream superchats. And even that isn't particularly use based.
- hinkley 2y agoI installed an ad blocker because a webcomic I liked was letting ads at the top of the page click jack users for an extended period of time and I’d finally had enough.
- yoyohello13 2y agoI just pay for YouTube premium now.
- cudgy 2y agoTrue. The long ads are mostly scams or Chuck Norris fitness plans for 70+ year old people.
- x3n0ph3n3 2y agoI will never go back to ads on youtube. Not giving up ublock.
- mystified5016 2y agoHusband has been seeing these absolutely bottom barrel ai generated ads for boner pills in the middle of his videos. I'm honestly shocked every time I'm exposed to ads these days. It's gotten dire.
- dismalaf 2y agoI just pay for YouTube. It's worth it.
- Marsymars 2y agoThe plans are bad for light users. Something like a non-renewing $3 day pass would be better for me. (And better for Google as far as profit from me is concerned, since I currently pay them nothing.)
- teeray 2y agoJust wait until Premium has “a very brief ad”
- SoftTalker 2y agoI will cancel with extreme prejudice
- recursive 2y agoIt will have the same fate as my Netflix account after they added ads.
- redwall_hp 2y agoThey should let me do that, then. Last I checked, they'll only sell me a bundle with a music streaming service I don't want.
- gizmo686 2y agoYouTube music is basically just YouTube with a slightly different UI. I'd call it more of a marketing ploy than an actual bundle.
- jprete 2y agoI was disappointed to realize how thin the veneer really is. And sometimes a music-carrying video will be unavailable in the music app because YT music and YT as video service apparently aren't subject to the same region rules.
- kibwen 2y agoFive years from now: "Frustrated AdTube users seek explanation when ads periodically interrupted by non-ad content"
- jongjong 2y agoPossible, just connect ad-viewing hours to people's social credit score.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoFive years after that: > Thousands of cloned irises have been stolen from illegal AdViewCoin mining operation. Auth Syndicate refuses to intervene on behalf of the original iris owners, instead accusing them of biometric fraud for allowing the clones to be made in the first place.
- gruez 2y ago>If you look at the image closely, you’ll notice a ‘skipping ads’ button on the bottom left, which gives us clues about what could be happening. While none of these users have disclosed whether they are using an ad blocker, the second image clearly shows one in the works. >It’s possible that if you are using an ad blocker, YouTube is able to detect it and present you with an absurdly long, unskippable ad. There’s also a possibility that the ad blocker itself is glitching out the ad and its duration. Some comments have mentioned that the ad blocker could have blocked the ‘Skip’ button from showing up and subsequently failed to block the long ad, worsening the ad situation.
- black_puppydog 2y agoThe "Youtube vs users" battle about how complicated they can make of for ad lockers has been frustrating to watch already. But if they follow through and just cut us off at some point then fine. I ditched the habits of Facebook and Twitter, I'll learn to live without YouTube. And before anyone argues to just pay up, I'm already subscribed to enough creators directly. I'm not giving Google one cent.
- antihipocrat 2y agoAlso, content creators now have their own ads within their content itself. I feel no need to give Google any money.
- amarant 2y agoI mean they (Google) do provide a service. One could possibly argue that the content creators should pay Google to distribute their material, kind of like an equivalent to a AWS bill, but is anyone arguing that? It would actually be a kind of reasonable argument, or at least more reasonable than the currently popular "Google is rich so they should provide services for absolutely free".
- Larrikin 2y ago>Google is rich so they should provide services for absolutely free This is fine to think like this, there is no reason to care about the financials of billion dollars companies
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hysan 2y ago> I mean they (Google) do provide a service. One could possibly argue that the content creators should pay Google to distribute their material, kind of like an equivalent to a AWS bill, but is anyone arguing that? People have argued this but Google has made it clear why they won’t charge - that is their moat. By pricing the service as free, they price out all competing services by making it so that all creators, new and old, will use YouTube by default. Especially with new creators, with no startup cost and a huge audience, there is no reason for to use any service that requires payment. This effectively tanks all competitors and is why the only surviving competing streaming services target niche audiences. For example, established creators who have the sway to bring an audience with them.
- aunty_helen 2y agoWhat I want to know is why when I'm using a logged out browser all of the shorts on the home page are effectively softcore porn.
- Marsymars 2y agoNot especially relevant to the OP, but as a very light facebook user, I've noticed the same thing with reels in my feed. I assume they don't have enough info other than "male" to target me with.
- ofalkaed 2y agoLots of people probably log out to look at things they don't want in their history/affecting the recommendation algorithms, etc skewing the algorithm for people who are not logged in.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoI noticed this too. It appears to mostly be funnels into people’s onlyfans. Post some softcore porn on YouTube to bait people into purchasing an onlyfans subscription.
- switch007 2y agoThey've been doing it for years on Instagram too
- tennisflyi 2y agoUh, that is IG
- LinuxBender 2y agoSame. I've never searched for anything close to that on YT as there are a plethora of other places for porn that don't even require a browser. Thankfully there are uBlock filters to get rid of shorts [1]. [1] - https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts https://github.com/gijsdev/ublock-hide-yt-shorts
- 2y ago
- lesuorac 2y agoAre the "ads" just a random youtube video? The pictures seem to indicate that and I really doubt somebody is uploading a 2h52m ad to youtube.
- ripped_britches 2y agoRight and Google likely doesn’t want to be responsible for using one of their customers ads as an antiadblocker attack. That could result in reputational damage for the brand.
- floatrock 2y ago> reputational damage for the brand haha. We're well into the "where else you gonna go" phase of this one. People who are willing to pay for a Nebula subscription aren't YouTube's target audience.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snailmailman 2y agoI routinely see >1hr skippable ads, whenever I make the mistake of attempting to watch on my iPhone instead of my PC (Where Adblock works). They are definitely intentional ads. I don’t know why. The products vary wildly, but are all scams or scam-adjacent at the very least. Most of my experience with them is that if I ever fall asleep watching a YouTube video, I wake up halfway through an ad about how I can “improve my life with this one simple trick” or how “Jesus can help me if I donate now” But they have gotten much more aggressive lately. I tried to watch a 30 minute podcast on YouTube from my phone, and gave up 15 minutes in after the fourth hour-long (skippable) ad. They don’t show the duration until you interact with the screen now, so if I’m doing something else and not able to touch my phone right away I get a good few minutes in before I think “is this ad going to end?”
- ozten 2y agoLogged in I am wildly mistargeted. When I go anonymous via private browsing, the YT ads are soft core porn. Is Google having trouble with inventory or ???
- datavirtue 2y agoYeah, I'm totally shocked at the amount of soft core troll porn spread across Meta, TikTok, YouTube and probably any other main stream tech property. Is Apple allowing this at all? I'm no church lady but I don't want this stuff cast onto my screens unless I'm searching for it specifically. They are pushing it on people involuntarily.
- mindslight 2y agoThe obvious explanation is that it's 2025 and the theme is "fuck you".
- toastercat 2y agoUsing uBlock and SponsorBlock here. I subscribe to a handful of channels I regularly watch, all of which have Patreons I throw a couple bucks to every month (about $14 bucks). No regrets.
- iandanforth 2y agoThe idea that creators are being impacted negatively is purposefully dishonest. - It suggests that what youtube cares about is creators and not their own profit margin, which is false - It suggests that adblock users should be the ones to change their behavior, where Google could immediately simply pay the creators more for a much larger impact - It ignores the plain facts of youtubes consistently increasing revenue.(1) Companies should be held to a basic level of honest communication that this fails to meet. (1) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/youtube-ad-revenue-alphabet-earnings-1236048205/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/you...
- kelvinjps10 2y agoThis makes it imposible to just let youtube on the background in thr tv
- thiht 2y agoIf you have an Android TV just install SmartTube. It’s a better YouTube in all regards: no ads, no sponsored segments, better UI (you can rearrange the categories), you can block Shorts… SmartTube is amazing.
- ycombinatrix 2y agoIt also has SponsorBlock & granular quality control.
- xg15 2y agoStill doesn't completely add up to me. Who would even produce a 1- or 10- or even 90-hours long ad? Like, what advertiser would put that into the exchange? What would be their expectations? Seems more likely to me YouTube is playing tricks here and just playing regular ads on repeat. Or selecting random other regular videos and playing them as ads, or something. In those cases, it would at least be a clear case of punishment against ad-blocking users and not a "malfunction". (I assume that no one went through the trouble of actually leaving the video on for 90 hours. So unless someone captured the video file, we have no idea if the displayed duration is actually correct)
- c0wb0yc0d3r 2y agoI haven’t seen any ads this long in a long time, but when I did they weren’t ads in the traditional sense. They were things like terrible talk shows with a thinly veiled agenda, or infomercials.
- gorbachev 2y agoThis is why I have stopped logging in to my Google account when watching videos on YouTube. Google is still fingerprinting me, of course, and applying their recommendation algorithm to what they show me on the default page, but at least they can't ban my Google account for violating their terms. I will never stop using ad blockers. If I that means I'm blocked from accessing some web sites, then so be it.
- grajaganDev 2y agoThank you. For security reasons, it is very important for everyone to use an adblocker
- mediumsmart 2y agoYouTube is like a supermarket. 3 percent is fit to consume and none of that has marketing.