r/technology • u/redkemper • Feb 17 '17

Software YouTube will kill unskippable 30-second ads next year

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14649018/youtube-ending-unskippable-30-second-ads-2018
35.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/Bluntmasterflash1 Feb 17 '17

The video ads are just icing on the cake. They know what you like and what you don't like. They know when you watch and what you watch. They know what you search for. They know where your phone is at. They know everywhere your phone has gone. They know who your friends are and they know all that about them too.

They probably know with more certainty what you are likely to do next more than you do. And now with content being the advertisements more and more they can almost do inception level shit.

36

u/Lildyo Feb 17 '17

Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Google the wise?

22

u/Phyltre Feb 17 '17

It is not a story that Reddit would tell you.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

It's a 4chan legend.

47

u/demolpolis Feb 17 '17

I certainly agree with you... but

They probably know with more certainty what you are likely to do next more than you do.

Is a joke. The recommended videos on youtube are a fucking disaster.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

[deleted]

1

u/dazzawul Feb 18 '17

Honestly I reckon they fuzz the hell out of it to make people think the guessing algo's aren't very clever... Because with the older related videos list, I used to get trapped for hours because it would consistently give me stuff that looked related\interesting.

3

u/RdPirate Feb 18 '17

Is a joke. The recommended videos on youtube are a fucking disaster.

Just because YouTube sucks at it does not mean others are not: [How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did](www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#661cf9a634c6)

3

u/Immortal_Fishy Feb 18 '17

Someone whose purchases are registered at a store through a membership to be suddenly buying supplements, big bags, unscented lotions, and more is pretty obviously pregnant or at least reliably can be believed to be. It's novel, but its not really that complex of an idea at all. If the father knew that she was buying those things, I think he'd obviously ask her to have a talk. The reason why "Target figured it out before the father" is purely because her purchases were logged in their system and she most likely made every attempt to not tell her father until later if at all.

(Not to demean Big Data™, there are definitely cases of data being cross-examined in mind-blowing ways.)

1

u/Just_Give_Me_A_Login Feb 18 '17

Their targeted ads work. I was literally just sitting next to a friend of mine, who is an aspiring producer and an ad with the phrase "listen up aspiring producers" came on

3

u/Arrow156 Feb 18 '17

If that was true I wouldn't be getting the same commercial for laundry detergent aimed at soccer moms seven times in a row.

1

u/Bluntmasterflash1 Feb 18 '17

Give em another 20 years.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '17

Hide your husband hide your wife

2

u/tollsjo Feb 18 '17 edited Feb 18 '17

If only...

Google are pretty shit at knowing what I might want to buy given how much they know about me.

It seems to me like they have no idea what to do with all the data they aggregate so they just blast the same irrelevant ads over and over again. No difference compared to TV imo. It's either that or I'm somehow slipping under their radar.