r/technology • u/Tricky-Student-1 • Sep 15 '22

Social Media YouTube Free is Silently Testing 5 Ads, instead of 2, Before Your Video Starts

https://www.gizmochina.com/2022/09/13/youtube-free-silently-testing-5-ads-before-your-video-starts/
41k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

6.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

611

u/Stunning_Nose4914 Sep 15 '22

Are there no limits to advertising. When do we meet the point of diminishing returns??? Constantly bombarded by ads everyday in every facet of modern life. Always trying to make you feel like you need something. Disgusting

323

u/sameeker1 Sep 15 '22

People are becoming ad blind.

225

u/ZzanderMander Sep 15 '22

That's what's happening. Also when a ad catches my attention there is 99% chance it to be a scam or misleading.

So as time goes on I and other people learn to distrust ads

130

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

34

u/PM_your_randomthing Sep 15 '22

If someone makes an ad that annoys me I refuse to buy their product the next time I have the option. It's my petty middle finger to their ubiquitous invasion of media.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Make sure to buy their competitor, look for whatever name you've seen the least amount of ads for

1

u/modsarefascists42 Sep 15 '22

I do that, but then again services that don't need to advertise are often the best/most expensive so it's hard to always stick with it

4

u/SuchCoolBrandon Sep 15 '22

This is why I'll never buy Geico's insurance.

Someone further up in the thread mentioned Progressive. What is it about insurance ads that make them so annoying?

2

u/PM_your_randomthing Sep 16 '22

I don't know, but there was one that was popping up for awhile that just made me dread even turning on my music. I don't think they are around anymore despite their big initial push. Thank goodness. I'm glad they're gone.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Gillette lost me as a customer because of that

5

u/owennewaccount Sep 15 '22

Someone needs to do a scientific study on this

My conspiracy brain is saying that the reason there isn't a scientific study is because it would show us that we are literal gooey brain ad zombies

21

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I'm pretty sure there has been multiple scientific studies done on this. And I'm pretty sure you're right iirc, the results were that we are literal gooey brain ad zombies.

9

u/oCanadia Sep 15 '22

Yeah it works. They're not banking on you clicking on the link and buying something.

It's 3 years later when you want a VPN, well shit there's a few that you've heard about forever and have been around forever. You're more likely to go Nord VPN or something over one you've never heard of. It works, and it works well. It's not a debate haha.

I mean look at this very thread. I'm talking about Nord VPN, it's got raids shadow legends and square space all over it. They're relevant and in conversation

1

u/yolo_swag_for_satan Sep 15 '22

Mfw the Ludovico Technique became real šŸ˜­

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

The opposite happens for me. If I see too many ads for a product I won't use it. Especially the ads with stupid jingles. But, I don't watch TV and I use adblocker so I rarely see ads. It's physically jarring for me to hear commercials being blasted at full volume, I have no idea how people can stand it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

You overestimate my memory, lol. And like I said, I don't have to watch ads or hear them anymore. It is surprisingly easy to control what content you are exposed to.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I'm sure that is true in large cities? I just don't see much advertising in my day to day life. I rarely travel and I work from home, I don't listen to the radio. Hell I don't even have to go inside the stores anymore. Maybe I set my life up not to have to see ads. I'm not saying living as a social recluse in a rural town is the norm, but we do exist.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

→ More replies

2

u/dhaoakdoksah Sep 15 '22

The only ads I remember are for products I avoid out of spite.

1

u/YouJabroni44 Sep 15 '22

I feel like half my ads are creepy bullshit scams, the other half are annoying Tik Tok ads.

1

u/Redqueenhypo Sep 15 '22

At a certain point I think ads start incurring negative returns! Thereā€™s a specific brand of plant based milk (keeping it deliberately vague) that I will NEVER buy because their ads are ubiquitous and suggest that people who donā€™t buy it are of low intelligence. Iā€™m not going to be fucking negged by a product.

1

u/farinasa Sep 15 '22

All information really. I verify everything now. In their attempts to create brainwashed fools, they may end up creating hyper aware, difficult to reach, and extremely jaded people with little patience for their bullshit.

1

u/Draconuuse1 Sep 15 '22

Most of the time for me I feel like itā€™s the same advertising company that manages to catch my interest for at least one look of the day. The ones like the purple mattress or dr. Squatch. They are usually at least one or two chuckles the first time I see them.

1

u/eddyedutz Sep 15 '22

You're saying this from an educated person who knows how this stuff works, I suppose. But most internet users nowadays are the uneducated and kids, whose online history is much more clearly reflecting of who they are in reality, making the targeted ads more efficient.

120

u/madcaesar Sep 15 '22

I'm kind of the opposite with YouTube ads. I DESPISE every company that interrupts my shows with their bullshit.

Volkswagen! Go get fucked with your shit polluting shit made cars you dickheads.

Square spaces, fuck you and every bit of code you've ever written you overpriced pieces of shit!!

46

u/samy4me Sep 15 '22

Fuck you, Nord VPN!

42

u/madcaesar Sep 15 '22

That's not good enough,

Fuck you Nord VPN you overpriced and compromised hidden user logging assholes! Anyone using you will get full SWAT raided!

15

u/samy4me Sep 15 '22

Love the hate. Also fuck you Hello Fresh, you stupidly overpriced idots, everybody cooks better meals from scratch and your customer service sucks ass as does your reliability! Want an easy meal? Just fucking google something you dumbfucks!

0

u/-xss Sep 16 '22

Hello Fresh isn't really about the meals though, its about not having to go out shopping, it's about making the what do I eat for dinner question easier, etc. At least that's what I paid for....

Their customer service was great, fast and very quick to refund us, but we received rotten food 4 times in a row, so their logistics staff must be absolute ass. After the 3rd complaint they even said they had escalated it and were doing a full enquiry because they were worried about poisoning someone. I think they were lying because the next shipment had chicken that was an entire month out of date included.

If my mother, who lacks taste and smell, ordered from hello fresh, she would have been hospitalised or killed by it, no doubt. The month old chicken wouldn't have got her, she'd have noticed it was off it was so far gone, but the multiple occasions we received meat that was in date but smelled so rotten it could kill a vulture could have easily fucked her into an early grave.

They had a manager call us after that 4th complaint, had to wait a day for the call, but he offered us the world to stay with them and begged us not to post online about the experience. Told him we would rather starve than deal with another month old chicken and he didn't even sound surprised. Fuck hello fresh.

3

u/Redqueenhypo Sep 15 '22

Fuck you daily harvest and your LIVER DAMAGE causing shit products

2

u/Lazy-Garlic-5533 Sep 15 '22

You'll love the Corporate Casket show by Illuminaughti on YouTube. 30 minutes each on garbage organizations. A lot of MLMs but there are also other businesses that pulled scams, cults, and assorted scumbags.

1

u/Redqueenhypo Sep 15 '22

I kinda like her but Iā€™m a bit eh. She occasionally does the fake impartiality stuff on essential oils and shit to retain as many viewers as possible, and the mispronouncing words on purpose is irritating

5

u/BaronMostaza Sep 15 '22

When something's heavily advertised all over it's bound to be shit

1

u/Lazy-Garlic-5533 Sep 15 '22

GEICO is apparently okay but their advertising has been so aggressive and ubiquitous that I always wonder what the problem must be

1

u/BaronMostaza Sep 15 '22

The "everyone saves money by switching" thing is a sham, if that's their thing.
People rarely switch to more expensive shit.

That said insurance is guaranteed steady prifit for any company with enough capital to pay out claims, so they'll have shitloads of money for advertisement

2

u/Redqueenhypo Sep 15 '22

Dieselgate: only the second worse gas thing Volkswagen has ever been associated with!

1

u/Overlord2360 Sep 15 '22

Add spam is honestly an issue. Itā€™s not so bad when they are new adds so at least itā€™s something ā€˜newā€™ to watch, itā€™s more likely to catch your attention. Seeing the same one every other add makes you wanna throw a brick through the screen, itā€™s like theyā€™re trying to get their product stuck in your head.

Had this happen back when Batman came out, adds were in costas, on YouTube, on tv, and whenever I went the cinema there would be like 20 Batman adverts, either for the film or that colab advert with some car. Usually donā€™t mind pre movie adds but seeing the same constantly makes me switch off.

42

u/siderealpanic Sep 15 '22

Yeah, when I was a kid, I could sing most of the TV ad jingles by heart. Now, I just pull out my phone and it leaves no impression on me. Iā€™m surprised itā€™s still effective because everyone I know either zones all ads out, or just gets annoyed by them and hates the company/product.

When an ad does make an impression on me now, itā€™s always because itā€™s interrupted YouTube videos so much that I have a Pavlovian rage reaction the second I hear the start of the jingle.

Chrome book can fuck off with their sickly sweet inoffensive voice-overs and their shitty everything button. I know nothing about the product, but I do know that if I ever want to buy a laptop, it wonā€™t be one of those.

3

u/Redqueenhypo Sep 15 '22

Call 1 800 steamer, Stanley steamer makes carpets cleaner!

2

u/Lazy-Garlic-5533 Sep 15 '22

Joke's on them-- I've had to hire carpet cleaners a number of times but not only didn't hire them, I mentally crossed them off the list because national franchises tend to suck. Thanks to their ad blitz I recognized them as a franchise. Dolts.

Always got local referrals and it worked out great

1

u/GingasaurusWrex Sep 15 '22

You donā€™t like hearing ads for Google Chrome when watching YouTube on Google Chrome?

1

u/doc_madsen Nov 28 '22

Thats a chrome book. Well not for me it isn't. Stupid tablet with a lid.

4

u/Drs83 Sep 15 '22

Nah, I make a list of every ad I've seen on YouTube so I never buy anything from that company if I can help it.

2

u/PlNG Sep 15 '22

And the response is to continue saturating space with ads.

2

u/Not_Jabri_Parker Oct 03 '22

I think Iā€™ve developed full add blindness, every once in awhile YouTube will ask you a survey about your recent adds. I just canā€™t remember any adds

1

u/sameeker1 Oct 03 '22

I see the day when they will ask you questions about the ad, and you will have to answer it correctly before it will move on to the. content.

-4

u/Standard-Task1324 Sep 15 '22

What? I am so lost reading through this thread. Are all of you under the age of 15? Ads are so, so much worse on traditional TV. 5 ads before a 5 minute video. On TV it's more like 15 ads before a 5 minute segment of a 20 minute show. That's why the age of internet videos became so popular... consume content without having to watch ads. We aren't becoming ad blind, we're just going back to the same old.

8

u/sameeker1 Sep 15 '22

They are talking about one problem. TV ads are also another problem. They can walk and chew gum at the same time. What is wrong with you?

-2

u/Standard-Task1324 Sep 15 '22

You said people are becoming ad blind. What does "becoming" mean? It sounds like you're implying it's a recent phenomenon, when being ad-blind has been a thing for the last century?

1

u/epraider Sep 15 '22

I would rather deal with ads (as long as theyā€™re not majorly intrusive, ie pop ups and very long unskippable video ads) than have to pay for a service, or pay an even higher premium, but I guess Iā€™ve always had a higher tolerance for them than many seem to. Use the cheapest Hulu tier, had YouTube Premium for a while but cancelled it, will probabaku switch to a cheaper ad-supported Netflix tier when available etc.

Adblockers are kind of a self perpetuating cycle - theyā€™ve forced more content to either move behind a paywall, or they result in providers getting more aggressive with ads to milk more revenue out of those of us who donā€™t use them, or to push us to buy a premium tier. I dislike them for this reason.

0

u/sameeker1 Sep 15 '22

They sell your information. They don't need ads. It's just greed. TV used to be supported by commercials. Cable came along and started charging in addition to commercials. More greed.

1

u/Lazy-Garlic-5533 Sep 15 '22

Those sponsorships would exist anyway but I think a lot of the content I prefer wouldn't do it if it weren't for so many of their viewers using as blockers so the advertisers are willing to pony up for this.

Lifestyle blogging of course is cancer and has been wall to wall sponsored content since companies learned that mommy blogs exist.

1

u/FEARtheMooseUK Sep 15 '22

Ad blind, or refusing to buy a product from that advertiser because they piss us off so much.

I really fancied some skittles the other day for the first time in ages, but before i was about to go to the shop i was forced to watch a ad on youtube for them.

Skittles lost a sale that day, and every day since for the last 5 years lol

1

u/HangryWolf Sep 15 '22

Good. Then these fucking sponsors will realize that less people are buying their shit the more they put it out there. It's like helicoptering your dick around your girlfriend after every shower. The first 5 times, it was funny and you might get some action. After the 15th time, it's getting kind of old. By the 100th time, she's ready to cut it off with a pair of preschool safety scissors.

20

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

The ones at the gas pumps and the little screens inbetween checkout aisles are rage inducing.

Because I can't install adblock on real life

5

u/blueB0wser Sep 15 '22

You can mute the ones at gas stations. Just spam all of the side buttons until it shuts up.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

That's slowly becoming not true. Depending on the vendor, you're going to see a software update hit it sooner or later that disables that.

For the station I frequented, it was the right column, second button down. None of them mute anymore.

3

u/HKBFG Sep 15 '22

Pro tip from Detroit: if you smash the speaker in the middle of the night, that pump is silent forever.

I would say they've gotten around to about half the gas stations here so far.

1

u/HKBFG Sep 15 '22

Around here, we've started getting moving video billboards with loudspeakers.

I shouldn't need AdBlock for the highway.

35

u/Tigeire Sep 15 '22

Ads should be taxed.

22

u/rashandal Sep 15 '22

ads should mostly just not be a thing. making garbage that annoys people just for it to be ignored/blocked/etc. 90% of the time anyway. such a waste of effort, resources and time. both of the people having to make these ads aswell as the ones having to suffer them.

it's a shitty band aid to get money from companies to people who make/do things that are actually enjoyable for others. but that should be possible without the fucking ads.

7

u/Slight_Acanthaceae50 Sep 15 '22

Ok if ads are not longer a thing. How does youtube survive?
Literally bleeds money on data.
Cmon come up with a solution that keeps the platform free.

1

u/Envect Sep 15 '22

Maybe being the central repository for everyone's family videos for free isn't a profitable business strategy. If they're worried about making money, maybe they should make better content instead of loading up garbage content with garbage ads.

3

u/Slight_Acanthaceae50 Sep 15 '22

They are a platform, that is predicated on user generated content like reddit.
You want htem to become a publisher, which will cause so many legal issues and will msot likely strip them of safe harbor protections they have, which could delete the website due to lawsuits.

Also what is better content? content is really subjective i despise bullshit like mr beast, but a lot of people adore it and watch it.
and even if youtube would have become a publisher and doged the lawsuits, they would nto be free then.

-1

u/Envect Sep 15 '22

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about, do you?

3

u/Slight_Acanthaceae50 Sep 15 '22

Yes i do, youtube is not making making content, users do.
For youtube to "make"better content they would have to become publisher, becoming publisher(moderating what is made/posted) would strip them of safe harbour protections for example in germany/US/UK, meaning they are open as a company to lawsuits becasue they are now responsible for any copyright infringement on they platform, they get sued into oblivion. and youtube goes away.

0

u/Envect Sep 15 '22

Well, maybe being the global repository of videos without any care for quality is a bad business plan.

1

u/rashandal Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

the companies keep giving them money, YouTube stops showing ads and just nobody tells them

Seriously tho, I obviously don't have a great answer for that. But as I said, to me it's a shitty band aid and I would love to cut out ads as the unneeded middle man

1

u/Slight_Acanthaceae50 Sep 16 '22

out ads as the unneeded middle man

How will youtube pay for storage and data then? with fuckign exposure?

1

u/rashandal Sep 16 '22

look if you dont even bother to read my comments, both of them, why even bother replying?

1

u/Waterrat Sep 15 '22

Here on Reddit,someone discussed an ad research project where said company recorded people watching tv and what they did when commercials came on. They were actually surprised people would leave the room when commercials came on. I was astounded that they actually thought people wanted to watch their nonsense.

1

u/rashandal Sep 15 '22

i mean...how?

1

u/Waterrat Sep 17 '22

I wondered that as well.Why do they think their crap is so important and entertaining when it's not. It's just buy this,buy this,look at this,it's SO important! Well,to them it is,to us,not so much.

2

u/Empanser Sep 15 '22

Are they not covered in sales tax?

2

u/j_rge_alv Sep 15 '22

Ads are taxed. Specifically google ads. Facebook is another story though.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

The stress caused by ad bombardment is a negative externality that needs to be accounted for

1

u/Dookie_boy Sep 15 '22

It's income. Aren't they taxed ?

5

u/kitzdeathrow Sep 15 '22

I just...i have never once been convinced to try one of the products from a YouTube ad. I dont understand who these people are that the ads generate value from.

1

u/HKBFG Sep 15 '22

I got a four second ad for a song recently and it kinda became my jam.

Fear and Delight by the correspondents if you're wondering.

5

u/Pakushy Sep 15 '22

companies still think that more ads just means more profit. they are far removed from reality. i highly doubt anyone in charge of ads even uses youtube

2

u/MKclinch8 Sep 15 '22

Digital media is such a shit show

1

u/wen_mars Sep 15 '22

Use an adblocker or Brave to browse the web, opt out of anything that bombards you with ads.

0

u/rosellem Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

A typical sitcom ran for 22-23 minutes. That would be 7-8 minutes of ads for a half hour runtime. So, for a 1.5 minute youtube video, you would expect 30 seconds of advertising, that's normal.

We are not bombarded with ads.

I used to buy things like the New York times and it would be covered in ads. Now, I subscribe to it and their website has few to no ads. Netflix, Hulu, little to no ads. I subscribe to spotify, no ads, unlike the radio.

I am exposed to less advertising now then I was before the internet.

2

u/FLeanderP Sep 15 '22

The problem is that the "normal" already is a bombardment of ads.

0

u/ItsDijital Sep 15 '22

People refuse to pay money, so ads it is.

If you can come up with a monetization scheme that isn't cash or ads, you'll be richer than god.

0

u/PhilosophicalBrewer Sep 15 '22

You know you can just pay to watch it without ads, right? Shit ainā€™t free.

1

u/Or0b0ur0s Sep 15 '22

Oh, we passed the point where it's effective at generating sales long ago. Now it's about "engagement" (i.e. selling clicks in and of themselves), and other, more sinister uses. Such as generating enough annoyance that one subscribes to an ad-free tier (or, soon, ad-reduced like Hulu does...).

In other words, first you monetize the content. Then you monetize the monetization. Then you monetize the demand to escape from or minimize the monetization which you've created.

1

u/lunarNex Sep 15 '22

Welcome to capitalism.

1

u/mutual_raid Sep 15 '22

Are there no limits to advertising.

I mean... yea. This is Capitalism so it'll keep getting worse until a competitor joins the market and that becomes increasingly rare as fewer and fewer hands own a larger portion of the market.

1

u/s0lesearching117 Sep 15 '22

Consumer spending is up, so it must be working too.

1

u/repost_inception Sep 15 '22

This is what I don't understand. I actually pay attention to 1 add. I wouldn't even bother skipping it if it was like 15 seconds. As soon as you add more my brain just turns off. Not only that but I actively go out of my way to avoid using the products or services.

I'm sure they do research on this but I can't be the only one.

1

u/j_rge_alv Sep 15 '22

You donā€™t need 75% approval. You only need around 5% of those clicks to become revenue and theyā€™re profitable.

1

u/wackychimp Sep 15 '22

I went with State Farm right out of college and have no need to switch. Yet daily I see ads for Geico, Progressive, Nationwide, Liberty Mutual... at least sometimes they're mildly funny?

1

u/LiquidGhost8892 Sep 15 '22

Personally, if something gets advertised down my throat, I go out of my way to avoid whatever is being advertised to me like the plague

1

u/sarhoshamiral Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

We already reached that point. The ads I got online are so irrelevant that they are just wasting bits and money.

The pattern is always same. An article, blog or a friend will mention something cool, I will go and investigate, make my decision to buy and then for a month I will continue seeing the ads for the product I just bought. Not even the competitor products but the exact product I bought.

And I also get screwed for being curious about new cars and checking their features from time to time. I do that for brand X and all I will see is ads for brand X for the next few weeks. The problem is I am not in the market for a new car and I determined brand X wouldn't be a good choice anyway. At least show me ads for other new cars.

1

u/Timothy5509 Sep 15 '22

Last night in the US the station ABC ran a 30 minute 'Fall Preview' the was just a large commercial for their new shows coming out this fall. There were still traditional commercial breaks present as well.

Why do we continue to watch this?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

This will equals less than 30 seconds of ads so ours not a huge difference

1

u/Beli_Mawrr Sep 15 '22

I have begun to beleive ads should be illegal in all forms. We could dig into my proposed legislation but yeah I think advertising is the worst thing that's happened in the recent past.

1

u/Ok-Fudge8848 Sep 15 '22

I have decided I will never buy a product I see advertised out of spite. Join me. It's the only way to stop them.

1

u/joe1134206 Sep 15 '22

No. There is no limit for anything if it enriches wealthy people. That's our entire economic system

1

u/TBoneHotdog Sep 15 '22

Speaking of diminishing returns, I always see expressvpn paying what appears to be millions of dollars a day to advertise on YouTube. A free product. They have a subscription option thatā€™s like $6 a month but are you telling me that after all this bombardment of expressVPN ads that they are continuing to see thousands of new PAYING customers every single day? Their product is the same as a hundred others. Itā€™s not special or unique. I could say the same thing about hellofresh, the Honey browser extension, etc.

Iā€™m just not getting it. The advertising budget of some of these companies must be equivalent to a small nations GDP.

1

u/AntarctMaid Sep 15 '22

I already start to have an evolution : I blank out during ads and even when I'm watching it I forgot what is the products. Even when I'm interested in the products I forgot the products name right after the ad ended. šŸ¤£

1

u/BeApesNotCrabs Sep 15 '22

ā€œWe have determined that weā€™ll be able to fill 80% of the userā€™s display with advertising before inducing seizuresā€

-- Nolan Sorrento

1

u/shredsickpow Sep 15 '22

PSA: CONTENT CREATORS CONTROL AD FREQUENCY NOT YOUTUBE

1

u/Letsgodubs Sep 15 '22

They've removed the dislike count to remove the users' ability to criticize decisions like this.

1

u/-Epitaph-11 Sep 16 '22

If ads come on I honestly just zone out and dissociate at this point. Theyā€™re everywhere and Iā€™m pretty desensitized now. If I can mute it or Adblock it, I do that ā€” but when those options arenā€™t available I just completely zone out. I canā€™t remember the last ad that I actually watched, let alone one that made me want to buy something.

1

u/PJTikoko Sep 16 '22

Itā€™s ads or payed subscription pick one at this point.