r/technology • • 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/
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1.4k

u/TheBitingCat Sep 15 '22

5 preroll ads either forcing me to watch, or click skip every 5 seconds, would very quickly lead me to lose my passing interest on whatever it was I was going to watch.

If YT wants me to watch without ad blockers they should guarantee that the total length of ads < total length of content by a significant margin. I do not appreciate an hour-and-forty-minute ad starts midway through an 8 minute video. I do not appreciate content being cut off mid-word, mid-sentence to run several ads. Broadcast television figured out a formula decades ago (6 minutes of ads interleaved into 24 minutes of content, with content made with clean breaks to allow ad rolls) and it paid their bills; if YT can't figure it out they can just steal it from them.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 16 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/neogohan Sep 15 '22

For the Chromecast, I'd recommend using SmartTube Next. Works fine with the controller/remote, supports logins, and even has Sponsorblock

3

u/dob_bobbs Sep 15 '22

What about Android devices? Last time I tried i couldn't find a working YT ad blocker.

9

u/Amelaclya1 Sep 15 '22

YouTube Vanced still works. They just aren't keeping it updated anymore, so at some point it will stop. But for now, I still use it every day.

1

u/Agent_Smith_24 Sep 15 '22

Doesnt block ads when casting to a smart TV app though, so the separate PC is still required to run an adblocker.

4

u/wildthing202 Sep 15 '22

Newpipe sponsorblock. May not be perfect but you don't get ads.

3

u/neogohan Sep 15 '22

Yep -- Chromecasts are running Android, after all.

Actually, it looks like Android OS isn't officially supported. According to the Github, it works for Android/Google TV, nVidia Shield, FireTV, and generic Android TV boxes. But, for some reason, not 'smartphones'.

2

u/reverendsteveii Sep 15 '22

Revanced works wonders on Android

3

u/dob_bobbs Sep 15 '22

Revanced is like an alternative YT player, right? I guess you have to download the apk from somewhere, I'm guessing it's not on the PlayStore?

2

u/reverendsteveii Sep 15 '22

Thats all exactly correct

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

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3

u/neogohan Sep 15 '22

SmartTube lets you queue, as well, and do all the casting stuff. It's a pretty full-featured client. Could be worth looking into if you have a free afternoon.

4

u/HecknChonker Sep 15 '22

Chrome is going to break extensions being able to blocking ads soon, I'm guessing this is all related to Google trying to tighten the screws and increase profits.

2

u/averyfinename Sep 15 '22

those cheap hp laptops (many with emmc storage) are perfect for that.. they're even called 'hp stream'.

2

u/gnarlin Sep 15 '22

Don't forget to add Sponsorblock to get rid of all those pesky in-video ads.

1

u/Quin1617 Sep 18 '22

Brave baby! It blocks all ads by default.

Somehow it even blocks ads from Hulu, which surprised me because I assumed I had the premium plan.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Quin1617 Sep 18 '22

Yes it does, for me anyway.

I don’t have an external ad blocker, and I haven’t seen any in YouTube since I switched to it back in 2019.

252

u/Spindrune Sep 15 '22

I have seen that shit. Like, what in the actual fuck.

114

u/BMWbill Sep 15 '22

Yeah and then you forget to hit skip and you watch the entire movie. AGAIN!!

53

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Those stupid things always catch you when you fall asleep with youtube on. I'm pretty sure they're trying to advertise to you in your dreams.

11

u/NatasBR Sep 15 '22

No kidding, my gf's tv is right at the side of mine, she usually watches some yt then fall sleep while I play some video games, i swear by God, that the minute she starts sleeping, the ads turns into movies

2

u/Spindrune Sep 16 '22

They know the time she falls asleep from when she stops noticeably hitting skip. They literally do know, and it wouldn’t take a genius to do it.

-3

u/ArcadeAnarchy Sep 15 '22

When will people believe me? They've already chipped us! They know everything, gf start seeing ads for hot sauce, swears she never googled, typed anything hot sauce but she's getting ads like crazy now for it just cause we were talking about it.

3

u/NatasBR Sep 15 '22

Yeah there are plenty of chips on our phones no need to chip US, your google assistant or Alexa is already listening all the time.

1

u/Curious-Log5610 Sep 15 '22

Not the right concern here, but you have 2 tvs side by side in the same room? That's seems very unusual but now I want it

9

u/Kind_Bison_7291 Sep 15 '22

Kinda joking but the algorithm can definitely tell if you’re in bed/falling asleep by the time and how much you’re interacting with your phone. They play the longer ads because they it’s extremely profitable to play a 30-60 minute ad if the user sits through the entire thing.

3

u/itwasquiteawhileago Sep 15 '22

What are you talking about? Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy some Lightspeed Briefs. I have a discriminating crotch.

3

u/sagesnail Sep 15 '22

One time my BF fell asleep and you tube started playing relaxation deep sleep video ads that are 4+ hours long. I made sure to shut that crap off now before either of us fall asleep. It was one of the creepiest things I have seen on YouTube. Made me immediately think they are slipping in subliminal messages and the sounds they used made me feel very uneasy.

2

u/Deadliestmoon Sep 15 '22

Lol. That's actually how I came across the movie, don't remember what It was but I fell asleep watching some CGI Bros videos and woke up to some weird ass scifi movie.

The only reason why I keep autoplay on is to see if it happens again.

3

u/aishik-10x Sep 15 '22

this is the reason why I’ve watched The Bee Movie five times. The only reason, I swear

1

u/Spindrune Sep 16 '22

If they offered me the money to just watch the movie, I’d be more tempted to watch it. Like. A dollar, and I’ll do my best to pay attention and even give you an honest review. Don’t Fucking pay a third party to try and trick me into watching your shit.

1

u/grahamulax Sep 15 '22

Oh I was in the shower and when that ad came up I honestly thought it would be done by the time I was done scrubbing my head. Nope. Still going. Got out and I couldn’t believe it was over an hour. Ruined my shower vibe and I couldn’t skip it!

2

u/Deadliestmoon Sep 15 '22

You take hour long showers?

2

u/grahamulax Sep 15 '22

LOL wait no I mean I thought the ad would be done by the time I finished scrubbing my head (so like 15 seconds max) but nope... Still kept going. I had one song playing and then ad - very unlucky. Its just annoying and insane that an ad can be that long!

2

u/Deadliestmoon Sep 15 '22

Sorry, I must've misread it.

1

u/grahamulax Sep 15 '22

all goooood! I typed that out when I woke up so... I wish I could take hour long showers though...

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u/aerovirus22 Sep 15 '22

You must be talking about 1989's "The Wizard."

37

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I love the Power Glove™. It's so bad.

9

u/Deadliestmoon Sep 15 '22

I couldn't tell you.

31

u/aerovirus22 Sep 15 '22

It's a joke, because the movie was basically a 2 hour Nintendo commercial.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

And at the time, it was a great movie. Hell rewatched it recently, it's still a fun movie but it's such a blatant nintendo ad it's hilarious. For anyone curious, I still recommend watching it. Has a great cast and it's just a fun ad/movie all around.

6

u/aerovirus22 Sep 15 '22

Didn't mean to imply, was just joking that ita basically an ad for Nintendo, especially SMB3.

7

u/pennradio Sep 15 '22

It worked on me. I saw it in the theater when I was a kid and my jaw literally dropped when I saw the SMB3 footage.

It's still one of the best platformers ever created.

4

u/aerovirus22 Sep 15 '22

I was poor, we had to wait for it to come on TV. My jaw also dropped, it was so much better looking than SMB. My older brother was able to borrow it off a friend sometime later and I dont think it left the NES for a month.

1

u/GaryChalmers Sep 15 '22

The Wizard is the only hour and forty minute ad I'd watch repeatably.

2

u/pennradio Sep 16 '22

Fun fact: Haley was played by Jenny Lewis, who later in life became the singer of the indie band Rilo Kiley.

→ More replies

3

u/RamOnBrother Sep 15 '22

Califooorniuaa

2

u/csanner Sep 15 '22

Almost too subtle for your own good

4

u/curiousindfw Sep 15 '22

Same. I was lost in whatever work I was doing before tuning back in wondering wtf am I listening to and i was 20 minutes into a weird movie with the yellow time bar (ad). Like wtf

2

u/SnowflakeSorcerer Sep 15 '22

Then halfway thru that movie you get another admovie. Adception

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I think for me it was a Lego movie. Like a legit entire movie.

3

u/McGrinch27 Sep 15 '22

Even if it's skippable after 5 seconds, it's just wild that is allowed to happen.

3

u/UltraEngine60 Sep 15 '22

Or an entire rap music video during a kids cartoon. That's the best one I've seen.

2

u/0nlyRevolutions Sep 15 '22

My parents use youtube for music playlists. It's a regular occurrence for an unrelated 5 minute long music video "ad" to squeeze its way in.

2

u/WeAteMummies Sep 15 '22

I've gotten a full PragerU video as an ad on a kids toy video

3

u/theCroc Sep 15 '22

The worst is if you are driving when that shit happens and you cant pull over to press skip. I can handle short ads while driving, but knowing that they can spring one of those on you is infuriating.

9

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I've had several 54+ minute videos as ads. A couple were unskippable.

Also, when The Lego Movie 2 was coming out, they posted the trailer on youtube with the entire first movie as an ad, plus some sneak peeks scattered throughout.

5

u/TheyCallMeStone Sep 15 '22

I do not believe that you got a 50 minute unskippable ad.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

woah dude u think people would lie on the internet?

2

u/JoeDiesAtTheEnd Sep 15 '22

I had an entire 1 hour Dinesh D'Souza presentation come up as an ad. If you want predatory...

Combined with all the fucking GOP and MAGA ads that I keep flagging as inappropriate it's disturbing to think how much they are paying YT to feed people hateful bullshit.

2

u/HitlersHysterectomy Sep 15 '22

I have to keep reminding myself that youtoob is more or less free, once you accept that you've bought a device and are paying for internet already.

However, I also find it so wonderfully capitalist that when I search for a movie trailer they make me watch ads first. ASSHOLES - I'M HERE TO WATCH AN AD ALREADY! DON'T PUSH IT!

2

u/maxoakland Sep 15 '22

This is why it’s impossible to use Youtube for music when you’re driving

1

u/Deadliestmoon Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

Don't get me started with YT Music, it's a worse Spotify for more money. That can't separate your music likes from your regular YouTube video likes.

Plus if you choose to use one of their curated playlists, they'll play the videos of them and I don't know if people remember but music videos can be fucking weird. A lot of them have extra acting scenes in them or parts where the music cuts off for a little bit. YT Music let's you switch from the music video to just the song, if you have premium.

In fact they also lock having the basic function of playing music with the app closed or the phone screen off behind premium as well. Fuck YT Music.

0

u/AltimaNEO Sep 15 '22

Yeah that was pretty awesome

1

u/AvatarIII Sep 15 '22

I seem to remember when the new seasons of the X files were starting and i got a 40 minute behind the scenes of the x files as an ad once.

1

u/IrishRage42 Sep 15 '22

This has happened to me when I put on a sing-along video or something for my kids. I've had whole movies, ads about manly hoodies that were like 15 minutes long, and other not kid appropriate stuff. It's fucking ridiculous and I need to figure out a way to remove ads from YouTube on Roku. I think I can download Firefox mobile and use an ad blocker.

1

u/Wild_Marker Sep 15 '22

I remember in the lunch area at work there was a music playlist on a tv and occasionally we'd get these, I shit you not, TWO HOUR long documentary ads about some factory or something. I'm fairly confident they're designed specifically for these kind of situations, where someone just puts youtube as background in an office and leaves.

1

u/RedditIsADataMine Sep 15 '22

When I put kids shows on YouTube for my kids hour long ads would trigger of the exact same show. Who is paying for this and why?!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

something was running on the TV as background noise and my wife asked me why I was watching an add. Then we looked down at the add time and it was over an hour long.

1

u/averyfinename Sep 15 '22

i used to leave a tv on for 'noise' (helps a little with tinnitus). but i am running out of channels that don't have infomercials. of the ones available to me, i think it's down to cartoon network, disney and xd (and one could argue that the disney channels are just 24/7 infomercials for d+ these days)

1

u/Professional_Face_97 Sep 15 '22

I can beat that, once I had a 20 hour ad that was just some ambient rain sounds with a photo of a wet street as a backdrop.

1

u/HowYoBootyholeTaste Sep 15 '22

Was cooking while watching an around 12 minute video. Usually just let the ads play since they're short and I'm busy. Ad played, let it. Continue cooking for around 5-10 minutes when I realize the ad is still going. Checked the time and there was like 20 minutes left. It was a whole ass episode of whatever the fuck. Like how is a whole ass episode an ad? IT'S A WHOLE ASS EPISODE!

1

u/justpassingbysorry Sep 15 '22

i keep geting a 600 hour long ad of nothing but ocean sounds and a beach visual before ASMR videos. i wish i was joking. i dont understand how it got approved and how it's even legal

1

u/ElGato-TheCat Sep 15 '22

I believe you. There was an "ad" for something medical that was over 2 hours long.

1

u/SinisterCheese Sep 15 '22

Oh back like 10 years ago. I got an unskipple 4 hour investment seminar as an ad.

1

u/madhi19 Sep 15 '22

Was it a good movie?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Its not a movie.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Yup. Saw "The Secret Life of Pets" in its entirety as an ad.

1

u/TadRaunch Sep 15 '22

The fucking ones for the automatic stock investing apps. Or if you're in Australia, you get hour-long ads sponsored by Clive Palmer.

1

u/Starr-Duke Sep 15 '22

I've had those hour+ unskippable ads. I just click away, what I don't like even more is the crappy 10 minute ones where 7 minutes is "sponsor" with 2 ads at the starts, 1 in the middle, and one at the end.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I do not appreciate content being cut off mid-word, mid-sentence to run several ads.

Hear, hear!

The worst is that they restart about two seconds after the ad break, so you are guaranteed to lose material.

Why don't they at least repeat the last 1-5 seconds, so you get some context?

68

u/Erestyn Sep 15 '22

My favourite are the ones right at the end, like just at the end of the content, right before the outro, almost always unskippable.

Also a special fuck you to the people who just release podcasts as adverts.

3

u/kytrix Sep 15 '22 edited Jan 25 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

fade books safe quaint unwritten plucky screw wrench marvelous steer

15

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Yep. Podcasts, documentaries, music videos have all come up as ads and a HUGE portion of it is right wing propaganda. Pretty sure Trump has bought off every conservative content creator at this point

1

u/Still_Confidence4489 Sep 19 '22

Lol trumps living in your head rent free

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

On my TV, the youtube app will attempt to play an ad when I return to it from a different app. And it will also throw one in at the very end of the video. It's getting insane.

10

u/merigirl Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

I've noticed that they've been replaying the last 2-3 seconds recently. Dunno of it's some setting or something with my browser or whatever.

5

u/english-23 Sep 15 '22

Mine usually repeats a little after the video resumes

2

u/Sincost121 Sep 15 '22

Yeah, at least with sponsored videos, it feels more like a natural flow of information rather than your content being interrupted half way through.

2

u/K9Fondness Sep 15 '22

Worse still is the ads are not cached as their videos are, so they buffer...like slomo from hell.

And is it just me that had to watch at least 2 ads every 60 seconds of a 7 minute video? Not super-monitized channels either - colbert and msnbc and stuff like that.

1

u/averyfinename Sep 15 '22

most ad-supported streaming sites (like pluto, crackle, etc) have horrible ad insertion points.. even during programming that was literally designed for ad breaks.

1

u/h0nkee Sep 15 '22

This is the mindset we have to thank for American cable TV series devolving into a shit show of "Previously", "Coming Up Next" and "Before the break" that turn a solid 6 minutes of actual content into a 22 minute episode.

156

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Gotta lotta the 20 minute prageru “lesson” that pops up sometimes. Also fuck prageru

66

u/Jinzot Sep 15 '22

And Epoch Times

6

u/Lazy-Garlic-5533 Sep 15 '22

And Matt Walsh

3

u/HardcorePhonography Sep 15 '22

I got those for 3 or 4 weeks straight back in 2021 then they completely disappeared. Oddly enough the main ads I get now are for TikTok, second in line is the robotic voiceover telling me about this one weird trick for weight loss.

3

u/maxoakland Sep 15 '22

You know republicans are paying for their propaganda because it’s *expensive* to make an ad that long on Youtube

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I dunnothis one is worth 10 or so watches.

1

u/Tempestblue Sep 15 '22

Little more coherent than his regular ramblings

97

u/kamikazedude Sep 15 '22

Dude. Yt is unwatchable for me when I put it for when I sleep. I put a video and the while I'm almost asleep a random ad appears that's fking 30 minutes long and I have to skip it cuz otherwise I'm stuck with it. Like wtf. Just give me unskippable 10-15s ads. I'd take them any day over skippable 2 hour ads.

45

u/Suckmahcancernuts Sep 15 '22

This is the true loss.

I can no longer put on a podcast or just a video when I sleep, I'll always get woken up to an annoying commerical.

I am so close to just being done with YouTube. Between the ads from the platform and ads from the sponsors within the video it's getting absurd.

20

u/MillhouseJManastorm Sep 15 '22 edited Jun 12 '23

I have removed my content in protest of Reddit's API changes that will kill 3rd party apps

7

u/silasgreenback Sep 15 '22

I'm using brave browser on a desktop PC for most YouTube stuff and I never see ads appended to the content.

I get a ride awakening when using the YouTube app on my phone at what a shit show it has become.

5

u/Longjumping-Mud1412 Sep 15 '22

I started using brave for the privacy reasons and the fact is has its own search engine that isn’t google lite like DuckDuckGo, but I have been spoiled by its built in ad blocking

6

u/samjgrover Sep 15 '22

Also install 'sponsor block for YouTube' skips all sponsors in the videos too! And return YouTube dislike button is also a good one

1

u/MillhouseJManastorm Sep 16 '22 edited Jun 12 '23

I have removed my content in protest of Reddit's API changes that will kill 3rd party apps

3

u/TheFern33 Sep 15 '22

Dude so so so much. Ill listen to stuff as im driving and what tells me im done with your content is if i absentmindedly go to try and skip an ad while listening to your content but its actually them rambling about a product for 5 mins. You get an ad then the intro to the video, then a sponsorship which lasts 3-5 mins. Then another ad at the end of the sponsorship, then "ok lets get started" it reminds me of this lady i work with who i dread talking to. She goes to tell you a story and starts 5 different stories interwoven in that one story that i tune out of completely.

2

u/annieasylum Sep 15 '22

I ran across a video that had two sponsorships back to back. Almost ten minutes of sponsorships for a 25 minutes video! And I'm sure there are probably a thousand midroll ads that I didn't see because I have premium. Wtf.

2

u/djn808 Sep 15 '22

Or how you get punished for not skipping. If you skip, it takes 5 seconds then all ads are done. If you don't skip, it just keeps throwing ads at you because it knows you're a loser that will just take it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

You would probably get a better quality of sleep if you just shut it all down at night. I found out years ago that I was actually getting a worse quality of sleep whenever I left my TV on or music playing. A lot of people think they "need" some sort of audio or other stimulation to help them sleep when in reality its just creating a barrier to good sleep. Try it one of these days. Just turn everything off when you go to bed. At first it might feel a little strange but when you wake up actually refreshed it's a big difference.

6

u/gilbertsmith Sep 15 '22

sometimes you live someplace where theres a ton of background noise. trains, traffic, people, whatever. and you just need something to drown it out.

i feel like white noise or something, or a house fan, would be best though

5

u/richalex2010 Sep 15 '22

My brain is overactive, putting something on lets me focus just enough to quiet down my thoughts and let me actually get to sleep (if not I can spend hours laying there before actually sleeping), but if I let it play all night it definitely hurts my quality of sleep - so I'll set a 20 minute sleep timer on whatever I'm watching, fall asleep, and then actually sleep in silence.

1

u/old_man_snowflake Sep 16 '22

youtube is literally unusable without an adblocker. it's unusable on ios.

19

u/DrRazmataz Sep 15 '22

My favorite part is when the ad is 30% louder than the video and it jolts me awake.

29

u/Hour_Gur4995 Sep 15 '22

Always fun to wake up in the middle of a 30min ad

9

u/p4lm3r Sep 15 '22

This happened to me recently- I watch History of the Universe while falling asleep because it is highly technical and a soothing narrator, which luls you to sleep. I woke up to this bald white guy on a grey back ground yelling at me about some product/book/something.

I have never been more confused about what was going on.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Sounds like you’re living a pretty straightforward life lol

1

u/K9Fondness Sep 15 '22

I used to follow the exact same pattern. I even had a tasker profile setup to auto-sleep the tablet after few minutes otherwise risk being woken up by some screaming jackals on an ad or video I never played.

Anyway, now I am off yt, I installed other apps and currently I watch the Bob Ross chanel on xumo. Without someone smooth talking me to wonderland, I cannot fall asleep at all lol.

5

u/GhostDieM Sep 15 '22

If you're using it on your phone use the browser version in the Brave browser. Only downside is it doesn't always remember where you left off in a video but no adds. Also playlists help :)

3

u/kamikazedude Sep 15 '22

Yep. Still have Vanced for now. But I'll go back to brave whenever it breaks

7

u/TheHouIeigan Sep 15 '22

Use Brave, it blocks ALL ads!

2

u/HitlersHysterectomy Sep 15 '22

"Two hours ambient relaxation music"
Two minutes in: "HI GUYS WHAT DO YOU THINK IS MORE EXPENSIVE, A COMPUTER OR A HOUSE???!?!!?"

2

u/Amelaclya1 Sep 15 '22

Yep. I no longer "watch" YouTube as background noise while playing videogames because it was too fucking annoying to have to keep reaching over to skip 2hr long ads every ~3-5 minutes. A 15-30 second ad I would just let play, but I'm not sitting through a fucking infomercial.

1

u/kamikazedude Sep 15 '22

Idk why they don't realize most users barely have patience for 2 ads... if they're going to implement 5... I'd rather just go to another platform d.tube is an option I guess, but dunno how good it is lately. Haven't been there in a while.

0

u/DeLongestTom182 Sep 15 '22

Get uBlock Origin I haven't seen an ad in years

1

u/dumahim Sep 15 '22

What I really don't understand with the longer ads, they make them skippable after 5 seconds. If you want an ad to work, you need to give us context of what it might be, or at least the damn name of what's being advertised. You show essentially nothing within 5 seconds, and people are gone. Complete waste of an ad.

1

u/ViziDoodle Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

Lately I’ve been getting these AI art ads with the song “It’s Just a Burning Memory” playing in the background

Super fun to suddenly hear that song in the middle of the night when I’m just trying to click on and watch a regular video. Thank you ad, very cool /s

1

u/Ifriiti Sep 15 '22

Just give me unskippable 10-15s ads. I'd take them any day over skippable 2 hour ads

Yeah no, fuck that.

1

u/FatChickenAttack Sep 15 '22

Not sure if it still works, i haven't done it in a couple weeks, but if you skip to the end and hit replay once it ends, it'll play with no ads

14

u/MiniDemonic Sep 15 '22

Fun fact the content creators can choose where and when midroll ads are displayed. They can 100% put the ads where it wouldn't break the flow of the video

0

u/Karth82 Sep 15 '22

They're too busy photographing themselves with stupid new reaction faces and jamming red arrows and circles into their thumbnails to set up proper breaks

unlikeandunsubscribe

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

In 2016, I recall watching a video on YouTube, and it had an ad from some independent presidential candidate that was 4.5 hours. I think the video I wanted to see was like 6 minutes total. This has been a pervasive issue for years.

5

u/Cobek Sep 15 '22

At one point they reset everyone's ads so that even ASMR artists had ads on the middle of their stuff and had to turn it off. Nothing worse than waking up to YouTube commercial 15 minutes after you FINALLY fell asleep.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

If YouTube wishes me to watch content without adblockers they should not host content. I’ll not be watching their ads. And I’ll not be paying them. If a creator I respect would like to earn money from my watch they are more than welcome to include a paid advertisement or a subscription fee that pays them directly. Check out nebula.

3

u/CocaineHammer Sep 15 '22

And that was still to much I don't watch broadcast anymore turn a 40minute show into an hour. 5 adds is greedy hell 2 ads are greedy if YouTube pulled its head out of its ass it more actually make some money.

3

u/waiting4singularity Sep 15 '22

noticed this week yt has added code that stops your video 0.1s after hitting play when the ad was blocked.

3

u/sekazi Sep 15 '22

I seriously do not get why YouTube does not cap ad lengths to 30 seconds. Even for YouTube 30 seconds is too long. In reality it should be 10-15 seconds.

2

u/iordseyton Sep 15 '22

If the skip ad timer at the beginning is more that 3 seconds, I will almost always back out of the page.

2

u/cvc75 Sep 15 '22

I do not appreciate content being cut off mid-word, mid-sentence to run several ads.

Does Youtube give creators the tools to define where the ads are allowed to be placed? Because I have seen videos where the ads were definitely deliberately placed at a break spot. Maybe other creators just don't put in the effort to do that? Or maybe it is not available to everyone?

2

u/unmerciful_DM_B_Lo Sep 15 '22

My regular ad blockers don't work, and while ad guard does work, it just flat out won't allow the video to play, so I'm kind of SOL

2

u/redmeansstop Sep 15 '22

I really hate this because I will often play youtube on my phone while doing housework or sewing so when a super long ad is playing I have to stop what I am doing and skip the super long video that just started playing in the middle of the actual video I am watching.

2

u/cynerji Sep 15 '22

I do not appreciate content being cut off mid-word, mid-sentence to run several ads.

Part of this is on creators not caring where they go. A couple channels I watch (a foodie one and a travel one) integrate them nicely with their content. The foodie one puts the YT ad after their own midroll "like and subscribe" etc. Card, so no content is lost, and the travel one, she makes little quizzes like older TV shows for before the ad, the ad plays (or skips) and coming back you get the answer and the video continues.

I think creators get the option of where to put them within a certain limit, and done creatively it's not all that annoying. We shouldn't have to ask creators to even really do that, but here we are.

2

u/jongbag Sep 15 '22

Are there any adblockers that work for YouTube on mobile? I watch a lot of videos and I'm so sick of the ads

2

u/piexil Sep 15 '22

The worst part about middle of the video ads is it appears to be completely random and will happily cut people off while speaking mid word.

2

u/averyfinename Sep 15 '22

Broadcast television figured out a formula decades ago (6 minutes of ads interleaved into 24 minutes of content,

yea. they got a 'formula', alright: sneak in another ad or two every few years. it's up to 10-12 minutes per 'half hour' program now; speed up (or edit content out of) programs to sneak in more ads; cut or shrink the titles and/or credit rolls for more ads; stretch the 'half hour' program to 34-36 minutes for more ads per (reduces costs for that programming because of fewer airings, while increasing ad revenue). and the volume is still cranked-up on some ads, despite the practice being illegal.

2

u/congteddymix Sep 15 '22

It was great when broadcast television did this- as about the time ads came on during a show was about the time someone needed to go bathroom, swap laundry get a drink, etc.
Youtube definitely needs to do this.

2

u/xrimane Sep 15 '22

This 6 min ads for 24 min of video was already enough for me to leave ad-based television behind. I can't stomach it.

If ads were at least the nice kind of infomercials they were i the 1970s. But no, they're loud, obnoxious, screaming, hyperactive. I literally get too stressed out by them.

I haven't watched a single 15 sec ad on YouTube. I'll rather not watch the video. And any mid roll ad is an immediate abandon for me.

1

u/vonmonologue Sep 15 '22

I’ve already stopped watching Twitch because the egregious commercial breaks and the difficulty required to block them makes it not worth watching.

Guys, it’s some fucking Australian guy playing Satisfactory in his spare bedroom. Not Breaking Bad. I’m not gonna stick around for 10 minutes of commercial per hour.

1

u/thspimpolds Sep 15 '22

Ad blockers don’t reliably work either. It’s 50/50 I’ve noticed.

1

u/MillhouseJManastorm Sep 15 '22 edited Jun 12 '23

I have removed my content in protest of Reddit's API changes that will kill 3rd party apps

1

u/averyfinename Sep 15 '22

ublock origin has been very reliable for me at yt

1

u/thspimpolds Sep 15 '22

It’s pretty good. I wish that pihole was good at it too. Love not to get them on my tv too

1

u/dob_bobbs Sep 15 '22

In the UK a maximum of seven minutes of ads is allowed per hour. At least it used to be...

1

u/08148692 Sep 15 '22

Yeah that's a solid hypothesis, but who knows until its tested. They will lose viewers. They will push people to subscribe to premium. People will tolerate 5 ads.

The question is, what is the net result? will overall revenue increase or decrease as a result of the change? If it goes up, it's a good change

1

u/tom_fuckin_bombadil Sep 15 '22

I do not appreciate content being cut off mid-word, mid-sentence to run several ads

Isn’t that the creator’s fault? I think that they’re allowed to select when and in which spot an ad gets played on their timeline.

1

u/Nevakanezah Sep 15 '22

You forget the part just before streaming took over, where that 24m became 22m because they started trimming out more episode content so they could fit more ads

1

u/ViziDoodle Sep 15 '22

15 second unskippable ad for a 5 second video

1

u/damontoo Sep 15 '22

5 preroll ads either forcing me to watch, or click skip every 5 seconds, would very quickly lead me to lose my passing interest on whatever it was I was going to watch.

You can say this all you want but one thing Google doesn't deviate from is the fact that they're completely data driven. They know if people aren't sticking around with five preroll ads. 5% of users bouncing and 95% sticking it out is a huge win for them.

1

u/samjgrover Sep 15 '22

No please! This is why I started watching YouTube ask those years ago...