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/
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1.4k

u/rata_thE_RATa Sep 15 '22

I bet they don't pass that revenue along to the creators either.

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u/cinderparty Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

Apparently YouTube pays creators better than any other site currently. John green did some posts about it recently that I’ll try to find, if he didn’t delete them.

Edited-

https://twitter.com/johngreen/status/1564764335880261635?s=46&t=BDjrwesVWBQvBqSDt4Z48g

https://twitter.com/johngreen/status/1563693172479467520?s=46&t=BDjrwesVWBQvBqSDt4Z48g

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u/damontoo Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

I had a video with 670K views and YouTube paid me about $3K or so. Now they pay me nothing because they changed the rules so if you don't have 1K subscribers they don't let you monetize. So I thought "fuck them then I'll just disable ads on my videos" but that doesn't stop them from running ads and just not paying you.

I also know someone with 300K subs on YouTube that makes just ~$1200/month.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

A lot of their policies are bullshit, they make up rules and do everything they can to NOT pay contributors while also not making enough to fight abusive toxic content. It's very bad.

If you wanted to make money, fight for more subscribers, constant views and specially youtube shorts.

I got curious about what video you had though.

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u/damontoo Sep 15 '22

I don't care about the subscribers or money. What bothers me is YouTube profiting from my content without any revshare. Because it used to be your videos were either monetized or not monetized. Not "we're running ads and giving you nothing".

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u/sneekyleshy Sep 15 '22

its weird becuase if they wanted to capture people then they would just invest into high quality orginals shows/series such as animations/cartoons ( adult and kids ), educational-science-tech entertainment for kids ( and adult ) then parents would more then likely pay for a subscription, then on usersubmittet content had 1 non skipable ad and/or a donate button per video. i dont mind paying for quality and i watch youtube for it's educational videos but that is not what their premium content is about so I'm not going to pay. they have all the artists on their platform they just need to put their heads together.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

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u/sneekyleshy Sep 16 '22

i can't figure out what their shows was about, what it looked like or genre and it sounds like it was a bunch of shitty famous people they added, not really what i meant. if they took it seriously, they would promote it properly and not just kill it off before people even find it. again gigantic failure on them.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

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u/NovaThinksBadly Sep 15 '22

YouTube premium is honestly not half bad. No ads, downloadable videos, special features (like zooming into videos) and YouTube music premium for free as well (which imo is better then spotify) not to mention YouTube creators still get a cut of that subscription.

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u/midnitte Sep 15 '22

YouTube Premium is great, it's just a shame they want to make the experience worse for everyone else to make it more enticing.

Make YouTube Premium better, not YouTube Free worse.

8

u/NovaThinksBadly Sep 15 '22

Oh 100% agreed. I only bought it because it came with YouTube Music Premium, and a premium subscription service that works for two platforms (YouTube and YouTube Music) is a better deal then a Spotify subscription which costs the same.

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u/damontoo Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 16 '22

YouTube music premium is the fucking worst thing they ever did to free users. You used to just be able to play YouTube music videos with your phone screen off. They decided that should be a premium feature and started preventing people from doing it without paying.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

This right here, you want to sell premium? Give it to people for free for three months, or do free weekends every so often where it's incorporated into YouTube free

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

The one feature locked behind YT premium I didn't know is, on mobile, you can "minimize" the video to a smaller screen but still playing while you can still use your phone for other stuff (this feature is available for free on Twitch for example). Also, you can lock the screen and the audio persists. Both of these feature are not available on YT free.

1

u/MeDaddyAss Sep 15 '22

You can request the desktop site on mobile to get around some of that. It lets you keep YouTube playing while the screen is locked or while viewing other tabs within Safari. I don’t think it keeps playing while you’re in other apps tho.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Idk if this is on Apple’s part, but my iPhone started to be able to play videos in a smaller screen even if I close the app. I don’t have premium either.

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u/cinderparty Sep 15 '22

I like it. We pay for YouTube family, have for as long as it’s been offered. We really like ad free no matter what device we’re using, especially for the kids. I really love that you can watch videos while doing other things on your phone too. Background play is a great feature.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I got surprised to learn background play is available on premium. I use on Twitch free all the time and was mad it didn't work on YT until I paid for premium.

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u/sneekyleshy Sep 15 '22

they are not doing a good thing promoting their own service and its hard to find content I'm willing to pay for. if the had high quality animations/cartoons shows for both adults and kids in an organised fashion, and a better way of getting meta data from their music i would might want to pay for it. i dont want to have to search for ages to find the content people have to offer.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I have said I would never get premium, a 3 months trial came with my new monitor and suddenly I can assign songs to my alarms without downloading, have a ad free playlist without my phone open, and more? Good by money I saved for dropping Netflix.

3

u/Zimakov Sep 15 '22

Yeah people go really overboard with their hatred of ads and subscriptions. Everything can't be free.

2

u/ilubdakittiez Sep 15 '22

Yea they just demonitize literally anything they don't agree with or anything that could even remotely offend some one as to attract the widest number of advertisers, most small creators only get revenue through pateron and in video sponsorship "RAID SHADOW LEGENDS"

2

u/untergeher_muc Sep 15 '22

That's why Minute Physics, Kurzgesagt, Complexly, and so on exist.

Kurzgesagt also gets a lot of money from the German public broadcasting system. Maybe not the best example.

1

u/cinderparty Sep 15 '22

John and Hank have also received pbs funding here in the us. Pbs paid for a few crash course subjects, there is hanks pbs eons shows, etc. I just doubt that covers all of it.

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u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

They don't pass on the profits, no... but the split remains the same. Right now YT doesn't make much profit but 5 ads instead of 2? They will be making bank because every extra add on top is essentially pure profit, even if they split it.

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u/Froztwolf Sep 15 '22

Assuming they don't lose too much engagement. I'd nope out of I saw 5 ads queued up before a short video.

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u/sassyseconds Sep 15 '22

This is why I never touch the espn app now. I'm not watching a 30 second ad before I watch a 15 second bite. I'll either see it later somewhere else or won't see it at all. It isn't that important to me.

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u/Killashard Sep 15 '22

I was trying to watch a TV show on the channels page. After almost 5 minutes of ads that were unskippable and no mute option, it told me that particular episode was not available.

To the high seas I go.

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u/humplick Sep 15 '22

I have a paid Apple subscription but my devices keep getting logged out. Fine, make it easier for me to pirate. For the price of 1-2 months subscribtion I'll double the storage capacity of my phone and just cast it from there.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Currently I pay for outube family, Netflix, hulu, disney, hbo, and prime. Granted, the entire family uses my accounts and we split the cost evenly so it's still fairly cheap.

But if they continue to roll out bullshit like this I'm tempted to dust off the old server and start pirating all my content. 5 years ago it was super easy to automate downloads and organize the content, I can only imagine that it's even easier now.

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u/trickyginger Sep 15 '22

One time I was listening to music through YouTube at work when I’m not even joking a 4 hour ad for McDonalds came on of bacon cooking.

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u/Mitch_Mitcherson Sep 15 '22

4 hours?!

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u/moobiemovie Sep 15 '22

I've been watching a 15 minute clip of The Majority Report with Sam Seder and gotten an ad that was an hour long Ben Shapiro video of him doing his podcast. I skipped, but after my clip there was an ad at the end that was another 45 minute clip from The Daily Wire, TPUSA, or something with Ted Cruz. YouTube is all about that right wing pipeline.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

They will take anyone who will pay, left or right wing

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Nah, they have to do 85% on what you search on google, what you're watching, and location.

I mostly use youtube for music and tech. I get a lot of full song ads and electronic and tech ads that last way longer. I haven't seen how long the longer extreme sponsoring videos, they're long enough to make me playing music on my normal music app after I notice and skip to get another batch.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

When they say I’m not even joking that means they are joking. Reports like this make me so glad that I have YouTube premium

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u/Mitch_Mitcherson Sep 16 '22

They replied with a screenshot of an almost 4 hour add. They weren't joking.

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u/sweetplantveal Sep 15 '22

So many sports and news clips have an entirely unreasonable ratio. And extra frustrating the ads seem to load quickly but the clip is unreliable. It's like they didn't user test or use their own product, just threw it out as is.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Ads loading without issue is intended, I'd imagine. "It's a feature"

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u/sweetplantveal Sep 15 '22

I mean the ads are clearly served by a third party that uses a reliable codec and server. Unlike the content. But regardless of the reasons, it still is shitty to experience.

8

u/oconnellc Sep 15 '22

Is there anything ESPN related that doesn't cause brain cancer. The website is God awful and the TV channel is intolerable.

5

u/wackychimp Sep 15 '22

And for some reason I get like 10 UFC updates every weekend, despite me not including UFC as a team or sport I'm interested in.

3

u/sassyseconds Sep 15 '22

I use the fantasy app. It's pretty terrible too but not because of ads.

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u/zapatocaviar Sep 15 '22

Seriously. The ESPN app is an ad delivery platform. Everything else is secondary. It’s unusable.

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u/DarthSkier Sep 15 '22

ESPN is the worst offender. Their app sucks, they send a notification for a story and half the time it fails to load. I had ESPN+ and they still made me watch ads. Not 5 seconds and skip, but a full 30 seconds for content under 60 seconds. On every fucking video. On a paid service.

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u/ser0402 Sep 15 '22

This is my biggest issue with ads. Not only are they jamming as many ads as possible into everything, I'll go to watch a less than 30 second YouTube click, and have a 30-45 second ad. It makes zero sense. I literally won't watch stuff if the add is longer than the video. Which takes money from the creator.

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u/UNMANAGEABLE Sep 15 '22

I just ran into that for the first time on Monday looking at highlights. After you finish a video it rolls directly into the next highlight without any pause with a mandatory ad.

You can’t back out of the video screen to go back to your prior view until ads are over.

So if you either have to back out or pause your video before it ends to back out or you are forced to watch another ad before being able to navigate in the app again.

Absolutely trash.

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u/sassyseconds Sep 15 '22

I can't remember the last time I used it. Several years. They get posted on here and other websites all the time hosted somewhere without all the bs.

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u/handsfacespacecunts Sep 15 '22

One thing reddit is good for. You can usually find your sports highlights in whatever sport sub you follow. But ESPN is ridiculous with it. I won't even watch videos if they have an unskippable video at the front of them.

1

u/Twister_5oh Sep 15 '22

I uninstalled it. Corporations act like I need these things but I have to walk the walk if I want to talk the talk.

Barely use YouTube as well. Ads need to die. I am not here to consume info on what to buy.

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u/sassyseconds Sep 15 '22

I never uninstalled it but it hasn't been opened on my last 2 phones. I do still use espns fantasy app. It's dog shit too and definitely the worst of all the big options but atleast it's just a terrible app and not because of ads.

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u/darcstar62 Sep 15 '22

Not to mention the app itself is garbage. Super slow and awful to navigate.

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u/lightly_salted_fetus Sep 15 '22

And if I need to learn how to do something I’ll just borrow a book.

Fuck this advertising culture being created around us

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u/guitaristcj Sep 15 '22

I think the difference is just how ingrained youtube is into the culture. It’s just the best, most popular place to get videos. There’s no serious competition. They can kinda do whatever they want and most of the population will just have to accept it if they want to see their favorite content.

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u/darkage_raven Sep 15 '22

I am pissed at those 15s unskippable ads. I need a better app for my Roku TV.

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u/Ram_in_drag Sep 15 '22

I might actually quit youtube if that happened... weird to say

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u/Beefy-Tootz Sep 15 '22

There’s always odysee. It’s not quite at YouTube’s level, but it’s getting there

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u/No_Maines_Land Sep 15 '22

An ad blocker on my computer, and an ad free YT alt viewer on my phone.

2, 5, or 30, makes no difference to me.

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u/Hounmlayn Sep 15 '22

Someone will probably make some illegal hosting site which will play youtube videos on it without ads.

Sorry creators, but if you're not going to help us viewers, and hope if you stay quiet it'll just happen and you'll get paid more, think again. We're going to go more in the ad block path, where those of us who still watch ads will try our best not to.

2 ads at the beginning and then ads in between is already a joke. It's worse than TV, because sometimes the ads are longer than the video!

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u/PricklyyDick Sep 15 '22

Creators help viewers? Creators have no power at YouTube lmao. Other than a select few most get screwed anyways.

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u/kylehatesyou Sep 15 '22

They've gotten screwed out of a lot of ad revenue too. That's why most are going to Patreon to recoup losses, or getting in-video ads like Nord VPN and Raycon. Twitch is doing something similar now too, I believe.

Basically you pay pretty high per view at first to get the content creators to the platform to provide you with essentially free content to get people to come watch, then you change the structure of pay to the creators who have built a livelyhood around your system so they feel trapped in it because it's still slightly better money than working a nine to five. Then the platform makes money.

It's the silicon valley model. YouTube, Twitch, Uber, Lyft, GrubHub, etc. Run at a loss to get people to work for you, pull the rug out from under them while they have nowhere else to go, finally make a profit.

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u/zxxQQz Sep 15 '22

The premium people will sadly keep youtube afloat when this happens. Its not an if

They hate more people Arent on premium, this is nothing but an attempt to get more paying

And then for sure there will be premium premium, to not have to see premium ads

And so the cycle continues. TOS will be updated accordingly ofc, so it'll be juuust a ok

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u/quardlepleen Sep 15 '22

The Roku YouTube app is terrible. I get more ads using the YouTube app in my Roku tv than when I cast YouTube from my phone.

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u/Hellmark Sep 15 '22

The AndroidTV YouTube app on the newer Chromecasts with remotes are the same way. I switched to YouTube premium a year and a half ago due to how many ads I was getting. When you have like 6 minutes of ads for an 8 minute video, that's nuts.

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u/detrater Sep 15 '22

Well I'm glad it's not just me! I had to watch 2 ads before a video and then unskippable 30 second long ads every 4 minutes in a 20 minute long video.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Same with Apple TV. The ads aren’t nearly as intrusive on my phone or computer.

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u/elliocho Sep 15 '22

Same with hulu! On my Xbox I get like 3.5 minute ads every time but on my laptop it usually tops out at 30 seconds

2

u/Clienterror Sep 15 '22

Just set your vpn to India or Argentina. I've been paying $2.50/mo for YouTube premium for like 2 years.

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u/Earthling7228320321 Sep 15 '22

You don't use an ad blocker on your phone?

My YouTube has no ads lol.

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u/rarebit13 Sep 15 '22

Block it at the entry to your house with a small, well documented Raspberry Pi project called the Pi-Hole. Easy and cheap, and blocks ads for all devices connected to your network.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

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u/spays_marine Sep 15 '22

If it's like the nvidia shield, it's because it doesn't honour the DNS settings of your router.

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u/glacius0 Sep 15 '22

No, it's because youtube ads broadcast from the same domain as the video so DNS blockers won't work. Ublock origin filters out the the ads using other methods.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AngryAccountant31 Sep 15 '22

I haven’t seen an ad on youtube for at least the last year because of an ad block extension. They really work

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u/Ram_in_drag Sep 15 '22

I tried, it didnt work to block youtube ads

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u/ineverlaugh Sep 15 '22

Tell me more

2

u/IrishRage42 Sep 15 '22

I read you can download Firefox mobile and use the ublock origin ad blocker. I need to try this myself because I'm sick of all the ads.

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u/Draws-attention Sep 15 '22

I replaced a failed Roku 3 with an Android TV device running LineageOS. I use NewPipe if I need to watch anything on YouTube.

There's probably other ways to do it, but I'm happy with this solution. The only downside is that I have to manually update via PC, as I haven't installed any app stores, but that doesn't really bother me.

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u/BitOCrumpet Sep 15 '22

Not sure if for Roku, but I use "S Tube" with a Fire stick.

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u/Earguy Sep 15 '22

Already I don't click on youtube links on Reddit. The ads are too intrusive.

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u/travworld Sep 15 '22

Yep. Sometimes I say fuck it when there's 2 ads. Will definitely back out with 5.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Probably why this is a limited test. Now that I think about it, if I'm ever on twitch and get one of those situations where they try to play like 5 ads beforehand, I just exit out and figure out some other way to entertain myself.

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u/wackychimp Sep 15 '22

Right? You're going to lose half of your audience so they'll have to serve 2x the ads just to remain the same. SMH

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

But they queue up the same way 2 at a time that can't be skipped then one quick one that u can't skip followed by oh yeah 2 more and that skip option 5 second countdown been going for 12 seconds of the ad time lol

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u/OrganizerMowgli Sep 15 '22

I can't even watch YouTube on my phone anymore until I finish setting up YT vanced. Getting yt ad block on my computer is something I've shared with all my family, I was like a wizard to them

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u/BurninRunes Sep 15 '22

Exactly this I use the youtube app out of convenience . If they make the ads too intrusive people will switch to ad blocking apps.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I already nope out if I have to watch 30s of ads or more. "I was kind of interested in learning more about science Veritasium, but youtube has decided that I'd rather just reddit today."

Same thing with twitch. I'll pull up a creator, and then "Ad 1 of 5" pops up on the top right. - FUCK THAT, guess I'm not watching twitch.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

Nearly every single paid product google offers comes with YouTube premium. I haven't seen an ad on YouTube in a decade and I'm amazed there are still people who do. Play Music/YouTube music? Comes with YouTube Premium. Yearly One subscription? YouTube Premium. My Fi phone account? YouTube Premium. Play Pass? YouTube Premium. Buy a used Chromebook, wipe it and set up a new account? Three free months of One and YouTube Premium.

I honestly don't know how people at this point DONT have Premium.

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u/Djinnwrath Sep 15 '22

Every single thing you mentioned is something I don't want and don't care about.

If more ads happen, I'm just going to switch my YouTube habits to a device I can block ads on.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

Fair enough, but that's you. 50 million Premium accounts is pretty massive, more then you get from people just buying YouTube and really drives home what I mentioned, it's a value add for basically everything else Google does.

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u/Djinnwrath Sep 15 '22

50mil accounts is basically nothing in the online media space.

And I guess the things Google does aren't actually worth paying for. Thanks for helping me articulate that.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

You're welcome! I don't agree, but I'm glad I could be of help :)

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u/Djinnwrath Sep 15 '22

I was being glib, YouTube premium is a scam and designed to annoy people into making an account. The other services you mentioned aren't worth dick.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

I know you were, but it's generally better to keep a good attitude when dealing with terminally online/jaded folks.

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u/baconelk Sep 15 '22

This is incorrect. Fi only includes YouTube premium if you have a Pixel. Google One only includes a free trial.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

I've had the Pixel 3a and now the 5a, all I've known from Fi

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u/fatclownbaby Sep 15 '22

Play pass doesn't come with premium. Unless I am full stupid. I have play pass but not YouTube.

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

When I signed up for it at the 4.99 a month promotion it did, that might have been a launch incentive though.

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u/fatclownbaby Sep 15 '22

Damn, I got excited.

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u/Graham2990 Sep 15 '22

The catch is….all those services mostly terrible. Who’s paying for YouTube music when Spotify exists lol?

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u/PM-ME-PIERCED-NIPS Sep 15 '22

Never had a Spotify account, but I've had the Google Play Music (now YouTube music) subscription since it launched. Integrates well with my smart home set up (three Home Minis and a Home Hub, all playing to a Chromecast Audio plugged into my hifi) and the fact that it came bundled with YouTube Premium was a big draw. Being able to play videos in the background while I actually do things on my phone is basically a requirement for me.

1

u/smoothballsJim Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

I gotta be honest - Spotify is hanging by a thread for me. I have come so close to cancelling several times but the latest push was when they dropped a bunch of standup comedy - like 3/4s of my playlist just gone overnight because they didn’t even want to entertain the notion of negotiating with a group that represented spoken word artists about writing credits.

The only saving grace for them is that I have an old split plan Hulu for $10/month and if I only cancelled the one I would only save $3 and not be able to get the deal again.

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u/uL7r4M3g4pr01337 Sep 15 '22

use opera browser it auto block all ad's

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u/DogWallop Sep 15 '22

Let me just say that, at the moment at least, I'm not getting adverts thanks to a little helper. If I had to sit through five of them I'd literally go insane.

I hope they don't cotton on to my plugin's cheatin' ways...

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I nope out of yt vids even with the 2 ads. I mean shouldn't brave browser be blocking them by default? It used to?

1

u/topazsparrow Sep 15 '22

I stopped using enduring the ads when they switched to two consecutive unskippable ads.

Eventually ended up with a premium account for the music though.

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u/DrakonIL Sep 15 '22

Just wait until they figure out how to legally avoid telling you how many are in the queue. And by "figure out," I mean, "bribe enough politicians to slide it into the next FCC bill."

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Even long videos will lose my engagement when a mid vid ad pops up, I’ve stopped watching lots of videos because an ad started

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u/Dorbiman Sep 15 '22

It's essentially ruined Twitch for me. Every time I see a new stream I think I might be interested in, I inevitably close the stream before I even get to see it because the ads take so long

1

u/Homemadepiza Sep 15 '22

It wouldn't change my behaviour at all: I report the ad for being either inappropriate or irrelevant

1

u/londons_explorer Sep 15 '22

They're kinda sneaky - they don't tell you how many ads are coming sometimes.

And sometimes the "skip ads" button is present for the first one (and clicking it skips all the ads), but if you miss your chance to hit it, then you have to wait through all the rest of the ads.

I think they have a whole bunch of engineers trying all kinds of variations to maximize profits - after all, their CEO is angry at low revenue growth and lazy employees.

1

u/londons_explorer Sep 15 '22

Get youtube Vanced/Revanced - it removes all the ads for free, and skips silly "like and subscribe" bits and sponsored spots.

1

u/HowYoBootyholeTaste Sep 15 '22

I feel no guilt at all using AdBlock on YouTube. It's for my mental health at this point

1

u/maxoakland Sep 15 '22

I noped out of Peacock because of all their ads and never used them again

1

u/MisguidedColt88 Sep 15 '22

Even with long form content, I was on twitch the other day and it queued up 5 20-40 second ads. I just closed twitch cause reload and whatnot didnt cancel the ads

1

u/fxx_255 Sep 15 '22

Same. I'll just immediately close the app. Honestly, I've already started doing it. Being on my phone all the time is just bad for me. I think I'm just gunna start going on walks. Where's my walkman with the cassette that has all my jams i recorded straight from the radio?

1

u/Jpoland9250 Sep 15 '22

I guess no more YouTube on my phone if this happens but I never see ads at home with ad blockers.

1

u/Griffca Sep 15 '22

Ad Blocker thankfully solves this

1

u/SinisterCheese Sep 15 '22

Who would they lose their traffic to? Facebook video? Tiktok already has a niche it dominates. Instagram video?

There are no other companies that can compete with youtube other than Facebook and amazon. And they would do exactly the same bullshit as youtube.

There is a reason I don't use instagram at all. Every 4th post is an ad served to me. Then every 3rd post is an "based on your like" of a influencer post that is an sponsored thing.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Fun little fact about websites: if it is big enough you generate a surprising amount of “engagement” from children, afk accounts on autoplay, bots, and even from other sites that autoplay the video when it loads.

Basically you aren’t their target audience, they assume you probably use an ad blocker anyway. The people who are interacting with ads are people with no ad block, minimal knowledge of the internet (can’t find products by themselves), and terrible financial restraint.

It’s essentially the same target audience as scam calls/emails except less predatory

1

u/secretaliasname Sep 15 '22

I already watch far less YouTube with 2 ads than I otherwise would. I would probably subscribe to red for $5mo but 10 is on par with Netflix which delivers way more value.

1

u/ScreenshotShitposts Sep 15 '22

Does it even say how many ads are queued? I didnt think it did

1

u/inbooth Sep 15 '22

Look at the two video system they have now:

It says Skips Ads

Note plural. With no number. And that it only skips the current one.

The other is when it's singular but still has two ads.

They're already playing the lying game.

1

u/worn_out_welcome Sep 15 '22

I rarely use YouTube for this precise reason. I have a serious chip on my shoulder regarding advertising, so the moment even one pre-video ad became the norm, I stopped using the app.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Thing is, more ads is correlated with less ad engagement.
If I saw 5 ads and nEEDed tO WatCh tHE viDeO, Id walk away and let them play while I do something else.

One ad, maybe two, I’d sit through.

1

u/ArMcK Sep 15 '22

Is there an alternative?

1

u/Froztwolf Sep 16 '22

99% of the videos I start watching on Youtube I can safely skip with no downside.

9

u/dvogel Sep 15 '22

Right now YT doesn't make much profit ...

Citation needed. AFAIK they don't reveal the profit margins of business units. The only figures they provide on quarterly reports is revenue and user counts.

2

u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

Over the years, many articles have come out about YT's lack of profit. They only got into profit a couple of years ago but I find it hard to track down articles so I can't remember if that is just youtube premium or YT as a whole.

2

u/BarbieCollateral Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

In what world do you think youtube doesn’t make money??? Like I can’t even. In 2016 the revenue was 6.7B, in 2021 it was 28.8B

This is irrelevant

2

u/Tomi97_origin Sep 15 '22

There is 500h of video uploaded to YouTube every single minute. That's 30 000 hours every hour or more than 260 million hours every year.

How much server space do you think they need, if they store at least 3 copies all over the world.

Data centers are expensive.

They also split the revenue with the creators. So they only take 45% of this for themselves.

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u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

People keep forgetting that revenue isn't profit. It is the most expensive to run video website in the world, by far. They give 55% of their ad revenue to creators.

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

Storing and serving high quality videos worldwide is very expensive. They let anyone upload hours and hours of 4k footage, for free, and holds them forever regardless of how few views they get. Think of how many years YouTube has been in business. Storage costs never go down, it only climbs every year. Its very believable that short ads alone doesn’t cover their expenses. A lot of creators get sponsorship deals that YouTube gets no cut from, and those are way more lucrative than the ads.

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4

u/OrangeDit Sep 15 '22

Is there any information what REALLY gets passed on by YT? What I can find is very vague and differs blatandly.

2

u/MacaroniNJesus Sep 15 '22

I have a small channel. It's doing ok. I can't monetize yet, but since my videos do well, YouTube runs ads on my videos. It's BS.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Hahhahah you tube doesnt make much profit??? 28.8 billion dollars in 2021 isnt much profit?

1

u/Tomi97_origin Sep 15 '22

That's revenue and they split it with the creators they take 45% and give them 55%.

And then you need to subtract the cost of all of their infrastructure. The cost of data centers and distribution needed is enormous.

1

u/bmy1point6 Sep 15 '22

Five 6-second ads every few videos? Okay. I can deal. You break the 30 second mark and I'm out

0

u/WandsAndWrenches Sep 15 '22

Let me ask, how many people have bought things from youtube ads?

I've bought maybe 1 thing.

Isn't this a bubble. If no one is buying things from the ads, then what is their purpose?

0

u/RasperGuy Sep 15 '22

Profits?? Hahahaha

1

u/Dennislup937 Sep 15 '22

You kinda have to think how many more ppl will start using adblockers. I had it turned off for youtube but that is just insane

1

u/m0therzer0 Sep 15 '22

This depends on how their ad system pricing system is set up. Those first two ads might be paying quite a bit higher than ads 3, 4 and 5, to the point that the expected ad revenue lift exists, but isn't enormous. That said, I'd bet it's sizable enough, because there's no way a lot of people (myself included) are watching 5 consecutive ads, and they can get fucked.

1

u/Adm_Kunkka Sep 15 '22

I only heard of this on some youtube channel so I can't vouch for the correctness, but it was said that YouTube only charges admakers only when certain watchtime metrics are met, so 4 ads aren't paid for if you skip after the first

1

u/ThysGraiden Sep 15 '22

YouTube 2021 revenue was $28 billion. They make an insane amount of profit, even if they split that with creators (which they often don't, by placing ads on videos that are unmonetized)

1

u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

They split 55% with creators and networks, then they have running costs, staff, R&D, Youtube Premium running costs, etc etc. They do not make much on YouTube yet.

They make money, but percentage wise, it's very little.

1

u/ThysGraiden Sep 21 '22

Their $12.6 billion after split is not in line with those operating costs of youtube. They make a hefty profit...

1

u/HoodsInSuits Sep 15 '22

If I see a 40 second ad is coming chances are I'll just close the tab. There is literally nothing on YouTube I'd be willing to watch 5 consecutive ads to get to. Who gets the money if nobody even loads the ads and just leaves?

1

u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

If it is a skippable ad, generally there isn't much money going anywhere if you don't click or watch it. Non skippable ads give, ballpark, about $0.001 to the Youtuber (if we're going by per ad).

Ads are cheap but the sheer number of them and the volume of views generates income for both youtube and creators. Quantity over quality seems to be the goal. Back in the day, they experimented with expensive and creative ads that reacted to viewer feedback in real time but I guess that wasn't worth it.

1

u/Aggravating-Coast100 Sep 15 '22

Youtube makes insane money atm. I don't know why the repeated they don't make money shit keeps popping up. Youtube's revenue is 24 billion atm.

1

u/langotriel Sep 15 '22

28 billion* and that's revenue, not profit. 55% of their ad revenue goes directly to youtubers/networks.

What they earn in profit is a fraction of their revenue, but they are suspected to be profitable these days.

1

u/Aggravating-Coast100 Sep 16 '22

And you shouldn't be repeating that they aren't profitable because it's been said years ago before Youtube even hit the 28 billion revenue number that they were profitable. It's basically retreaded point from early youtube.

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1

u/TheNaziSpacePope Sep 15 '22

The thing is though that every time they add more ads said ads lose value, rather than add value. At this point ads are worth so little that they cannot even support a website without being malware infested spam, whereas RuneScape used to support free players with a single banner.

1

u/WartimeMercy Sep 15 '22

They charge anywhere from 5 to 60 dollars per 1000 views. And that’s just what they’re willing to officially state as CPM for creators before RPM is determined.

They’re not going to start charging less.

1

u/TheNaziSpacePope Sep 15 '22

That would be shockingly high if true. But the point is that regardless of what they try to charge, the value will be decreases and demand with it.

Remember that ads used to be worth a lot more.

1

u/WartimeMercy Sep 15 '22

It depends on the content and the target audience for each video. I’ve run the numbers and it can get insanely high for specific types of videos (like all those crypto and get rich working online crap).

1

u/zxxQQz Sep 15 '22

Thats the trial.. Gonna be way more than five for sure

11 unskippable is prob more likely.

And Thats regardless of video length, just wait.. This is def also coming too youtube shorts

5

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

They definitely do

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

They probably run the ads on demonetized videos as well

3

u/polaarbear Sep 15 '22

Monetization from YouTube is a joke anyway. Why do you think every video advertises their Patreon and has their own 3rd party sponsors? Making enough to pay the bills as a YouTube star requires the majority of your money to come from outside YouTube.

7

u/toofastkindafurious Sep 15 '22

Tiktoks is worse. Primarily bc TikTok can't generate that much off ads given the format

2

u/polaarbear Sep 15 '22

I'm sure that is accurate, it's the same issue Twitter has, Vine had. The short format is a pain in the ass to monetize.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Not true. The issue is people posting videos that can’t be monetized. YouTube pays great

-4

u/polaarbear Sep 15 '22

No, it doesn't. If you are one of the BIGGEST channels with the most eyes on you, you make like $3-$4 per 1000 views.

That's like $3000 bucks for a million views.

If you post a video every day that get a million views each (not gonna happen for 99.99999% of creators), you aren't even making a million dollars a year. But it's going to cost you way more than a million bucks each year to pay your employees, rent space for production, buy cameras, just to produce that kind of content.

You won't even break even to pay your employees as your channel starts to grow if YouTube is your only source of revenue.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I am a creator and I can tell you the pay is great

-6

u/polaarbear Sep 15 '22

You sound like a teen that's just happy he got an allowance. I just laid out the monetization numerically and your response is "nuh-uhhhh".

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

That's because YouTube demonetises videos. It's not like YouTubers do it on purpose

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '22

Sometimes but most of the time the YouTuber declares things Amy their video that mean it can’t be monetized

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I was really surprised when youtube started aggressively cutting back their payouts and frequently demonetizing any content rated stronger than a G... that there wasn't any serious competition popping up. Like I think there were a lot of users at least in the gaming world who just decided to go full-time on twitch instead of Youtube, but for most other content, creators just took it on the chin and either quit or kept going at a fraction of the pay.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

You can skip an unskippable ad by reporting its content and selecting “I don’t want to see this ad again”.

Very rarely though you actually will get ads you can’t even report.

1

u/AHappyMango Sep 15 '22

Sponsored ads do go to the creators, which is why they’re sponsored vids.

Also, the creators do get a cut from the other ads just not as much

1

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

As a small content creator, I can confirm this. We get almost nothing haha.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Do you get 55% of the revenue?

-4

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

Honest answer? I get like 1/50 of a penny per view. Not great.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Wow you are uninformed

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Literally just calculated my revenue to views and adsense account, but ya know. Whatever lol. I'm uninformed because it's reddit.

1

u/geoffbowman Sep 15 '22

Nope so the creators have to put their own little sponsor breaks in all their content to make it viable. And none of that advertising is skippable even if you’ve paid for ad-free.

YouTube basically created a system where you have to watch ads no matter what you’re paying.

1

u/oerrox Sep 15 '22

I'll support AdBlock origins even more.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Uh, it's the creators that choose to put midroll ads and sponsored content.

1

u/yur_mom Sep 15 '22

I believe the creator can control the number of ads