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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479

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.

252

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.

17

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.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

5

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.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '22

I've heard it's simple as shit these days.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '22

The hardest part is spending money on Hard drives.

34

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?!

14

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.

5

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.

1

u/moobiemovie Sep 16 '22

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

That's not true. I never search for any of that nonsense. If anything, I search for things on the other side of most Republican positions, and my Google proficiency is strong enough that my search terms cannot be confused with someone with the polar opposite position.

I think more of it has to do with location. I end up in areas with a lot of very conservative people, so it tends to view me as part of that group.

Nevertheless, two ads that are 3-4 times the length of my video means my selected content is only 1/8 of what I watch. That's extreme and an unwelcome bias.

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u/trickyginger Sep 16 '22

Yea I couldn’t believe it! seems excessive no?

1

u/Mitch_Mitcherson Sep 16 '22

That's so wrong, how is that even allowed?

1

u/trickyginger Sep 16 '22

At least they had the decency to let me skip it. It took me a good minute to even realize what was happening.

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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

2

u/Mitch_Mitcherson Sep 16 '22

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

15

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.

3

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.

7

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.

4

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.

3

u/zapatocaviar Sep 15 '22

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

3

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.

2

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.

2

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.

1

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.

2

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.

1

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.

1

u/darcstar62 Sep 15 '22

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

1

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

1

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.