The Verge reports that YouTube is rolling out advertisements that show up when you pause videos, continuing experiments that the company started a year ago. A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”
The representative said that advertising on paused videos is designed to create a “less interruptive” experience. But as The Verge notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a drop in the increasing load of obnoxious and often unskippable advertising on YouTube. And since I’m seeing more and more creators pack their videos with sponsorships, I somehow doubt that the people making YouTube’s content are going to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.
“We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures,” said the fictional CEO (of a company that bears more than a passing resemblance to Google) in Ready Player One.
Apropos of nothing, it’s possible to block every single ad on YouTube — even the sponsorships that are baked into the videos themselves — on both desktop and mobile.
There’s always just…. Not watching YouTube as an option.
Could as well be suggesting me to leave the internet. 95% of my time spent online I’m watching YouTube videos.
Blocking ads seems like the more viable option.
Fucking hell, I had to check several times that I wasn’t reading an onion-y article.
I barely use YouTube and when I do, I use tubular or freetube apps, but I think I’m going to use it even less from now on.
No. Use more. Via proxys. Cause them lots of traffic and zero revenue.
One way to fight back is to try to get the video ID of the advertisement from the debug info, go to the video directly and leave a dissatisfied comment. This will work until they hide that ID anyway. Or the advertiser turns off comments. At that point we’re left with sending our disapproval in other public forums, preferably the more public the better.
“Your ad was shown to me on a pause screen where I don’t want to see ads. As such I will ensure that I do not purchase your products for the foreseeable future and that I will recommend that friends and relatives do the same. Thank you for participating in YouTube customer feedback.”
I’ve only seen this the 7th time already in lemmy. More annoying than the ads i don’t see.
YT emailed us yesterday to say that they believed our family Premium account is not, in fact, based in Ukraine where Premium is a fraction of the cost of other countries in Europe.
Anyway, by the time they’ve pulled the plug on us I’ll have FreeTube set up and rolling. Fuck ‘em.
I’m more than happy to sling them a fiver a month to get shot of adverts, but they can lick my arsehole if they think I’m ponying up £20 a month just so my wife and I can watch stuff without being advertised at as much as they think is reasonable.
Cunts.
Same. I just use an ad-blocker and still watch YouTube. If their prices were lower and their app better, I’d pay. I pay for Nebula afterall, so I’m not unwilling, I just don’t see the value.
If YouTube ever actually blocks me out, I’ll just stop watching, simple as.
I will often pause educational videos to study something on screen. Putting ads over that ruins the experience.
I have YT premium mainly for YT music, but I do consume a lot (read: too much) YT content. I split the family plan with 4 other members outside of my wife and I, so it’s like $3 per month for just me. I’m not logged in on my work computer, and the amount of ads is insanely intrusive and a off putting. I honestly think that if I didn’t have a premium sub, I’d almost never use the platform because it’s so bad.
How long will they f around, before we make them find out, I wonder…
Without viable competition, they’ll get away with it for a long time
“Drink verification can to continue…”
So, aside from numerous other angry words I could say…
How is this going to affect incoming phone calls? Will I be able to at least talk with my friend, without having to hear ads the whole time because I was watching a video?
Just a friendly reminder, https://grayjay.app/ is a thing, screw the YouTube app.
Shareholders demand ever increasing return. There is only one way any of this goes, and we are witnessing a total systematic collapse. It is a mathematical certainty.
You cannot squeeze blood from a stone.
I guess it’s time for a “mark this time so I can go back to it” feature, to reduce the need to pause. 🤷♂️
Or just… block ads.
Or just… ditch Youtube and de-google the digital life.
I ditched Youtube many months ago. I really try to avoid, at all costs, to access Youtube videos, preferring Odysee, for example.
Odysee is behind clownflare. I’m more partial to peertube.
Yeah, I’ve been moving away gradually. I have a few subs on Odysee, one on Rumble, and I’ve signed up for Nebula which handles a few more. If I had to, I could drop YT and get enough content from those other sources.
PeerTube & FreeTube? I’ve been hearing some good things about both 🧐
>pause to allow video to buffer
>several ads load
>time required to buffer actually increases by pausing
>set a script to jump back 1 second every second
>finally get to watch your videoMight as well just download the video with yt-dlp then.
A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”
Anyone else get the idea that these two “responses” were vastly different?
Imagine… “I just love sitting through annoying unskippable ads so much! And I simply can’t wait to see more ads still when I pause!”
What they mean to say is, “Surprisingly, this didn’t annoy people nearly as much as we had assumed. Score!”
More like “we forced an ad while the video was paused and only 30% of viewers immediately closed the window”
“Did that pause screen ad make you want to quit using YouTube?”
“Yes, but what alternative is there?”
“Success!”
My monitor has a power switch.
Fuck you, Google.
