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posted by janrinok on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:35AM   Printer-friendly

YouTube caught drowning viewers in unskippable ads:

YouTube has been serving viewers unskippable ads for years, but recent reports claim that they are becoming longer and more frequent.

Complaining about YouTube ads is a fairly common practice online, but the volume of those complaints has been ticking up lately. For example, last week, a user on Twitter complained to the official YouTube account about the frequency of ads:

YouTube's support team responded, explaining that "this may happen with a certain type of ad format called bumper ads, since they're only up to 6 seconds long." They also suggested that the user send feedback via YouTube's feedback tool.

The implication seems to be that because the bumper ads last six seconds or less, YouTube can force you to watch several of them in a row. Only longer ads, typically those that last 15 to 30 seconds or more, give viewers the option to skip.

[...] As it turns out, this was really an experiment that has since concluded. Here's the statement a YouTube spokesperson sent 9to5Google on Friday:

At YouTube, we're focused on helping brands connect with audiences around the world, and we're always testing new ways to surface ads that enhance the viewer experience. We ran a small experiment globally that served multiple ads in an ad pod when viewers watched longer videos on connected TVs. The goal is to build a better experience for viewers by reducing ad breaks. We have concluded this small experiment.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by EEMac on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:39AM (2 children)

    by EEMac (6423) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:39AM (#1272537)

    > new ways to surface ads that enhance the viewer experience.

    That's some impressive weaselspeak.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:01AM (1 child)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:01AM (#1272541) Journal

      The only possible way to enhance the viewer experience in relation to ads is to not show them.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:25PM

        by Opportunist (5545) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:25PM (#1272565)

        Well, you could hack your competitor and show them there, that would certainly improve your viewer's experience, at least compared to your competitor.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:52AM (12 children)

    by looorg (578) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @10:52AM (#1272539)

    Youtube in some regard wanted, or want, to be an alternative to normal TV. I guess they manged to copy the ad-part and surpass them in annoyance. So much for being the better viewing experience.

    Is it due to the content creator wanting more $ so they allow or cram more ads in there or is it youtube greed forcing more ads in there to get more revenue? Either way. Just as people eventually found TV ads annoying and not fun and novel they'll eventually feel the same about the youtube ads and move along.

    uBlock. Have not seen an add on youtube in years. Just saying ...

    • (Score: 5, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:03AM (1 child)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:03AM (#1272542) Journal

      Have not seen an add on youtube in years.

      I conclude you've not watched mathematics channels. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 5, Funny) by pTamok on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:37AM

        by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:37AM (#1272546)

        That's sum conclusion you've got there. Are you sure they've not watched successor [wikipedia.org] programmes in a series up to a limit?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:41PM (7 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:41PM (#1272595)

      Oh, they are nowhere near the broadcast / cable TV experience in terms of advertising annoyance.

      18 years ago we moved away from the house that had a broadcast TV antenna, and have never bothered to install another since. That house saw perhaps 1 hour per month of broadcast television viewing on average across the 10 years we lived there, starting at 30 hours a month when I first moved in, dwindling to virtually 0 after we subscribed to Netflix (on discs). Reason: ads. None other, really, just ads.

      In the years since, cable companies have periodically offered internet + cable bundles which are cheaper than internet alone, I have accepted these bundles twice - both times the cable box remained shrink-wrapped in its plastic until the offer expired a year or two later, then returned to the cable company "their property" unused. Reason: ads. None other. We know what's on cable, we travel and the places we go has it, and anytime we watch it it only reinforces the decision to never have it in our home. I suppose you might say that the quality of programming is also dismal (which, of course, it is - even worse than the "produced by Netflix for Netflix streaming" crap we get today), but the real reason we don't do cable either: ads.

      They're pervasive, they're unskippable (yes, I played on occasion with recording and ad skipping, my time and effort is worth far more than the value of the programs I might get that way), ads suck, and anybody who pushes content full of ads can simply lose our attention. As YouTube will be doing if they every approach even 10% of the annoyance factor of cable-tv ads today. I'd currently rate them at 5%, but it's not a hard cutoff. If YouTube would scale back their ads to 1% of cable-tv annoyance levels, I might sit on the sofa and surf YouTube for evening entertainment once in a while, where they are with ads today? Not so much. I might open a video that's supporting some other material I'm interested in, but I'm not just going to "surf" the next-related video links when every one of them starts with 15 seconds of unskippable ad(s).

      Compare that 15 seconds per 5-10 minutes of video with the literal 15 minutes+ per hour of unskippable ad content in a typical cable program, 5-10 minutes of solid ads followed by 3-5 minutes of program towards the end of feature films... Nah, YouTube isn't there yet, but they're treading into irrelevant territory already.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday September 21 2022, @11:38PM (6 children)

        by aafcac (17646) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @11:38PM (#1272915)

        I dunno, it's gotten to the point where even a relatively brief video will have ads in the middle of it. I'll be watching a short video of somebody riding a ride for like 10 minutes and it'll get interrupted in the middle of the video. I could kind of get it being up front, but, there's no ad at the beginning, it's in the middle. Not to mention the ads that are like a half hour or longer if you don't hit skip. There is absolutely no justification for allowing an ad that long, I shouldn't have to come back to the computer while listening to the content to skip a long ass ad.

        More and more, I see little point in even going to YouTube as the quality content is either becoming scarce due to the BS, or just harder to find due to the algorithm hiding most of the stuff I'm interested in.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:44AM (5 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:44AM (#1272921)

          There is content on YouTube that I would watch more if they had less ads.

          I find the content from smaller producers (who probably aren't seeking ad income, or at least aren't seeking to optimize it) does tend to have fewer (but not zero) ads.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by aafcac on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:52AM (2 children)

            by aafcac (17646) on Thursday September 22 2022, @12:52AM (#1272923)

            If it's quality content, I've got no particular issue with ads, it's that the ads will interrupt the video at key points and be for the same 5 or 6 things, most of which are scams. I'd much rather deal with those in video ads as at least those benefit the content creator and is less likely to be an outright scam.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2022, @01:43AM (1 child)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 22 2022, @01:43AM (#1272928)

              When the video has 5 minutes of interesting content, following a 6 minute lead in, and a 90 second embedded promotion, with two sets of two YouTube injected ads in there, and a 4 minute epilogue promoting other content, yeah, no, I might rather Google search until I find a written description of the same, thanks.

              On the other hand, there are some exceptionally helpful "watch me do what you want to do" guide videos out there that I would consider tipping if they didn't already have ads...

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @11:12PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @11:12PM (#1273061)

                I haven't actually used SponsorBlock. I just skip promotions in the video manually. But SponsorBlock along with an adblocker will probably take care of everything. The adblocker will also help slower PCs load webpages.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by ncc74656 on Thursday September 22 2022, @09:30PM (1 child)

            by ncc74656 (4917) on Thursday September 22 2022, @09:30PM (#1273055) Homepage

            There is content on YouTube that I would watch more if they had less ads.

            Find an Invidious [invidious.io] instance and watch YouTube through that, or (better yet) spin up your own. That's one route to no ads that works everywhere. Another option is the YouTube plugin for Kodi, but it can be a bit of a pain to install.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2022, @10:10PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 22 2022, @10:10PM (#1273057)

              Thanks for that. Maybe some day it will be worth the effort. At the moment we have a surplus of easy passive entertainment with Netflix and a new D+ subscription, and I have been spending at least as much time on house projects as passive entertainment, fabricating various custom Raspberry Pi Pico projects installed around the house/yard... That's easily more entertaining than anything streaming that we haven't already seen.

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:48PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:48PM (#1272596)

      If YouTube wanted to, they could find a way to break videos for everyone using an adblocker. They haven't done that. They have tolerated adblocker users for years, and they don't notice this so-called flood of unskippable ads. I wonder how long that will last. Maybe forever if the average mobile user with no adblocker is subsidizing every adblocker user. Mobile ads are worth more if you didn't know.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:03PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:03PM (#1272858) Journal

        I don't even have an adblocker on one of my newer laptops and I still don't see that many ads on there.

        I think they may be grandfathering in some of us!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:19AM (12 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:19AM (#1272544)

    Run a good adblocker in your browser, and you'll be watching Youtube ad-free. No, it's not illegal or anything like that: It's your browser, you are legally allowed to make it do what you want it to, not what Alphabet wants it to.

    And that technical solution will also lead to a financial solution to the problem, because if those ad views aren't coming in, Alphabet won't be able to make as much money selling ads, which might convince them that ads are a terrible business model.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 5, Touché) by gnuman on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:38AM (3 children)

      by gnuman (5013) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:38AM (#1272547)

      Alphabet won't be able to make as much money selling ads, which might convince them that ads are a terrible business model.

      Not sure if funny or whatever, so I would comment instead.

      https://www.youtube.com/premium [youtube.com]

      Google has YouTube Premium, which seems to be the great business model, right? I mean, it costs more than Netflix or Amazon Prime and more like both combined .... for youtube? Maybe it's an example how much money they leech from ads?

      Now how many here pay this price? What I thought :-)

      • (Score: 2) by deimios on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:44PM (2 children)

        by deimios (201) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:44PM (#1272576) Journal

        I pay it gladly. Well more like being strongarmed into it since I cannot watch any videos on my assistant or TV because of ads. (Tried piehole, didn't work). On pc uBlock works but that's not an option for smart devices.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @01:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @01:58PM (#1272759)

          not an option for smart devices.

          You need to use smarter devices?

        • (Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:16PM

          by zion-fueled (8646) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:16PM (#1272844)

          I'll never pay it and I hope google goes out of business.

          On my TV I installed alternative apps that block the ads too.

          If your "smart" tv can't install anything hook up a computer. It's cheaper than getting nickel and dimed by them.

    • (Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:44AM (6 children)

      by fliptop (1666) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @11:44AM (#1272548) Journal

      Run a good adblocker in your browser, and you'll be watching Youtube ad-free.

      I use both NoScript and Adblock Plus and I never see an ad, unless it's one the content creator is doing for a sponsored spot (and those can be easily skipped). This works great on my computer. However, on my tablet, I seem to recall not being able to install add-ons in the browser. So in the case of mobile devices it may not be possible. Been a while since I've looked into it though, I may be wrong.

      There's also the fact that YT has a mobile app and it cannot be configured to not show ads.

      --
      Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:36PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:36PM (#1272554) Journal

        You may not be able to install them in the browser, but you can install ad blockers as separate app.

        There's also the fact that the YT mobile app is not the only way to watch YT videos on mobile devices.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:34PM (2 children)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:34PM (#1272569)

        However, on my tablet, I seem to recall not being able to install add-ons in the browser. So in the case of mobile devices it may not be possible. Been a while since I've looked into it though, I may be wrong.

        I remember finally getting so fed up at the few extensions I run on mobile always being broken whenever Firefox/Chrome updated that I did some searching and found Kiwi Browser.

        Wonder of wonders, now I can actually install Chrome extensions that are less than 3 years out of date! What marvelous technology, and all I had to do was install a third-party browser because the first-party one doesn't fucking work!

        P.S: Don't use the YouTube app.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:19PM (1 child)

          by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:19PM (#1272587)

          I run the Brave browser. No adds, no add-ins needed.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 20 2022, @06:10PM

            by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @06:10PM (#1272605)

            It's not just for *ads. I run a couple third-party tools that enhance specific websites' interfaces.

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:39PM

        by Freeman (732) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:39PM (#1272573) Journal

        Adblock Plus was bought out by corporate overlord.
        https://www.ghacks.net/2015/10/02/adblock-for-chrome-sold-joins-adblock-plus-acceptable-ads-program/ [ghacks.net]

        I switched to uBlock Origin a long time ago.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin [wikipedia.org]

        uBlock was initially named "μBlock" but the name was later changed to "uBlock" to avoid confusion as to how the Greek letter μ (Mu/Micro) in "μBlock" should be pronounced. Development started by forking from the codebase of HTTP Switchboard along with another blocking extension called uMatrix, designed for advanced users.[12] uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill to use community-maintained block lists,[13] while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards.[14] First released in June 2014 as a Chrome and Opera extension, by winter 2015, the extension had expanded to other browsers.

        The uBlock project official repository was transferred to Chris Aljoudi[15] by original developer Raymond Hill in April 2015, due to frustration of dealing with requests. However, Hill immediately self-forked it[16] and continued the effort there. This version was later renamed uBlock Origin and it has been completely divorced from Aljoudi's uBlock.[17] Aljoudi created ublock.org to host and promote uBlock and to request donations. In response, uBlock's founder Raymond Hill stated that "the donations sought by ublock.org are not benefiting any of those who contributed most to create uBlock Origin."[5] The development of uBlock stopped in August 2015 and it has been sporadically updated since January 2017.[18] In July 2018, ublock.org was acquired by AdBlock,[19] and since February 2019, uBlock began allowing "Acceptable Ads",[20][21] a program run by Adblock Plus that allows some ads which are deemed "acceptable", and for which the larger publishers pay a fee.[22]

        uBlock Origin remains independent and does not allow ads for payment.[23]

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by tekk on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:26PM

        by tekk (5704) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:26PM (#1272592)

        If the sponsored spots bother you, take a look at "Sponsor Block" which will automatically skip intros/outros, sponsor spots, intermissions, etc.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Tuesday September 20 2022, @01:46PM

      by Username (4557) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @01:46PM (#1272559)

      I just download the videos, the mp4 stream url is in plain text in the js.

  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:10PM (8 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:10PM (#1272552)

    but recent reports claim that they are becoming longer and more frequent.

    When I see a video ad, I immediately close the window.... or at least try to. On my admittedly slower computer, playing that fucking video ad is given top priority, so much so that I can't close my browser window without manually killing by browser process, because it is busy loading youtube's 9000 bazillabytes of scripting in the background. Yes, I have an ad blocker, but I guess this particular one isn't effective against youboob.

    I basically can't view youtube any more.

    Which reminds me, is there any way to recover a old youtube/gmail account without a fucking cell phone? I still have the password, but the last time I tried to log in a year or two ago it insisted that it "text" me a verification code, because google sells cell phones, which of course won't work with my regular telephone. I had some old videos out there from a long time ago, and I never approved of advertising on them but these shitheads insert advertising anyway now. I'd like to delete those.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:40PM (3 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @12:40PM (#1272555) Journal
      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:00PM (2 children)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:00PM (#1272561) Journal

        I've tried that, and not had much success. These schemes to harvest phone numbers by demanding the user repeat back a texted "verification" code seem to have a blacklist that has those public phone numbers on it. They don't tell the users that, instead they try to confuse the users further by claiming there are technical difficulties. Or they give no feedback at all, it simply didn't work, and the user is left to guess whether it failed or just needs more time.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by number11 on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:24PM

          by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:24PM (#1272590)

          they try to confuse the users further by claiming there are technical difficulties.

          A common practice. I subscribe to the (online) NYT, and half the time I get that when I try to log in. Can't figure if it's due to my VPN location, my browser, my random user-agent, my adblocker, my cookie policies, or my breath. Sooner or later it's going to annoy me enough to drop my sub, especially since their paywall isn't too hard to bypass.

        • (Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday September 20 2022, @07:55PM

          by ChrisMaple (6964) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @07:55PM (#1272624)

          Using NoScript, I've found that "technical difficulties" are usually overcome by temporarily allowing some of the sites that NoScript is blocking. This can be tedious, as the site is sometimes several layers deep. Worst case, "disable restrictions" will work.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ingar on Tuesday September 20 2022, @01:41PM (1 child)

      by Ingar (801) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @01:41PM (#1272557) Homepage

      µblock, haven't seen Youtube ads in ages. I genuinely wouldn't notice.
      Last time I used a browser without add blocker I almost had a heart attack.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:05PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:05PM (#1272562) Journal

        Yeah, just try surfing the Internet on an old, slow computer without ad blocking. Practically unusable. Last time I tried that, the pain was so great that after less than 3 minutes, I paused my surfing to install an ad blocker.

    • (Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:58PM

      by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 20 2022, @05:58PM (#1272601)

      Yes, I have an ad blocker, but I guess this particular one isn't effective against youboob.

      I run Firefox with NoScript and uBlock Origin. No damned unskippable ads to see.

      --
      The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
    • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday September 21 2022, @02:43AM

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @02:43AM (#1272680) Journal

      Yes, I have an ad blocker, but I guess this particular one isn't effective against youboob.

      I use uBlock Origin [wikipedia.org] with Easylist & uBlock Filters on Vivaldi Web Browser, and only see ads briefly every year or two when Google updates the YouTube ad code until the filter-building people figure out how to bypass it. I also use SponsorBlock these days since far too many YouTube channels waste time with fancy TV-show-style graphical intros, reminders about exclusive Patreon content, and other stuff I'm not interested in.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:37PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @02:37PM (#1272571)

    Advertising company with monopoly... uses monopoly to increase advertising revenue. NO. WAY.

    You think the legion of CEOs, executives, management, legal, "thought leaders", visionaries, creativity engineers, etc. have any ideas? Wait, wait, I think I see the future... let's... add.... wait for it... more adverts?! With jiggling titties? OMG I'm drained, it takes so much to be a genius. Where's my jet? MY JET!!

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:08PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:08PM (#1272859) Journal

      Youtube may suck ass but they have no monopoly over putting videos on the internet.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by istartedi on Tuesday September 20 2022, @06:03PM (4 children)

    by istartedi (123) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @06:03PM (#1272603) Journal

    I guess it's human nature for them to run ads right up to the point where a significant number of people don't watch the video. Greed. 30 seconds of un-skippable can definitely turn me away. I haven't installed a blocker specific to YouTube, but might, knowing that it's a temporary fix.

    Look guys, I can live with some ads. I grew up with OTA TV and ads were a part of it. We still watched. It's the arms race though. I don't want to get up in the middle of a 10 minute video to skip your damned ads. Unless you're somebody I really like. I've tolerated that shit for a hand full of creators; but if there's similar content and you're doing in-video ads, even with really creative segways, I'm not your fan. You know what I'm talking about? The guy will have an interesting video, and then two minutes in he starts talking about how it was all made possible by Company X, and he blathers on about that for solid minute and then to add insult to injury a scripted ad from YouTube will also be in the middle of the video. Buh-bye. I'm not watching your videos. You're worse than Fallon. Anybody else notice how Fallon is always doing placements? I'll play a little game sometimes--watch Fallon until the first placement in the monologue. The other night, literally less than a minute and he was incorporating the slogan of a major fast food chain. CLICK! Time for bed anyway.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @07:15PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2022, @07:15PM (#1272620)

      Some TV channels are unwatchable. You must have experienced it where the movie plays with ad breaks every 20 minutes or so, then towards the end it's every 5 minutes and the bottom 1/3rd of the screen is overlaid with animations for about 1 minute either side of the ad break. Good job, I switch off. Turns out I don't give a shit about how the movie ends any more, I just have a seething hatred of humanity.

      • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday September 20 2022, @08:38PM

        by istartedi (123) on Tuesday September 20 2022, @08:38PM (#1272628) Journal

        Boy howdy, this happens on some of the obscure channels that show old Westerns and stuff. If I know what I'm watching and have any engagement with the characters at all, it's off to IMDB or Wikipedia to read the plot summary and find out how it ends.

        OTOH, not a bad kind of program to "watch" while cooking. Plenty of time to stir the pot.

        --
        Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:00AM

      by stretch611 (6199) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:00AM (#1272699)

      This is likely why piracy of OTA "free" shows exist. Wait a few minutes after your favorite show finishes its airtime, look at your favorite pirate source and chances are that it is there and ready to be downloaded... without ads.

      This does not block product placements But removal of the ads (and skipping credits) easily knocks off 1/3rd of your viewing time that would otherwise be wasted.

      And piracy will just get more rampant as the streaming companies refuse to license their content to other companies and as they add ads to even paid subscriptions.

      --
      Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @12:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @12:04PM (#1272735)

      I don't mind reasonable ads if it benefits the content creator, at least for the stuff I watch. A couple of skipable ads up front is fine. I'm not a fan of ads at the end, though, because it can be jarring coming out of an interesting video, sort of like OTA where you get suddenly hit with a louder-then-the-program ad. In-video ads are the worst. The are not placed with any care, so just that can be annoying/disorienting if you are following an argument or idea and it gets split up with an ad break. There are a few really great channels that I regularly watched that experimented/implemented it too far in one direction. In particular, a really good math channel that goes through proofs added multiple in-video breaks for a 12-minute video. You'd get ads at the beginning, the end, then about every two too three minutes. I reluctantly walked away from those channels. Maybe they've changed how they do them now, but I haven't gone back to check. I know the YT interface gives channel creators a lot of analytics, so I hope they can tell when they're driving away viewers.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by KritonK on Wednesday September 21 2022, @10:30AM

    by KritonK (465) on Wednesday September 21 2022, @10:30AM (#1272716)

    It is discussions like this that make me realize that, thanks to ad blockers, I have an entirely different view of the Internet, compared to the average person: no ads, just content.

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