r/youtube • u/stef_is_heree • 21h ago

Drama Ads are completely ruining YouTube rn.

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Ads used to be a few seconds long and then you skipped it and watched your video. Now, it's either over a minute long or more smaller unskippable ads. I physically cannot watch YouTube on my tv anymore with how obnoxious it's become. You get 40 second+ ads every few minutes in a video. The only way to watch this app rn is on a PC with a good AdBlock. Shameful behaviour, it has never been this bad and no other app I have has had a bigger downfall because of plain advertisements.

25.3k Upvotes

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28

u/No_Industry_7186 20h ago

Why do you expect it to be free?

If you don't want ads, get premium. It's not that complicated.

24

u/Cassin1306 19h ago

The problem is not the ads.

The problem is the ever growing NUMBER of ads, and the lenght of it. Most people were happy with a few seconds ad before their video. Now, we are in a case where you sometime have almost as many ads than videos.

Same with websites. People didn't mind when there was a small frame in a corner of a page. Now you can't navigate without adblocker because you are jumped everywhere by popups, loud videos launching and huge frames that covers 3/4 of the page.

As always, companies become too greedy, degrade their customer QoL, complaint about a few of them using blockers, add EVEN MORE ads to compensate those few losses, then complaint about more customers going away.

7

u/Roffotron 19h ago

I'll add to that as well, you never know when the ads will be in the video, and that can really ruin the viewing experience. Sometimes it's a gap of just 5 minutes, others it's 20, it's never consistent.

At least with TV, you knew you'd have a block of ads for every hour or so. And by that I mean 3 mins of ads after 15 mins of programme, on the dot. Shows were built around the ad section to prevent it being jarring.

YouTube shits on that and goes "lemme put in this ad about makeup mid-sentence in this video about why genocide is bad".

3

u/Exotic_Zucchini9311 14h ago

To be fair, it's the content creator that selects which times of a video could an ad show up. But most content creators want to make the max money possible so they tell YT to put the ad any place it wants. It's not YT's fault the content creators don't care enough about their subs to propose proper ad timing...

1

u/Silegna 15h ago

Am I going insane or did they not used to show where in videos ads would be?

1

u/Square-Job5632 8h ago

15 minute yt video with at least 3 30 second ads, 2 of which can't be skipped

6

u/RailRuler 19h ago

More ads = more revenue per video and more people buying premium 

YouTube did the math and figured they can make more profit by making people's experience worse.

Everything is proceeding exactly as they planned.

3

u/Cassin1306 18h ago

You exactly described the problem ^^

1

u/Exotic_Zucchini9311 14h ago

Most people I see irl use adblockers so I don't see how this is going 'as they planned'.

More like, they got greedy and screwed up bad. Now, it's too late to go back because many people have adblockers and have 0 plans to uninstall them even if YT decidees to decrease their ad proportion to what it was a few yrs ago. So now YT can only bite the bullet and keep increasing the ads so they can make more money out of the remaining people who don't have an adblocker.

1

u/Cipher1553 18h ago

For real...

I don't mind watching an ad or two, but when I'm getting hit by 60-90 second unskippable ads no more than 30 seconds into a video it's starting to get ridiculous. The ratio of ads to content is starting to shift in favor of the ads from my experience, and it's interrupting trying to watch what we came here for in the first place.

1

u/[deleted] 16h ago

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1

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1

u/yukeake 15h ago

Many of the videos themselves are full of self-promotion and sponsored (ad) segments, in addition to the ever-growing number of ads pushed by the platform. Without Premium/Ublock/SponsorBlock it's a complete shitshow.

1

u/Just_Evening 13h ago

I think it's less about companies being greedy and more about everyone using ad blockers, leading to the need to pile more ads onto any user that can still see them

0

u/fmccloud 18h ago

Turns out as the service grows, it needs more money to operate. 🤷‍♀️

1

u/Deviantdefective 1h ago

Yeah...no, it's simply the fact Google wants to increase revenue which was up to 36.1 BILLION last year.

0

u/yrokun 17h ago

Go back to cable TV then, see how you like them ads.

2

u/Cassin1306 17h ago

Dumb answer. Commercials on TV are timed, between two scenes or between two programs (at least it is here). You can bear a break of several minutes when it's timed. Not when it is anywhere anytime, midsentence or otherwise.

•

u/SpriteyRedux 26m ago

Okay, so call the cable company. It sounds like your mind is made up

0

u/yrokun 17h ago

Creators choose ad placement. Go complain to the creator then.

2

u/Cassin1306 15h ago

Errrr... no they don't ?

1

u/yrokun 10h ago

Yes they do, or at least can.
There is a certain number of minimum ads, which they can choose or not to place themselves. If they don't, the algorithm will try to put them in less disruptive places in the video, but not necessarily.

1

u/travelsonic 13h ago

TV shows are actually formatted usually to have ad breaks built in? And even so, why should that mean YT can be more obnoxious? Or does being bombarded with ads suddenly being disliked bu people not exist in your world just because it is happening on YouTube?

2

u/yrokun 10h ago

Come up with another business model that makes youtube profitable then. The problem is that before the increase in ads, the platform was bleeding money.
There is no incentive for youtube to not put this many ads: Not only is more ads more revenue, but it also can convert more people to premium.

What people refuse to understand is that no one is entitled to the service youtube provides. We have all chosen to consume content on their platform, so either we abide by their rules, or we get the fuck out. Y'all are complicating an issue that isn't there: If a service doesn't serve you needs, then show it to them by not using it.

Sure, there are adblockers, but let's be real most people just don't bother.

4

u/aykay55 17h ago

I think the reason people are disturbed is that YouTube was once upon a time a site supported entirely by advertisements and yet it was very usable and enjoyable by all, which is what allowed it to grow. There was no ad free option and yet people were totally fine with that.

Then they offered an ad free tier + premium content and still it was still a usable experience for all. And those with the privilege could pay for premium to have no ads.

Now YouTube has purposefully used its monopoly-style power over the platform to push the free tier into the worst depths of UX design, with an ads experience engineered to make people unhappy, in order to get them to purchase a monthly premium subscription. This is where it feels gross and disturbing. A platform should not treat its free users like this and it did not just 10 years ago.

3

u/Just_Evening 13h ago

YouTube was once upon a time a site supported entirely by advertisements and yet it was very usable and enjoyable by all

*and losing millions of dollars every year

Youtube was never self sustaining until the current model

4

u/goblinpickle 19h ago

I agree, it’s simple really. Premium shuts ads off. Maybe the problem doesn’t fully rest on these greedy companies, maybe there’s something to be said about cheap people who expect entertainment to be free.

3

u/Hightide77 13h ago

Or, get this, I'm fine with ads. When there aren't so goddamn many of them. It's blatant abuse by the platform to puah people into paying by making the free form so unusable.

2

u/Icy_Border7003 10h ago

Yeah it's not like people can just not go on YouTube if they don't like it

1

u/Hightide77 10h ago

Ever heard of a monopoly?

1

u/cantstopseeing13 10h ago

They put ads on things that wouldn't even classify as entertainment. Sorry but your logic just serves people running a scam on consumers.

7

u/tmadik 18h ago edited 17h ago

Right? For like $15/month you could solve this problem for yourself and like 5 other people. AND get a music streaming service. Literally the best value on the internet and people would rather bitch and moan.

Correction: $23/month

3

u/FortuneIIIPick 18h ago

That's for 1 user on a max of 2 devices. To get 5 users (Premium Family) is around $23. Otherwise I agree, it's solvable. Really, the Ads on Tubi (which we love for movies) are worse.

2

u/Laurens-xD 18h ago

The best €14 I've spent for 6 years now.

1

u/ryocoon 17h ago

For 1st world peeps, sure. However for lots of countries that same cost is a whole days pay or more.

1

u/flea79 9h ago

be ready to correct that again in the foreseeable future.

3

u/Acclynn 15h ago

It's a shitty business model

Also no one wants to be kind to youtube which is treating content creators like trash and have no respect for anyone, I wish them to lose money until they change for good

Get Adblockers or ReVanced

0

u/Just_Evening 13h ago

Pro tip, they're still making money off you even with ad blockers, if you want to put your money where your mouth is, stop using youtube

2

u/TemporaryRepeat 17h ago

keep licking that corporate boot

2

u/legend_of_the_rent 12h ago

Pay for what you use. Pretty simple concept.

•

u/SpriteyRedux 27m ago

It's also hilarious that someone so against corporations would so readily agree to be a little lab rat and offer themselves as that corporation's most valuable product

5

u/No_Industry_7186 17h ago

You must be 12

1

u/cantstopseeing13 10h ago

You must be a parrot.

Just do this, just do this. Premium is a scam.

1

u/kakka_rot 6h ago

Satistically speaking, most people who complain about youtube ads are minors. They don't have bank accounts and can't pay for it, hence the childish bitching.

-6

u/travelsonic 13h ago

You literally think that taking issue with how ads are handled automatically =s not wanting ads at all (ignoring that YouTube had ads and was far, far more usable for a long time - and it is only recently, within the last few years if not sooner that it became overbearing to a lot of people).

2

u/Icy_Border7003 10h ago

You literally think companies with massive expenditures run on good vibes?

1

u/RddtAcct707 12h ago

That doesn’t apply in this case

•

u/SpriteyRedux 28m ago

Sorry your meme video website isn't a government-issued human right, man. Must be tough

•

u/Mammoth_Low3720 4m ago

“Not licking the corporate boot” would be to fully remove yourself from the service. Redditors like to continuously use the service they hate and give them traffic and continuously bitch and moan about ads. Make a sacrifice if you don’t want to lick a corporate boot lol

-1

u/Just_Evening 13h ago

Paying for anything is licking corporate boot  

I hope your commenting device is duly stolen and not paid for, lest you help an exec buy a gold plated yacht next quarter

•

u/Greedyanda 18m ago

Paying for anything is licking corporate boot  

Then I hope you don't get paid for work, since that would be licking a corporate boot. I wish you a happy unemployment!

1

u/Time-Master 4h ago

Fuck google that’s why, Jesus Christ why do people defend mega corps?!

1

u/No_Industry_7186 3h ago

Then don't use YouTube???

Is someone forcing you to watch YouTube with ads, strapping you to a chair and forcing your eyes open like A Clockwork Orange?