Soon: when you pause a video, it starts playing a video ad with audio, to make sure no silence time gets wasted from your speakers.
YouTube confirms your pause screen is now fair game for ads
Submitted 1 month ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/18/24248391/youtube-pause-ads-widely-rolling-out
Comments
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 1 month ago
18_24_61_b_17_17_4@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And your speakers are on subscription plans that charge you for every second that they play noise. Better upgrade to the next tier if you want to listen to anything else!
Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 1 month ago
That’s fine, the ad co struck a deal with speaker co to not bill for those sound-seconds.
EmpatheticTeddyBear@lemmy.world 1 month ago
There is also a tax on when the speakers are not in use.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Imagine if they pulled that on the idle timeout pause screen too…
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 month ago
God I hope my adbock holds up…
mesamunefire@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If it doesn’t goodbye Youtube. I love the creators, but hate you as a platform.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah, uBlock Origin not working would take me from liking YouTube a fair bit to making it unusable.
- I use Proton but keep legacy Gmail accounts around to ensure I still have access to accounts I may have forgotten about or people I knew a long time ago sending a stray email. The only other usage is logging into YouTube.
- I use a Captcha solver extension.
- I use uBlock Origin to block all their ads.
- I don’t use their DNS.
- I use DDG over their search engine and Firefox over their browser.
- I don’t use Google Drive or their office suite (I think the latter is abysmal to use tbf).
- I use DeepL over Translate.
- I use NewPipe for YouTube on mobile and have a subscription to Nebula.
- I no longer use Google Maps, opting for OSM instead.
- I still use Android and unfortunately can’t unlock the bootloader but have degoogled as far as I know how, including never even registering a Google account with it (F-Droid + Aurora Store).
YouTube is far and away the biggest means by which I interact with Google, and that falls off a cliff if I’m forced to interact with a mess of their ridiculously shitty ads every time I have to use it. uBO has likely saved hundreds of hours of watching ads over my lifetime (and probably thousands of dollars from not being subconsciously influenced by ads), and I’m not paying a subscription fee to such an unethical company to get rid of the ads. This would bring me from YouTube as a timewaster to YouTube only as strictly necessary. Even though I don’t support them directly through ads, I do support them by supporting creators I like monetarily, by sharing links and maintaining the network effect, and by giving them plenty of metadata by interacting with their service. If they do this, they ensure that I continue to monetarily support competitors like Nebula and permanently lose a grip they’ve had on me since I was a kid.
AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
That’s what we need tbh. If people get fed up and leave then eventually creators will too
linearchaos@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If it doesn’t I will make something that records the entire f****** stream and removes the commercials out of it the old fashioned way If I have to. Not my first rodeo.
ironsoap@lemmy.one 1 month ago
Yt-DLP and it’s variation (Seal, YTDLnis, etc.), newpipe and it’s variation (Tubular, Newpipe Sponsorblock, etc) already allow you to do this without having to get manual.
Fester@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I will find text versions of everything I need to learn about and create my own video, and then watch it.
parpol@programming.dev 1 month ago
If it happens, and you do, set up a donation box too.
someguy3@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Like way to Kool your platform for anything educational where you want to pause to like at a graph.
Copernican@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Look at the article linked to it. It has a render of a pause ad being a banner that shrinks the video player somewhat, but the paused video is viewable.
Clasm@ttrpg.network 1 month ago
That’s a lot of faith that the ads would be SFW, let alone not distracting.
NotationalSymmetry@ani.social 1 month ago
What if you paused so you could see something? You’re not allowed to read that text in the background because ads
Jeffool@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I already find this to be a problem with the recommendations that pop up when paused, and the end-video elements they throw over everything despite having that turned off everywhere I can find it. It’s all so dumb. Just so damn dumb.
philodendron@lemdro.id 1 month ago
They’ll likely do what other platforms have done and let you X out the ad til you unpause
sentientity@lemm.ee 1 month ago
It’s excellent that alternatives and ad blockers do exist but we need regulatory action to hold companies accountable for things that are designed to worsen user experience to pressure people into paying. It’s also a serious accessibility issue, to increasingly have everything be bright and loud and motion filled and unpausable all the time. This trend goes beyond YouTube and it sucks, we need to regulate this nonsense.
dezmd@lemmy.world 1 month ago
What a weird downslope of a take that will obviously result in authoritarian government power expansion and futher censorship.
Just stop using it and support alternatives that dont do it. Have some self control.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 month ago
Name a single viable alternative to YouTube at this point in time. Alternative frontends don’t count, since they still rely on YouTube to work. None of the creators I watch upload anywhere else.
sentientity@lemm.ee 1 month ago
People always say shit like this as if people don’t have a multitude of different life circumstances that affect and coerce how they interact with technology. That’s just how capitalism works. It’s not a matter of willpower. Privacy Bootstraps Theory is unhelpful. Being able to completely opt out of entrenched tech monopolies is a privilege. It’s great that you can do that, not everybody can.
needthosepylons@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Regulating capitalism = authoritarianism. What a weird take. Regulating capitalism =/= abolishing capitalism, this I can understand. But your take… wow.
Cyteseer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Do you think regulations are just blanket authoritarian actions. Sometimes we need government intervention to ensure and protect people’s rights.
TheLemming@lemm.ee 1 month ago
🤡
erenkoylu@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
governments will not do anything that upsets the big companies like Google. Adblockers are are only defence against Google and others.
sentientity@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Actually, good news, they have! Google just lost its search monopoly trial with the US government, and they see to be about to lose their advertising monopoly trial too. The US FTC also just released a report (not a legal action) concluding that all the big companies have abused data collection and recommended that the government do something to make those practices unprofitable for companies. I know the EU has also been doing some significant stuff, both against apple specifically and big gatekeeper companies generally. You can certainly argue it’s not enough, and I would agree with you - but it’s given me some optimism that more action and real enforcement might be in the near future in many countries.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
It’s pretty stupid to introduce ads on the pause screen. Usually I would pause something because I am either:
A) Being interrupted and need to focus on something else like a phone call or a family member talking to me, and wouldn’t be paying attention to the screen anyways.
B) Need to leave to go somewhere else like the fridge for a snack and wouldn’t be paying attention to the screen anyways.
Or
C) Just want to take a break and want to do something else which involves opening another window or program and wouldn’t be paying attention to the window with YouTube open.
In every scenario where I pause YouTube and add playing would not provide any value to the entity paying YouTube to play the ad.
And in every scenario, if an ad began playing when I pause youtube it would cause me to mute my sound and/or turn off my monitor and just cause me to get super annoyed at YouTube or at whatever product is being advertised and how to never buy it ever.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This already happened. People looking up CPR instructions because a loved one is dying, only to be met with three unskippable ads.
Goodbye Meemaw.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah, that may be so, but priorities man. Priorities! Think of our profits man! In this harsh economy, ever ad counts! We’re only controlling 90% of the internet while we strive for 100%. That’s 10% short. 10%! We only had a revenue of 305 billion in 2023 which is not nearly enough to cut down on ads. Billionaire lives matter man! Come on, everybody, say it all together: Make millionaires billionaires again! Billionaires first! Meemaws don’t consume enough anyway. Screw her. By the way, want some penis enlargement pills?
retrieval4558@mander.xyz 1 month ago
Not defending YouTube here, but CPR is so time sensitive that if they were looking up instructions, she was a goner anyway.
baru@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Have you had CPR training? What you stated isn’t true. Every second counts. But looking up instructions and seeing a easy video will still help massively.
KingJalopy@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Are they so dumb They don’t realize that when we pause a video we are likely not watching or even near our fucking phone or screen at that time?
Drusenija@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They do, they’re probably just hoping the advertisers don’t and keep paying for more ad space.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They don’t care. If the advertisers pay for that spot then they make money! This has been the story with TV ads for decades.
bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
They do, and they don’t care. The algorithm is actually tailored to find out if/when you fall asleep while watching videos, and then recommends longer videos in autoplay when it believes you are, because they’ll get to play you more ads and cash out more. When/if they implement pause ads advertisers will have an even bigger case against against yt inflating ad watch time to make more money. Facebook has this issue as well.
hikaru755@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The algorithm is actually tailored to find out if/when you fall asleep while watching videos, and then recommends longer videos in autoplay when it believes you are, because they’ll get to play you more ads and cash out more.
You might be misremembering / misinterpreting a little there. This behavior is not intentional, it’s just a side effect of how the algorithm currently works. Showing you longer videos doesn’t equate to showing you more ads. On the contrary, if you get loads of short videos you’ll have way more opportunities to see pre-roll ads, but with longer videos, you’re just to just the mid-roll spots in that video. So YouTube doesn’t really have an incentive to make it work like that, it’s just accidental.
Here’s the spiffing Brit video on this, which I think you might have gotten this idea from: youtu.be/8iOjeb5DTZI
Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Advertising these days is less of a way to show people things and more of an infinite money glitch. Of course websites that serve ads will deny this vehemently because advertisers who become aware of such practices (typically known as click fraud) will cut off those websites from ad revenue very quickly and stop serving ads there.
The idea is to trick the advertising companies into thinking that we are there and we are watching, so that they will pay money.
Copernican@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s the opposite. If you pause the ad you the viewer are almost always looking at the screen. The pause button on a mobile phone or web browser is literally on the player. You are guaranteed to see it immediately after you push the button. You will see it when you in pause. These ads are display banners not video.
Unlike video ads that just auto play, especially when the video player auto plays more videos, there probably is more probability you aren’t actually watching, unlike pause ads that require user activity and focus on the screen to push the pause button.
tatterdemalion@programming.dev 1 month ago
Don’t most YouTubers make more money with their own sponsorships than from YT ads? Can we start the mass migration to PeerTube already?
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I don’t think Peertube would handle mass migration of Youtube creators, unless each and every one of them set up their own instance.
fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This has been the case since some time before the Adpocalypse iirc.
Tregetour@lemdro.id 1 month ago
YT will likely attempt to play creators and viewers off one another. Similar to how hospitality does so with patrons and staff re: tips. You could see a FUD campaign aimed at anyone republishing their work on competitor sites.
Mwa@lemm.ee 1 month ago
odysee can also be a option from peertube as well but odysees privacy policy they sell non pii data according to them
erenkoylu@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
not if you use ublock origin or newpipe
Scrollone@feddit.it 1 month ago
And SmartTubeNext on Android TV
problembasedperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I use both!
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I wonder what made their leadership continue to escalate into increasingly bullshit decisions. What happens if I need to pause because I need my PC to be quiet so I can address something and still an ad suddenly starts playing? I’ll tell you what happens, I’ll either find some way to disable that from happening, switch to a service that doesn’t do it if I can, or just begin avoiding it all together. Brilliant planing, YouTube. Whoever has been left as its leadership is a dumbass.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 1 month ago
Whoever has been left as its leadership is a dumbass.
Not in the slightest. More likely their annual bonus depends on boosting revenue right now. So they’re incentivised to generate short term increases in revenue but not for longer term. Plus, also, if/when Youtube goes tits up they’ll just get a different CEOing job (with “increased revenue by 25% in 2024 on their resume”) rinse and repeat.
Rider@eviltoast.org 1 month ago
Not to mention it’ll push more people towards using Adblockers. And since chrome is cracking down on Adblockers as well, people start using another browser altogether. It seems like Google is self-sabotaging with these kind of decisions.
Coreidan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Hilarious isn’t it? I stopped using Google search because they fucked it up too bad. I stopped watching YouTube years ago too because they already fucked it up.
I guess they just don’t want users anymore.
foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Bruh, it’s no more a multimedia player, it’s a advertising screen.
Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
It’s like all the sci-fi stories of ads everywhere
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Is anyone even remotely surprised by this?
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They’ve started serving ads when you skip backwards. Drives me fucking nuts.
I was willing to use the mobile app with ads because the interface is slightly less buggy.
Ad blocking on mobile web it is for me now 👍
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Stallman was right.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 1 month ago
Hmmm, so what you are saying is that I am just one ad blocker failing away from being productive in life?
x4740N@lemm.ee 1 month ago
And good people argue how adblock and sponssrblock are fair game for your shitty company practices
RadicallyBland@lemmy.world 1 month ago
lol, ads
randon31415@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I hate it when I go to full screen and one of my (100s of) tabs has a youtube short that thinks “Oh, time to start playing again!”
Now I’ll have paused tabs start making noise and I won’t be able to find it until the ad is over.
Soup@lemmy.cafe 1 month ago
People do nothing but incessantly complain about thing- yet still use thing.
I’ll never understand this. I use YouTube and don’t give a shit about ads. The moment they start bothering me- I’ll stop using YouTube.
If you hate something so much, yet can’t stop using it- you have an addiction. Ads are not the problem here.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 1 month ago
YouTube premium, only time I hear ads are when my coworkers crank their shit too loud in the office, or when I have a brand new phone and have forgotten to log in.
Worth every red nickel.
Dju@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And next… after opening the app you will have to watch ad before you can do anything
Joelk111@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Apparently a hot take, but I don’t have an issue with this, as long as they’re picture ads, not videos. An option to hide them temporarily would be good if you’re trying to read something. Maybe you’d need to hold a key or something. To me this is much less intrusive than 3 videos ads at the beginning of a video.
All of that said, I pay for premium, as I watch enough YouTube for it to be very very justified. I’ve probably saved weeks of my time not watching ads, plus it supports creators more than the ads ever do.
danc4498@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Just gonna say I hate this when other apps do this. I pause cause I need to concentrate on something else. Showing an ad just makes that even harder. Now I have to pause AND close the app.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Having a hard enough time just trying to fucking skip back 20 seconds without accidentally tapping on the creators’ page.
cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 1 month ago
YouTube is unwatchable. No way I can make it through those ads.
DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The sad thing is that most people won’t even give a damn.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
God, they better not be unskippable
Binette@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
What ads? 😏
barsquid@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Anyone else remember when new technology used to be fun and exciting instead of miserable?
lemmeout@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Long gone are the days when I used to read update notes for new features… No I just hope they don’t god damn force an update on me.
PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk 1 month ago
I went back to an old APK of Twitch and refuse to update to the current dumpster fire.
msage@programming.dev 1 month ago
Just use Free and Open Source Software!
It can always fuck up with updates, but usually you just get more free stuff and it’s awesome.
spyd3r@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Somewhere along the line, maybe the early to mid 2000’s they stopped making products “for” the end-user and flipped it around so the end-user (their data) is now the product, and the customers are governments, corporations, and share holders.
omarfw@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Because those shareholders (billionaires) and corporations drained the consumers of all of their money and now they’re the most profitable demographic to market to.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
If 0.000…01% shareholders count:
Guessing a lotta us have a few bucks in index funds… suppose that ain’t cool, gotta find a principled fund.
The most principled funds must only invest in like three companies cuz every corp has some problem.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
That’s part of the reason why new community oriented projects are way more interesting to me now than most software. There are some outliers in the space who still have dedicated people in their craft rather than for money but it is fewer and farther between.
loam@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Absolutely. Although, this is just making old technology worse because web 3.0 and AI aren’t performing to corpo expectations.
gwen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
web3isgoinggreat.com
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
That’s what happens when you aren’t the (sole) paying customer.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 month ago
Some of it is. Just different (not mainstream) technology.