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What would you, specifically, find to be a tolerable amount of ads?
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Submitted 9 months ago by hogmomma@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Dasus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Is it that they exist at all? That there are too many of them? That they’re unskippable?
Yes, and they’re in the middle of the video. And they spy on my internet use to manipulate me through targeted ads.
If you were Chief Ad Engineer at YouTube, how would you structure the ads system?
There should be more ways to avoid them. I don’t use YouTube enough to justify a premium sub, but I would be interested in paying either for specific channels or watch time.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
The ad industry is parasitic. I have avoided ads since they first hit the web. Initially, I would not visit or remain on any web page with an ad. When that became untenable, I installed ad blockers. I presently download YT videos to view locally to avoid ads. When that stops working, I will stop watching YT videos.
I pay to skip ads on podcasts if I like and enjoy the content. I skip them on the ones I don’t pay for. If the ad model is particularly obnoxious and I don’t like a show enough to pay, I stop listening.
reddig33@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The ads aren’t targeted properly for one thing. I see ads for stuff that would never apply to me. Such a waste of money. For another, many of the videos already have a sponsor, so they are double-dipping. Also I’m not going to sit through 60 seconds of ads for a five minute video. Get real.
I’d pay for ad-free YouTube if it didn’t cost as much as HBO. Charge $3 to $6 a month and I’d consider it. Otherwise I’ll just mute the TV, or skip the programming altogether.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ads bad. If I want to support a creator I will do so personally not via watching ads. I’ll stop watching YT before I suffer through a single ad.
BenLeMan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ads are a brainwashing technique designed to turn my baser instincts against myself for someone else’s gain. And they’re unwanted content that disrupts the flow of the content I’ve chosen to watch.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
There is no tolerable amount of ads, because not only are they an awful experience, they explicitly drive user hostile growth and decisions in the future (ie enshitification).
I used to pay for YouTube to avoid ads, before I got sick of Google and refused to give them any more money. Now I use a pihole and a browser based adblocker, as well as 3rd party front ends, because fuck Google. I don't give a shit if I'm denying them income.
kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
I hate the official YouTube app. I have YouTube Premium but that’s because I use YT Music mostly (have been using on and off since GPM days). But shorts shoved in your face, subscription page jumbled with updates, comments and videos (I only want videos) ; no way to choose a system wide video quality (app only has High or Data Saver option; one needs to manually toggle for each video ; contrary, NewPipe has this basic feature).
There is also the donate button on multiple YouTube videos (Atleast give me the option to remove/customize that button/other buttons on that ribbon). Why are paying users subject to worse UI?
Oh, and these people throttle stuff on Firefox and have probably been doing since times immemorial.
I have been wondering if I should let YT Premium lapse and not renew it. I tried Spotify Premium once and whilst it’s 3rd party support is phenomenal, it has its own bugs (and they are similarly slow despite their forums being full with bug reports as well). Almost like I should hoard my own music from ahem, sources.
TheFogan@programming.dev 9 months ago
to me I still use the paid version because, for me it’s not that expensive on the family plan, and I do want the content creators to get paid. I do hate the monopoly etc… but as far as I can tell it’s one that can’t really be broken. Far as I can see no other site can actually arrange a system in which creators get paid any substantial amount.
also do have to note the inevitable put up or shut up part of nature. There’s basically only 2 options of systems when it comes to the internet, either we deal with ads or we pay for services. Until a magical extra option appears I’m OK with paying to avoid ads.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
If it we weren't Google, I'd be ok with paying too. As it is, the content creators will have to get by with their individual sponsorships, rather than getting ad revenue from me.
MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I pay to avoid ads on Amazon Prime… Now i have to endure unskippable ads every 10 minutes, and my annual fee is up over 50% since i started.
Fuck them. No matter what, these mercantilists will extract everything they can, and they will break any promise or contract they sign as soon as it bemefits them. We, however, cannot do the same.
Almacca@aussie.zone 9 months ago
I just have a moral objection to advertising in general, and try to subject myself to it as little as possible.
je_skirata@lemmy.today 9 months ago
It’s not the ads I hate, it’s the data harvesting I hate. Static ads without trackers don’t exist on YouTube, unfortunately.
piefood@feddit.online 9 months ago
Advertisements are an attack to manipulate me and change my behaviour. I don't tolerate them at all. They also ruin the product, because it eventually becomes more important to cater to the advertisers than the users.
If Youtube went back to how it was originally (no ads, downloadable videos, creator-controlled, etc), I, and many others, would happily pay them even if we could get the content for free (see Patreon, or GoFundMe, or PornHub, or Imgur, or Reddit, or many other sites as examples).
PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 9 months ago
Advertising is pollution
Full stop.
Every marketer is trying to coerce you into a decision you wouldn’t arrive at on your own by limiting the information available and lying to you.
If I were chief ad engineer at YouTube i would probably be afraid of anyone knowing what I did for money.
You know facilitating the theft of people’s money by targeting them with brainwashing.
If you’re a marketer. Get a real job pal.
capuccino@lemmy.world 9 months ago
My problems:
- Ads not for kids in kids videos.
- Very long “ads”. Let’s say, 1 hour? I know that there are longer ads, but, well, if you think that an hour ad is not a problem, well…
- Ads everywhere. In the video, in the recommendations bar, in the main page.
- Ads INSIDE the video. I know this is not about a youtube thing, but I really hate being in middle of some video an then the guy starts talking about Brave or something.
- The pourly implementation of ads in middle video. On TV you were able to tell when and how the ads would came and felt natural because your content wasn’t cut out of nowhere.
Taking it from the last point: that’s why I love Pluto.tv. I can be watching my, whatever, and then I know that ads are coming, because uses the same timing as regular TV, so I can use that time of ads to just ignore them and get on my phone or do something else, like old TV times. Not in middle of my video that it’s gonna last 5 minutes, damn.
Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I was fine with pre-roll ads and mid roll ads. Then YouTube became ultra greedy during Covid when tons of people watching, they went from 1-3 ads per video to 30 ads for a 30 minute video (2 ads every 2 minutes). What the fuck.
I installed adblocker because they did that. YouTube was not watchable at all. Sucks, because I didn’t mind supporting the platform and creator, but their greed ruined that.
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Know what I don’t understand? My wife watches YouTube in bed and I hardly notice ads. Granted, I have my ear plugs in while I read, but I’m not completely tuned out. Ads are rare enough that I’m a bit surprised to notice one.
When I watch YouTube on my PC, without a condom so to speak, fuck me it’s unusable. I simply refuse to engage until uBlock catches up.
All I got is that her content isn’t easily monetized? One one hand, she watching a lot of political news from the Philippines. OTOH, she’s mostly on those dumb crime shows where it’s all white trash confessing to the pigs.
As of this week, I can no longer watch in Firefox and have to go to Edge. Anyone?
Brewchin@lemmy.world 9 months ago
My take on ads is this: I’ve been using the internet since 1989 - before search engines, advertising, SLIP/PPP/ADSL, etc.
When ads began to appear on websites in the late 90s, I was OK with it. A banner ad here, etc. Then they started to move. And flash. And make noise. And then popups, and pop-unders.
At that point I started to BLOCK THEM ALL. If your business model is a game of distraction from the site I’m visiting, then fuck you, your family, and anyone you’ve ever met.
Moving on to UI web-based stuff, the demise of excellent sites like AltaVista (with its superior search syntax) and the growth of Goooooooogle (with its astonishingly and intentionally shit search syntax), the progress and intention was obvious.
There was a brief period where Google, etc, provided what people wanted. But that time has passed. Now it’s all in on GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.
tl;dr: Once advertisers started to behave like gambling sites, they were yeeted to the hell in which they belong.
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
When video streaming first appeared on the internet, I basically stopped watching cable. I tolerate 0 ads and abuse video and streaming services until it’s impossible to do so and then I just won’t use those services anymore. It’s not sustainable to let me watch, acknowledged. I don’t care.
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
YouTube was working at a massive deficit to capture video streaming. I didn’t mind them trying to “catch up”, but they’ve gone way, way too far.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
The YouTube engineers working on advertising are tasked with maximizing revenue, not making the user experience better.
It’s a de-facto monopoly and the only way to get better user experience is through adblock.
lemmylommy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I despise ads because they steal time, and their very existence is an insult to the people that are exposed to them. All ads tell me is „your time is worth very little and we believe you are easily manipulated“.
Based on average ad length and cost on YouTube, ChatGPT has calculated that advertisers pay about $9 per hour of ads. While that seems a bit high to me, it is plausible. My time is worth more than that.
Yes, I do pay for YouTube premium. Though in a cheaper country, because the normal price is excessive imho.
capuccino@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ads can exists, I do not have any problem with it. I think that we need to have tools and techniques to avoid them. If the medium doesn’t let you use those tools, it’s right there where I have a problem: Ads in a magazine? Just change page, Ad on TV?, just change channel, Unskipable ad? Woah woah woah. YouTube, dear, you are forcing me to watch something that I don’t wanna.
korthrun@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
I understand that we exist under capitalism and that it costs money to host and distribute these videos.
I’m willing to pay for access to this service by letting an ad play (probably while I’m pouring a glass of water in another room and have my speakers off).
What gets me is a 3 minute ad on a 44 second video. Interrupting the middle of a sentence with an ad is also annoying. Placing a 30 second ad in the middle of a song can also fuck right off.
Find an appropriate spot for your ad, and make it’s length sensible with regards to the length of the content I’m watching. Or just don’t offer an ad supported tier of your service.
QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 9 months ago
^ this. All of it. It’s death by a thousands cuts and just shows the incredible amount of greed they have (not shareholder value, it’s bloody greed).
TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The inability to rewind without activating ads was what really got me back in the day. Nobody wants to call over their friend to watch something cool/funny, only to have the clip trigger an ad when they restart it.
korthrun@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
Fuck I hate this.
I run into this most often on sites for TV shows and movies myself.
slacktoid@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
But then how will the normies pay for premium to not see ads
Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 9 months ago
The ads-based business model is one of the main reasons so much of the internet sucks so bad. It should either be completely free or run on donations or subscriptions.
I don’t have an issue with YouTube ads because I’ve never actually had to see any - thanks to adblocking. But when they eventually figure out how to prevent that, I’d rather just pay a monthly fee than deal with ads. I think their pricing is completely reasonable, and I can’t morally justify blocking ads - I do it because it’s easy and free. Honestly, I’ve subscribed to services that cost more and give me less value than YouTube does.
TootGuitar@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I believe that advertising is one of the roots of many of our current societal problems, including violent political extremism/fascism/etc. Advertising should be banned, full stop. No amount of ads are acceptable.
NotAGamer@lemmy.org 9 months ago
2 issues. Inconsistent quality control of ads. In some places ads have content that would be banned in the actual YouTube videos. There’s also inconsistent quantity of ads. You can have 5 second or 14.5 second unskippable ads with the timer for determining if an ad is unskipple getting longer and longer. I’ve also seen a 10 minute video with 3 double ad stops and it’s all creeping up with them even now not showing the timer for ads in the Android app. They were fine when they started ads but it’s getting worse.
TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I wish that I’d screenshotted it, but I’ve had one outrageously long 1+ hr. ad on Youtube. The thing was literally a feature length infomercial, I thought that autoplay had carried onto the next videos in my playlist and couldn’t believe that it was an ad when I saw the length. For shit like that to have slipped through Youtube’s “quality control” even once speaks volumes - how in the Hell did someone submit an ad longer than a Saturday morning cartoon and have it slotted into the same category as 15 second toothpaste ads?
NotAGamer@lemmy.org 9 months ago
The longest ad I’ve see on YouTube was about 7 years ago and I watched the whole ad because someone paid for the entire Michael Jackson’s Thriller video as an ad.
toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
For me, the worst part is when they interrupt a video. Anything longer than 5 seconds is also a dealbreaker, often I decide that I dont need to see the video after all when multiple longer ads happen. But then again, I could never stand ads on TV either.
I think whats especially egregious about youtube ads is that they prevent you doing what you came for. On basically all other sites, ads are something in the backround, something you ignore. They cannot be ignored if they play instead of a video.
6nk06@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I despise ads, it’s brainwashing and psychological manipulation. No amount is tolerable. I have refused jobs at advertising companies even when I had money problems and needed to eat. If I were working for Google, I would quit.
Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
I know many people, including me, that fall victim to the manipulation of advertising.
Back in the olden days, it was “here is my product, and this is the price, if you like it buy from this store” Now it’s not just the actual ad, it’s product placement in tv and movies, celebrity endorsement, influencers, and all that.
Just remember that advertising costs money, and that is in the price of the product. Products that don’t advertise can easily be better value.
swelter_spark@reddthat.com 9 months ago
There are lots of local brands that don’t advertise that are better than nationally-known brands, at a much lower cost.
lupusblackfur@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Products that don’t advertise can easily be better value.
This is exactly my reasoning in refusing to do business with service providers that (in my view) over-advertise (looking at you Geico, Progressive, United Health, Taco Bell, other major advertisers)…
Any service provider doing that much advertising is telling me 2 things with every ad: First, you already obviously have too much money and, Second, you obviously don’t need my money.
Fuck you and your “brand recognition”.
🙄 🤡 🖕 💩
capuccino@lemmy.world 9 months ago
There were a time when I wanted to study marketing. I always love how Coca-Cola doesn’t try to make you buy its product, it’s just there, it doesnt say “buy!”, “we cheap!”, “we are better than the others!” or any bullshit. That dream ended when I learned what SEO was and what was doing to internet.
Lembot_0003@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
I have zero tolerance to unsolicited advertising whatsoever. I am of extremely low opinion (but can sometimes tolerate) about advertisement reviews if they are stacked in some special place for advertisement reviews.
kepix@lemmy.world 9 months ago
this is like a soulless manager or some ai bot trying to figure why the human brain hates terrible interruptions