Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?

Post by bryan_rasmussen » Fri, Nov 29, 2013, 4:10 AM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #36

graeme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one example use case where the ads are horrible: playlists. Youtube has these "top tracks" playlists. When I discover a new artist, I'll often put that on and go do something else. If a rollover ad comes on, I have to come back to the computer, and click the "skip" button, since I'm not sitting down. One thing I was wondering: does the content creator make money when I skip the ad, or only when I take some kin…

The content creator might get paid when you click, or might get paid per impression. The the creator is absolutely not paid is when you click Skip. Click skip when you don't like the ad; It drives up the price for a successful watch, because ads that get skipped don't get played. There's an ecosystem, it can be played, but it has the proper knobs and controls to combat the playing.

Post by foobarqux » Fri, Nov 29, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

herbig wrote: post #7

HaEB4zcjbp wrote: post #4

https://adblockplus.org/ https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl

After having used adblock plus for like the last 2 years, I disabled it the other day and have been amazed at how terrible the Internet is without it.

Post by judk » Fri, Nov 29, 2013, 4:40 AM UTC

brc wrote: post #35

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #8

I don't know why it did't happen sooner. I started pre-roll seeing ads on mobile as well, which I don't remember until recently. I don't get why it's disgusting. This is how video creators and Google are supposed to get paid. It's annoying to me that people want free content, and they keep pushing companies to "get traction first, then monetize". This is what has to happen, or else Google has to keep subsidizing prog…

I personally have no problem with including ads with YouTube content- it was always going to end that way. The problem is the fact you have to 'pay' before you get to play. When a FTA tv puts on a movie, they give you 10-15 minutes of content to hook you into he movie, then ramp up the ads toward the end, knowing hor going to stick around to see the end. YouTube != TV movies, but it feels like you have to watch all t…

Post by judk » Fri, Nov 29, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

Post by judk » Fri, Nov 29, 2013, 4:45 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #28

Amadou wrote: post #19

The net is soooo ripe for a distributed replacement of Youtube, Facebook, Gmail, etc. Once upon a time those sorts of sites provided real value in hosting files, pictures, video and providing a well-known endpoint like gmail. But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables for finding files. Someone is going to come al…

If you think it's so easy, then you build it. Some of that has been done, some of it has yet to be done. But so far it sucks compared to the centralized system.