Live data from Hacker News

YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

forbes.com

81–90 of 783 posts

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#81

I know there are several content creators (such as Jim Sterling) that have their videos ad-free as a perk for their supporters (since he's supported enough via Patreon). He's pretty angry about this change. I somewhat understand Google's stance on this, as it's a service that should be allowed to make money even on people who don't want to make money. They don't really have such a way to opt out of pretty much any ot…

> But at the same time, there are people who have so heavily invested into the YouTube ecosystem with certain expectations for a very long time, and pretty much have their entire business on there, so they can't very easily take their business elsewhere if they're unhappy with the change.

> It would be a massive undertaking to shift their backlog of videos onto another service, and they'd lose all their existing subscribers and have to build it up elsewhere.

To me this sounds like a description of YouTube's business model — one that works for other services too, because people go along with it.

So this seems... unsurprising to me. I'm genuinely curious to know what YouTube users were expecting instead. I get the impression some people see this as a breach of trust, but to me it seems like the obvious thing YouTube would do.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#82
Funny that everyone here is talking about small creators when an even larger impact will be on large companies using YouTube for content and for product instructionals. If I'm a brand, and I'm reaching you organically through branded content. I do not want another ad play before my content.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#83
post #56
post #34

Having just recently bought a Smart TV, I was shocked by the amount of ads that played. I pretty much stopped using it at this point. There is just too many ads. I dont even know how they can cram more ads into videos at this point.

I had the same experience using the native Youtube app on iOS. In my browsers (including on mobile), I always have adblock enabled but playing the video in the native Youtube app crams so many ads into a video it's ridiculous. They deliver ads on videos as short as 2 minutes long. Move onto the next video after watching an ad + 2 minute video == another ad. I've stopped using the native app and have now switched to t…

In the last year (or so?) the amount of ads I see when using the iOS/tvOS YouTube native apps has steadily increased, where now I basically have to sit through 2 x 15s ads at the start of almost any video I want to watch.

And only after the second or third video I watch am I finally given the "skip" button, and then after a few more videos, it's back to unskippable for a while, etc..

Not to mention the constant push for YT Premium, it's every 3rd or 4th time I launch the app now that I have to tap past a full-screen interstitial asking me to subscribe.

Google is already steadily increasing the amount of ads they are making people sit through on YouTube, and so a move like this just feels like more steps down the same path they've already been on for quite a while.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#84
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe the problem is that you do need to have a seperate mode for ads, so you can click on them. and as long as that's the case, there are going to be ways to block them

- Embed ads into the video itself, as suggested above - Stream ad start/end events to the browser, with no duration info - On sending the start event, lock the user's session such that they can't change their position within the video. lock it server-side, and client-side. Start event will include details of the ad being displayed for any interactivity. - Unlock the session after the duration of the ad has elapsed, w…

you could still block that ad, you would just be delaying people. the browser plugin could fake stream the ad before you click play. it still means you have to wait sometimes, but you won't have to actually watch the ad. The big problem with this is that now you're heavily incentivizing people to spoof ad watching to get around it, and then you start having trouble measuring the real numbers, which advertisers won't be happy about

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#86
post #32

Most of the creators I watch are switching to a combination of Patreon and in-video advertising "reads" (have you heard about Kiwi Co?!?) both of which cut Google out of the equation so it's not too surprising to me Google is cranking up the dial on their own advertisements.

I wonder how long YT will tolerate those in-video ads when YT Premium is supposed to allow for an ad-free experience. I'm also curious as to how the advertisers and YT channels come up with pricing. The advertisers will have no metrics on how often the ad was skipped over, and maybe it's a coincidence, but the channels seem to keep the in-video ad lengths to integer multiples of 'skip 10 seconds' button presses.

In my mind, there are two large categories of advertisements. The first and more common on traditional media is exposure-type ads which are just about getting the brand name embedded in your head so choose that product over another next time you're shopping.

The second is the type in these sponsor ads. They have calls to action and are still interested to a small degree in brand awareness, but it's not the main focus.

All that's to say, the latter type of ads is about how many people follow the link and less so about whether the ad landed on all the eyeballs.

At least that's my layperson's view, devoid of having ever studied advertising.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#87
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail It's the one service easily replaced. If they go this route the internet will be a more decentralized place

Easy? Good luck replacing all your accounts and contacts using your @gmail.com email. You'll move to another provider but you'll need to keep the old GMail one around for a long time before you're safe deleting it.

I switched everything over to protonmail a few years ago.

I’m was never as invested in gmail as a lot of people, but it was my primary email for many years.

It was still a pain to switch, especially since i started fresh (no email / contact transfers). Now they have better tools to transfer email but after some thought, i wanted to start over with everything.

It did feel really good once it was done. It forced me to evaluate what was important vs what wasn’t, and it got me pretty organized.

Not for everyone but its doable. My guess is it took 6 months for me. I do have my gmail account yet just in case but its been a few years since anything important showed up there. I mainly keep it for youtube anyway.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#88
It's time to coin a new term, "Ad Creep"

- One Ad per video that the creator chooses to elect

- Each Ad can be skipped after 5 seconds

- Two Ads now but the first can still be skipped the second cannot

- The first Ad's skip time increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds

- Videos get Ads regardless of creator consent

I'm noticing a trend, and it sucks for those that like to use YouTube in app form since you're kind of stuck w/o the use of Ad Blockers.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#89

Funny that everyone here is talking about small creators when an even larger impact will be on large companies using YouTube for content and for product instructionals. If I'm a brand, and I'm reaching you organically through branded content. I do not want another ad play before my content.

Then those companies should use a paid video CDN service to host their content?

Which now makes me wonder if YouTube will launch a paid hosting offering sometime in the future that guarantees ad-free viewing.

Re: YouTube will now show ads on all videos even if creators don’t want them

#90
I feel like YouTube as we knew it before is probably going to come to an end soon. Between youtube ads, ad reads, sponsors, patreon plugs and merch ads, it is either going to wind up looking like cable tv or it is going to die and make way for some paid service.

I saw a video with a sponsor, a separate THREE MINUTE ad read for some stupid mobile game AND 2 youtube ads. The video was 10 minutes.

I understand video creators need to make money but at this point i’d rather just have some patreon service where I can subscribe to channels individually for a dollar or two a month.

It seems like the fate of all streaming services is to end up like cable.

Post reply on HN