I have definitely noticed this too. It also brought to my attention how much I use YouTube as I noticed how often I felt pissed because of yet another pre-roll.
Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
11–20 of 125 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#12Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#13I can confirm that.
It also used to skip pre-rolls when you reloaded the page, now it will keep displaying the pre-roll until you watch it.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#14I 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 guess it's just annoying that it's practically on everything now... like everyone is trying to make that 4 cents in ad revenue off of their kitten rolling around or whatever lol >I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started (as in I closed the browser tab after seeing I had to wait 15s or 30s). Youtube still has dominance now but if you keep getting in the way of people, something better will come along and usurp you (ie StackOverflow vs Experts Exchange).
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#15Compared to hulu and others they haven't yet but it is more pervasive.
The 'skip' link is still in after you watch one longer ad in a series. At least they have that because watching ads for online videos is not the same as TV.
Back in the day on TV you'd get 10-15 minutes of entertainment before a commercial. Here you are watching :30 spots for another minute long video or maybe a few minutes on most occasions. So ad sites really need to take that into consideration.
Noone wants to watch more ad time than actual video time, keep at least a sane balance. A balance that will keep people watching not turn them away forever.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#16In Chrome, I use Magic Actions for YouTube. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magic-actions-for-....
Not only it blocks ads, it removes annoying annotations as well.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#17Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.
Eh, the ads are easy enough to circumvent on a PC. I think what OP is complaining about is just the fact that they're being pushed a lot harder recently.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#18The problem is that most people go to YouTube for quick content. It becomes useless when you have to stop 3 out of 4 times for 5-30 seconds, as OP pointed out. It completely changes the YouTube experience and just doesn't feel "right" or scalable as a business model.
Or, if Google sticks to it then the sort of content that gets consumed might change. I already find myself skipping to see videos under 2 minutes if there's an ad before.
I never felt pushed around by ads on Netflix, South Park or any other premium content though.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#19The 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 along with a distributed system that gains enough traction and just wipe all of these guys off the map.
To paraphrase the founder of RedHat, whatever comes next won't be the size of Youtube, it will make youtube the size of a bittorrent tracker.
Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads?
#20I 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 guess it's just annoying that it's practically on everything now... like everyone is trying to make that 4 cents in ad revenue off of their kitten rolling around or whatever lol > I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started (as in I closed the browser tab after seeing I had to wait 15s or 30s). Youtube still has dominance now but if you keep getting in the way of people, something bet…
> I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started
If you don't like ads, keep doing this. YouTube will notice and it will affect their decision making.