Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 191 posts

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#151

Post by netsharc »

hddherman wrote: post #64
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #41

I pay for YouTube premium but I'm still subjected to ads in the majority of videos I watch: the kind that are embedded by the creator directly in the video, eg, a one minute sponsored by Squarespace segment. I don't know how Google is framing YouTube premium (I get it through my Google play music subscription) but it is most assuredly not an ad-free experience.

You might be interested in using this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/ Doesn't work 100% of the time but seems to do the trick for most popular videos.

Hah, that's a cool hack. It reminds me of the folks who were editing pirated Mythbusters videos so each myth was its own continuous segment, without the recaps ("before the break, we were watching...") and.. precaps? ("Stay tuned to see what happens!")

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#152

Post by icebraining »

bogwog wrote: post #84
cameronbrown wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the main reason a YouTube competitor fails to spawn is bandwidth costs and lack of advertisers making it immediately really unprofitable.

Have you researched this, or are you making assumptions? Hosting videos is pretty cheap, and while getting the same amount of traffic as Youtube would get very costly very fast, it could also be very profitable if monetization is done right. Plus technologies like PeerTube can significantly reduce bandwidth expenses if that's really an issue. Google wouldn't use something like that because the federation threatens th…

> Google wouldn't use something like that because the federation threatens their monopoly

They don't need to, they have caching servers on most ISP's internal networks. Popular stuff (that consumes most bandwidth) just needs to be sent once from the mothership.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#153

Post by danShumway »

viraptor wrote: post #135
danShumway wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite for me. I've been paying for Youtube Premium since back when they were calling it Youtube Red, and the nag screens haven't gone away. When I'm signed in, Youtube still sticks up banners that remind me that I have exclusive content I don't care about. I still get reminders about all of the "cool" features I don't want. I still have to jump through hoops to archive content that I care about. I'm payin…

> and the nag screens haven't gone away I'm also there since Youtube Red and I'm not sure what you mean. I've never seen a nag screen so far. I wonder if it's some bug, or some kind of targeting failure?

From what I'm hearing, it seems to vary a lot from person to person. I would see a lot of popups on the official Youtube App for Android. Youtube was also really interested in getting me to install the Youtube Music app, even though one of the big benefits of Youtube Red in the first place was supposed to be background listening. Youtube Kids was advertised a lot, I didn't understand how I fit the target demographic for that one.

I also saw a lot of advertisements for addons or benefits (here's a Youtube Red exclusive video from some random B-list celebrity that doesn't belong in your recommendations). And I got a lot of tutorials and tips, like popups for how to subscribe to channels. That always felt weird to me, because even if I didn't pay for Youtube Red, surely after a while Youtube would figure out that I knew how to subscribe to channels.

Maybe it's gotten better. Like I hinted at above, I rarely sign into Youtube (I hope they're still distributing the money I give them at least somewhat fairly to creators I like). I'm now paying for Youtube, and separately using a combination of Youtube-DL, NewPipe, Invidious, and proxies/adblockers to build an experience that I consider tolerable. So maybe the notifications have gotten better and I haven't noticed because I haven't checked back recently?

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#155

Post by jsnell »

TacoToni wrote: post #154

I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but I would pay for YouTube premium at a lower price just to remove ads. I have no interest in their music service.

That's what YouTube Red was. Did you subscribe to it?

If you did, why aren't you now grandfathered into YouTube Premium at that old price?

If you didn't, why not? It was after all exactly the product you now claim to have wanted.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#156

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

monkeyfacebag wrote: post #60
falcolas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the videos with sponsored content are frequently either not getting money from YouTube (such as the gaming segment), or not getting enough from the ads that do run (COPA affected and . The creators may also be futureproofing their livelyhood in fear that their segment will be the next one that YouTube demonitizes by default. It’s not very profitable to be a content maker (outside the top .01%), and many content…

I don't dispute any of that. I'm saying that, as a YouTube premium subscriber, I'm not clear exactly what I'm paying for. I mean, I guess fewer ads is better than more ads but I think a paid service should be able to provide me with stronger guarantees.

For decades, people have accepted ads in television, though it's a paid service.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#157

Post by chrysoprace »

izacus wrote: post #74
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #41

I pay for YouTube premium but I'm still subjected to ads in the majority of videos I watch: the kind that are embedded by the creator directly in the video, eg, a one minute sponsored by Squarespace segment. I don't know how Google is framing YouTube premium (I get it through my Google play music subscription) but it is most assuredly not an ad-free experience.

What would a good solution for this be? Ask that creators upload a separate premium version of a video with no ads and with bigger payout for views?

I see two solutions, each from a different side:

* YouTube (Google) should be enforcing that ads aren't intentionally embedded in videos (intentionally so that videos with a logo on someone's shirt or some such contentious type of "advertising" isn't subject to videos getting taken down or demonitised).

* Content Creators should be handing together to unionise (which I think they're already doing) or band together to move to a different platform. Without its content YouTube is just a video uploading platform.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#158

Post by perl4ever »

wazoox wrote: post #112
alexis_fr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 ads every 12 minutes was quite common on TV. I’ve always thought Youtube would ramp it up to this level one day. It’s only a matter of time until VoD does it too (Netflix? for 7$?).

It was quite common in the US . We Europeans always considered US TV as totally unwatchable, because of the horrible, constant ad interruption.

I'm not sure it was always common in the US, I'm sure I heard a rumor that in olden days, cable didn't have ads, or had fewer ads because you paid for it. Some places in Europe pay for OTA TV so that could be connected with the quantity of ads, rather than the inherent superiority of the citizenry in all respects.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#159

Post by abruzzi »

astral303 wrote: post #105

The author throws Apple under the bus pointing out a forced full screen modal message advertising Apple TV+. IMO this is an unfair comparison, because the Apple TV+ modal ad came up exactly once and never again (once per Apple TV device). Whereas YouTube is nagging and interrupting the author every day, multiple times a day. I wish there was a YouTube alternative. I dislike their Apple TV YouTube app enough that I lo…

On the other hand, Apple does spam me with an ad for Apple Music every couple of weeks. It happens when I launch the music app on my phone.

Re: YouTube’s annoying Premium spam

#160

Post by monkeycantype »

The edge YT has over its competitor music streaming providers is that I get access to both licensed and blatantly pirated material. I’ve been listening to 70s Japanese Rock, Apple Music has v little, YT has everything, none of what I’m listening to is licensed.
Post reply on HN