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Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

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Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#171

Post by SteveMoody73 »

wizzard wrote: post #152
jerf wrote: post #136

My favorite "dark pattern" plausibly disguised as a simple bug is that the countdown timer, across multiple platforms I've used YouTube on, doesn't work correctly and very easily will let the ad play for a second or two longer than you intend. It behaves as if it's supposed to count down to 0 one second at a time, but there's a recurring event that is run every second to see if the countdown timer needs to be lowered…

Yes, on my smart TV app it's so slow and glitchy that the 5-second ad preview often plays for 10+ seconds before the "Skip Ad" button finally appears. Add to that the 5-7 seconds of black screen before the ad starts playing and the 2-3 seconds to resume my video, and it's a major annoyance during workouts and such.

On an old TV I have it can take at least 5 seconds before it starts counting down. I've just assumed it was a badly maintained app. Have 3 smart Tvs and YouTube seems to behave different on all of them. May have to look into it.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#172

Post by sophacles »

boardwaalk wrote: post #112
blindseer wrote: post #16

The ads are genuinely one of my most frustrating experiences when using the Chromecast with Google TV. And seeing this kind of pattern makes it more likely that I’ll never sign up for premium YouTube (whatever it is called) and just use YouTube less. Also, I swear they do this - If you click on the try YouTube premium for 14 days, once the 14 days end you are bombarded with extra ads. And ads that are usually not ski…

For all the kvetching about ads I see regarding YouTube, most people really could just pay Google and make it go away. I mean, I don’t like paying for things either, but it’s not worth the headache of ad blockers (which aren’t available on every device) and philosophically, I would rather the internet get away from ads everywhere and I’ll help that happen if I can. It helps that $10 is worth the many hours of use I g…

Cable tv was originally ad-free because you paid for the content instead. Now you pay and get more ads than network tv instead!

Premium channels were ad-free longer, because you the content producers didn't have to share the fees based on (estimates) of how much the channel was watched.

Lots of ad-free services really mean "no ads except bumpers since you must like ads just not in the middle of the show".

Why would anyone be stupid enough to trust google to keep the "ad free" experience ad free?

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#173

Post by r00fus »

rocqua wrote: post #44
kmmlng wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The YouTube subscription just seems excessively expensive. I find it hard to fathom they would generate anywhere near as much revenue from me watching their ads compared to the subscription cost.

I found a youtube premium-lite option. It removes adds, but does not allow background play and a few other perks. But it only costs 6 euros. I found it a better deal than premium so I downgraded.

I honestly would prefer a premium-lite. I don't use YT as an audio source so background tab audio is annoying (even more on mobile - stopping my phone doesn't stop the video). Really want premium-lite for family sub :D

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#174

Post by duskwuff »

runarberg wrote: post #127
tpoacher wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the worst thing about ads in the middle of relaxing music is that they are typically loud and obnoxious, instantly destroying within milliseconds any mood/relaxation benefits accrued over the preceding few hours. it's as if a frat party suddenly bombs your meditation group, trashes the place in 5 seconds, then leaves

If you are in the USA, I think it is illegal to play ads at a louder volume then the surrounding content. You can file an FCC complaint if you see that.

As far as I'm aware, that only applies to broadcast radio and over-the-air TV, not all media.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#175

Post by jedahan »

Twitter doesn't count blocked accounts as ad impressions.

If I see an ad on twitter, I block the account that displayed it. Invariably, there is another ad in the next 3-5 tweets. I can do this 3 or 4 times in a row before I give up looking at the feed because the signal-to-noise ends up being too low when 25% of my feed are ads.

My guess is that after blocking an account, the ad you saw doesn't count as an impression. It's also possible that 25% is normal, but it doesn't seem that way if I scroll and not block accounts.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#176

Post by delecti »

sophacles wrote: post #166
josteink wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you never once considered going premium to remove the ads? Surely someone must have been able to help you out with that if you couldn’t do it yourself? The answer exists, it’s right there with buttons for clicking given to you by Google, but people here on HN so often seem so entirely blindsided and insist there’s no such thing as ad-free Youtube. What gives? I just don't get it.

Ad-free youtube doesn't get rid of "paid content" in videos. "paid content" is just ads. So if you pay for youtube premium you get rid of some ads, not all the ads.

That's clearly a different kind of thing though. Sponsored content in videos is just stuff you don't like, but it's still the video you clicked on. Youtube injected ads on top of the video is not the content you clicked on. Youtube premium unambiguously solves the problem that the top-level comment was complaining about (mid-roll ads that can be a half-hour or longer), you're just moving the goal posts.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#177

Post by saynay »

gonzo41 wrote: post #64
ghoomketu wrote: post #43

People complain a lot about Youtube ads and how awful they are but as a thought experiment I once tried to imagine the amount of storage and bandwidth Youtube must need everyday to operate. So after some basic research it looks like they need to add almost 1 petabytes of storage and I couldn't find much info on the bandwidth and servers it uses. As much as I don't like Google for their shady business practices, I cou…

I often feel that the 90's child me would slap me across the face in disgust at how casually I take for granted the age of magic we live in now.

This hit me hard a bit ago. I had hiked for an hour or so to the middle of a forest, pulled out my phone and was viewing a crystal clear live stream made by a random person on the other side of the planet, in higher quality than any movie I could have seen as a child, and it was free for both of us and needed no special equipment.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#178

Post by 12ian34 »

alphakappa wrote: post #31

Google products have been incorporating a frustrating amount of dark patterns. In gmail for example, if you load one of the smart inbox tabs, it shows the rows of unread emails at the top. Right when you attempt to click on the top row, it rearranges the rows to show a few rows of ads instead (and the ads are fairly indistinguishable from the unread emails) so you end up unintentionally opening an ad. Now, there’s no…

this surprised me so much I had to read it twice before realising that it's probably because I've used uBlock since I can remember

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#179

Post by sophacles »

delecti wrote: post #176
sophacles wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad-free youtube doesn't get rid of "paid content" in videos. "paid content" is just ads. So if you pay for youtube premium you get rid of some ads, not all the ads.

That's clearly a different kind of thing though. Sponsored content in videos is just stuff you don't like, but it's still the video you clicked on. Youtube injected ads on top of the video is not the content you clicked on. Youtube premium unambiguously solves the problem that the top-level comment was complaining about (mid-roll ads that can be a half-hour or longer), you're just moving the goal posts.

I'm not moving anything. If you want to call something ad-free, IMHO it shouldn't have ads.

Re: Dark pattern: how YouTube makes sure you don’t always “skip ad”

#180

Post by m0ngr31 »

martius wrote: post #46
ghaewrhaerga wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you just not use ublock origin?

Because it only works on a browser, people also experience youtube on other devices (smart TV, chromecast, App on a non-rooted phone).

NewPipe + Sponsorblock from FDroid and SmartTubeNext for Android TV
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