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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”

#51

Post by CraigJPerry »

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…

https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock works on an nvidia Shield via "SmartTube Next" - i don't know if you can install or sideload that on GoogleTV.

There's clients for many other platforms, even traditionally locked down ones like iOS Safari etc.

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

#52

Post by JulianWasTaken »

phh wrote: post #45
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…

FYI, several alternative youtube frontend apps are available for "Chromecast with Google TV" (which is just an Android TV device), for instance the opensource Newpipe. (Though this is piracy, and you shouldn't do piracy, because piracy hurts Google and content creators - who will gladly take donations -)

For Android TV, there's even the even nicer https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext which integrates SponsorBlock.

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

#53

Post by kuu »

ghaewrhaerga wrote: post #40
noobermin wrote: post #6

Recently, I've been with people who unlike me don't have youtube premium and I loathe the ads. I'm so happy I pay for premium so I don't have to experience this. I want to say "subscription is the right answer" but it clearly isn't enough for some people (netflix).

Why do you just not use ublock origin?

I cannot install it on my Smart TV

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

#54

Post by ohyoutravel »

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’m not seeing the connection you’re making between the admitted marvel of engineering at scale and ads.

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

#55

Post by paulpauper »

rrsghiopnbg wrote: post #22
durnygbur wrote: post #10

Folks are completing MSc, PhDs, submitting to cutthroat recruitment processes to architect, enable, and implement this level of malicious counterproductive sophistication. Google employees, how do you find motivation to wake up in the morning? Is it >300k USD salary and FIRE before 40? What if they told you to scam your own children for additional bonus?

It’s more like > $600k TC. Not sure about FIRE given a starter house is $2M.

lol you realize you don't have to pay the $2 million at once right. 400k is more than enough to afford a mortgage on a 2 million dollar house. they key is keeping other expenses low.

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

#56

Post by alias_neo »

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…

There are a couple of videos of some really chill music sessions posted by the artists that I used to put on every morning when my daughter was born.

I've seen the same few vids hundreds of times and I know, like I know the sky is blue and water is wet that they had no ads.

Couple years later, my son is born and that morning peace time comes for me to put on a vid or two, next thing I know, a couple of ads bang in the middle of the video. So jarring I can't explain how pissed I was, I got straight to rooting my TV and blocking ads.

The interesting part for me is that a YouTube premium trial Google had pushed on me ended just days prior.

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

#57

Post by harg »

I find YouTube basically unusable on any device except for my laptop with an adblocker. The ads are so intrusive and cut in at such jarring moments that it's just not worth it. It's not uncommon to have to tolerate several minutes of ads just to watch a sub-10 minute video.

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

#58

Post by rocqua »

LadyCailin wrote: post #28
duxup wrote: post #18

I don't really see this as a dark pattern. Being exposed to an ad is not a dark pattern IMO. And this particular pattern is IMO pretty dang obvious if you use YouTube much at all. Someone has to pay for YouTube ... someone has to pay for this stuff. If it is ads that's it. I think the issue involves two parties, the sites who want revenue, and the vast majority of users who want content for free. So yeah here we are…

I pay for YouTube, but they still apply dark patterns, namely, they constantly turn auto play back on after a week or so despite me turning it off time and again.

I found recently that 'autoplay' is always on when you start watching videos from a channel, rather than from the home screen.

It seems to treat the channel page as a playlist now, and for playlists it always autoplays.

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

#59

Post by savanaly »

rwc wrote: post #2

Alternate theory: A large-scale, ongoing A/B test on what gets the perfect balance between watching ads and keeping total view time high.

Agreed. Unfortunately when it comes to ads (which I also hate! I have adblockers installed, subscribe to premium services like Youtube premium when it makes sense...) HN commenters take leave of their wits and just start posting conspiracy theories, hysterical criticism, or if you're lucky balanced sensible criticism that nevertheless doesn't make sense in the context of the article and is just an instance of preaching to the choir.

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

#60

Post by mark_l_watson »

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…

Wait, I am curious: you see ads on GMail? I haven’t seen ads in many years. What email client do you use? web app, phone app?
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