Comment by ilitirit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilitirit | Hacker News Reader

YouTube's advertising strategy is pushing me to get rid of my SmartTV, or at least find a 3rd Party solution to completely block the ads. I was completely fine with one or two 6 second ads randomly playing before a video, or during a lengthy video. Then they added 14 second ads, which was very annoying, but bearable since it's about the same length as the two short ads.

But now they're advertising even if I simply open the app. Furthermore, they're "hiding" 14 second ads behind the shorter 6 seconds. I've even seen 41 minute advertising content. I'm guess they're banking on users leaving the app on "autoplay" to dupe advertisers into thinking that people actually consume this trash.

These days I just cancel every ad out of principle until the video plays. This takes on average 6-7 attempts. But now more often than not I just quit the app completely. So they are depriving their own content creators of views. And then they have the gall to present surveys asking what my advertising experience has been like...

YouTube do have a paid option, which doesn't have ads (unless the content creator has some sponsorship deal). It is the subscription service I get the most value from. Based on a few videos from content creators, it also seems like it's a good deal for them. I think Linus Tech Tips phrased something like: It matters much more than you think. Other have shown data suggestion that Premium customers contribute as much as 20 to 30% of the revenue.

Having used a device, not my own, to view videos while not on YouTube Premium, I do have to say: You can't really watch YouTube without the subscription anymore, the experience is just awful.

The paid option is very expensive. I would pay for an ad-free only Youtube, but this option is not available in my country. I already pay for Spotify and Netflix. So I don't care about other services of youtube premium except ads-free

If you don't need/want YouTube Music, then yes, it's way to expensive. If I where to buy today, I would get the version without YouTube Music, and replace it with a service where more money goes to the artists.

Pay for Premium - YouTube is one of the few services that actually lets you pay to stop the ads, it’s worth it.

I wish that also fixed all the bad product design that results from building something corrupted by ad incentives.

You can also disable all tracking in settings.

I don't have a problem with ads in general - I have a problem with how they are currently presenting ads. It was never this bad in the past, and I honestly I'm not sure I want to pay money to a company who uses these predatory techniques.

40 minute ads? Who even does this? The only way someone would even consider watching this instead of the content they actually clicked on would be if someone let it autoplay. This is the kind of thing my 5 year old nephews would do.

Absolutely disgusting predatory behaviour...

I pay for YouTube premium and although it stops Youtube's ads, the in-video ads from content creators are much more distracting and annoying.

My brain can easily block a banner ad or tune out until the "skip ad" button appears. But when a content creator spends 90 seconds on message and then jarringly shifts to trying to sell me a mattress or a water bottle (Linus Tech Tips) for the nth time, that makes the video lose all value for me.

Content creators gotta eat, I get that. But the ad-supported model is garbage.

Yeah, I don’t like that either but that’s really on the creator. I prefer the patreon model or at least when they put ads at the end.

Honest question, how many creators do you support via patreon or similar?

I subscribe to some very niche content creators on YT and am a YT premium subscriber. One of the creators I follow has 200,000+ subscribers and is very open about the fact that without his patreon supporters that his channel would be unsustainable.

This was surprising to me - I (naively?) thought more of my premium subscription would trickle down to my subscription channels and that 200,000 subscribers would be enough to make a channel at least somewhat self-supporting.

I pay for 4 annual substacks, but I don't use patreon.

I generally have a rule where I won't pay for something if it doesn't remove the ads. The podcasts I pay for have private links that have ad-free versions (except for Honestly which I'm on the fence about paying for because of it).

YouTube premium removes ads, but patreon often doesn't.

I think I'd seen some YouTuber with around that many subscribers say they make ~20k/yr? So it's not nothing, but definitely not enough to be full time. The bigger ones with millions of subscribers like MKBHD and such I think do really well (7 figures?), but I'd guess a lot of that is extra stuff like the sponsored deals and merch stores etc.

With YT I pay for Premium. With how many ads they throw in to videos now I find it very worth it.

Also, you get YT Music for free with YT Premium. I absolutely won't tolerate ad interruptions, but I find that with the amount of content, and utility, I get from YT overall, the family plan is quite a good value at $14.99/Month. Plus, YT Music recommendations are shockingly good. Probably the only recommendation engine I've experienced from any of the FAANG companies that consistently recommends new music I like.

I have actively returned to using my computer to watch YT/Hulu because the overhead of seeing the ads is just too high on our TV.

Same. I have Google TV and YouTube in there for me is now unusable due to the number of ads. It feels like it's gotten twice as bad in the last 6 months.

On Android, I use Newpipe (via F-Droid). On laptop/desktop I use uBlock and SponsorBlock which do a great job together.

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