
Ask HN: Are YouTube ads getting worse? - Kye
I opened a ~1 hour video and saw notches in the timeline for 10 different ad breaks. This is as bad as live TV now. Ads play at the end of videos. More videos have long, unskippable ads. More ad breaks in the middle of videos.<p>Multiple people in my circles said they noticed this too when asked, but it could just be a fluke&#x2F;some kind of group confirmation bias. Has anyone else experienced this? Or even better, collected data on it?
======
jasode
Yes, Youtube ads are getting more aggressive. Instead of just 1 ad per
interruption (either pre-roll or mid-roll), it's multiple ads in succession.
Instead of a few interruptions, it has increased to many interruptions. Unlike
you, I don't get the yellow bars in the timeline that show where the ad spots
are anymore.

Many Youtubers have made videos about the aggressive ad changes. Here's one
example:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A)

I don't know if any new definitive statistics are out but some Youtubers
complain that they don't seem to be getting any additional money even though
viewers are bombarded with more ads.

~~~
Kye
This is a large part of why I won't pay for the premium service. I don't know
how much creators get, but I know they always work their way toward pitiful
payouts like Spotify. For an example of this slide, see how microstock has
gone from something you could make a living on to ever-shrinking payouts and
increasingly opaque bonus structures.

A recent example is Shutterstock's change to the payout and bonus structure.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/guv6s3/shutter...](https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/guv6s3/shutterstock_slashes_contributor_payout_by_up_to/)

[https://xpiksapp.com/blog/2020/new-shutterstock-earnings-
bre...](https://xpiksapp.com/blog/2020/new-shutterstock-earnings-breakdown/)

The minimum was 25 cents per image. That could add up fast when an agency
buyer with a huge bulk credit plan took notice of your portfolio and bought it
out, then returned every time you added more. It's now 10 cents per image.

Spotify got there fast. YouTube will get there if it isn't already.

~~~
Jommi
I'm not sure why you're attributing this to some bad will from the platform
instead of just basic supply and demand economics?

Spotify directly removed massive barriers to entry in distributing music. So
there are more artists available to you than ever. Listeners might have grown
as well, but it seems not in the same scale.

This could also be the case in microstock (and it seems to make logical
sense). More and more photos are posted, and more people are posting. So
ofcourse as supply grows the price lowers.

~~~
Kye
>> _" I'm not sure why you're attributing this to some bad will from the
platform instead of just basic supply and demand economics?"_

I made no attribution to bad will. I described a phenomenon without judgment.

------
tuna-piano
For $12 a month (40 cents a day) you can use YouTube ad free. Personally, I
don't notice the missing $12 but I do notice the missing ads, so it's worth it
to me.

If you don't want ads, this seems like a more than fair offer from YouTube.

[https://www.youtube.com/premium](https://www.youtube.com/premium)

~~~
vuln
I used Firefox with ublock origin[0] and never see an ad.

[0][https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

~~~
bitwize
Thief!!!!

"Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch
the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any
time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing
programming." \--Jamie Kellner, former Warner executive

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I'm okay with this. They've deplatformed or suppressed most of my favorite
YouTubers anyway, and they are trying to push a culture that I don't agree
with.

~~~
mikecoles
Then stop using YouTube. If I don't agree with the grocery store's business
choices, I can steal from them?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
They're a monopoly and the leader of a winner-take-all market. They leverage
their power to control the narrative on many topics. I think of any company to
not support, YouTube is a good one to do so.

~~~
taylodl
_Not supporting_ is not the same as _stealing._ It's your business as to
whether you want to support YT or not, but your disagreeing with their
business practices or business model does not give you the right to steal.
Perhaps I've misunderstood you (I'm reading this in context of your previous
comment where you said you were okay with this, which I take to mean you're
okay with stealing their content)?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
We have different ethical standards then. If a company is a monopoly that
actively leverages its power to manipulate entire populations, then I am fine
with exploiting services which it makes available. They have the ability to
keep me from accessing the site if I use an ad blocker. If they want me off
the platform that much, they can boot me off.

~~~
foolmeonce
True but this is a better argument for leaving. They will retain you without
ad income largely because that is valuable to them compared to people leaving
their platform and what a group of actual non-spectators might entail afa the
marketplace.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I see what you're saying, but that's a prisoner's dilemma[1]. By that I mean
it would require the coordination of millions of others who are also sick of
the platform to behave irrationally. It also assumes that people who leech off
of YouTube would be unwilling to try a different site because of their
leeching.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)

~~~
taylodl
This, I think, is your argument. It's helped me to see where you're coming
from and - I don't disagree. This is a good point. Thanks for helping me see
things differently!

------
yarapavan
Yes, it is from the recent changes in YouTube's manage ad breaks policy.
Starting July, they will be doing mid-roll ads for videos longer than 8
minutes [1].

    
    
      Today, only videos longer than 10 minutes are eligible for mid-roll ads. Starting in late July, videos longer than 8 minutes will be eligible for mid-roll ads. As part of this change, mid-roll ads will be turned on for all eligible existing videos and future video uploads, including those videos where you may have previously opted out of mid-roll ads. Videos that already have mid-roll ads turned on will not be impacted. If mid-roll ads are not a good fit for your videos, you can indicate this preference in YouTube Studio by July 27, 2020.
    
      Mid-roll ads will be automatically placed at natural breaks in your videos to balance viewer experience and monetization potential for you. After these changes, you will still be able to turn mid-rolls off or adjust the placement in each video manually.
    

[1]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en)

------
Shoreleave
I've also notice a huge push for youtube premium on mobile. It used to be a
once a week thing. Now almost every time I open the app I'm greeted by the
popup asking me to upgrade.

~~~
a2tech
The constant unskippable ads in the Youtube app meant I jettisoned the app on
my mobile devices and just watch Youtube via the browser (even though they
make it a terrible experience) because my ad blocker works in the browser.

~~~
bebna
if you're using android, check out redtube.

I use Firefox to browse and with long click and open in app to let redtube
handle it. it also is nice to have the option of watching the vid as popup and
keep browsing around on YouTube

~~~
vangelis
Dangerous search right there.

------
Operyl
If I understand correctly from a friend, the problem is YouTubers (and
YouTube/Google) are currently making _much less_ money per ad. It sounds like
more are getting shoved per video to make up for it (iirc, it's up to YouTube
to determine this?).

------
Stubb
Most of the content creators I follow also upload to BitChute (or have been
booted from YouTube), so I've moved all my playlists there. I also donate
$5/month to BitChute.

Grabbing videos off YouTube with youtube-dl for local viewing is another way
to skip ads. Given their censorious policies, I have zero interest in paying
YouTube to go ad-free.

------
sethammons
The one that grinds my gears is the apparent time between ads. I’m learning
how to play the banjo and I watch tutorials. This means play, pause, go back
to time X and play again. Every few iterations, I get interrupted with an ad
or two. Arrrrrgggh!

~~~
xigoi
Install UBlock Origin.

------
jonplackett
Youtube on my Apple TV is going bananas for ads. They're everywhere! I don't
know how this feels for US users where you guys have a lot more ads in TV in
general. But it's starting to feel pretty hostile with my UK sensibilities.

------
Yetanfou
Youtube has ads? I never see them since I never use the Youtube site directly,
only through an intermediate like youtube-dl or streamlink and programs which
integrate this type of functionality, NewPipe on Android, etc. Once they start
splicing ads directly into the video stream on the server I might start to get
ads but by that time there will either be a way to rip them out again or I'll
just keep from using Youtube - something which is getting easier with time by
them de-platforming anyone who doesn't abide by the vague and ever-shifting
set of rules the censors use to keep the platform palatable to those same
advertisers who are making things worse as well as the screeching cancel mobs
which are popping up left and right on the 'net. Eventually they might manage
to cancel each other out upon which there will be a day of celebration.

Peace will return (with or without a platform named Youtube), until such a
time I will flaunt the DMCA at hearts content to keep myself and those around
me sane. Call me a thief, call me a pirate, call me anything you want but
after decades of ever more abusive ad tech the time is long past to make a
stance: the only good ad is a skipped ad. Don't like it? I understand, but the
solution does not lie with me. It lies with the shysters in the ad tech
industry. Line 'm up against the wall, shame them for life and never let them
near a computer again and we'll talk, until such time I say _Sayonara_.

------
Niccizero
uBlock Origin has worked perfectly for me on the desktop, I haven't seen an ad
since forever.

~~~
totally_a_human
I honestly don't understand, why anybody would even use a web browser without
proper Adblock technology.

------
nmeofthestate
The frequency of ads got bad enough that some months ago I changed over to an
android YouTube client that doesn't show ads. I wouldn't watch YouTube
otherwise.

------
tmaly
I saw two ads right in the middle of a 5 min kids video.

It is getting pretty bad. I did not mind the mandatory ad right in the
beginning.

------
onhn
For me its also the quality of the ads which is a problem. Over and over I get
Grammerly adverts even though I always flag them as repetitive, inappropriate
or irrelevant (always signed in). They have nothing to do with my interests or
viewing habits.

Twitch does an outstanding job by comparison.

~~~
Olumde
I hate, Hate, HATE grammerly ads.

------
kohtatsu
I'm getting ads to porn (non-video, I have that blocked). I don't have an
account and frequently flush cookies. I just didn't think I'd see the day,
especially because they have no way of knowing if I'm older than 18.

------
idkcd
Open source front-end for YouTube [https://invidio.us](https://invidio.us) It
has no ads, no trackers , no Google account required

------
justaman
Recently ads have been getting through my adblockers or videos fail to load if
the ad is blocked. Refreshing the page or adding a '.' to the url seems to fix
this.

~~~
mtmail
If anybody wonders at which position: 'youtube.com.' instead of 'youtube.com',
background discussed in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23479435)

~~~
nickthegreek
pretty sure they patched this a week or 2 ago.

------
sharemywin
I'm not sure which is more surprising. That there are more ads or that anyone
is surprised by this. It is owned by google.

------
princevegeta89
YouTube vanced on Android and Ublock origin on desktop. Problem solved. In my
POV, the ads got worse a long time ago.

------
sails
Yes. Watching youtube on a smart TV on the installed Youtube app is a
nightmare. Time for a Raspberry Pi for media.

~~~
fargo
if you are going for a raspberry I would suggest using it for pihole instead.
That would solve the ad issue for all your devices

~~~
majewsky
Does pi-hole remove Youtube ads? pi-hole can only block whole ad domains. I
would be surprised if Youtube deliberately served ad videos from a different
domain than regular videos.

~~~
hysan
It does not. YouTube, at least on my smart TV, serves ads from a domain that
is indistinguishable from the domain that serves the video content.

------
bradgranath
Also, the advertisers are savvy to how long they have before you're allowed to
hit that skip, and so pitching in the first 5 seconds is getting more common,
leading to some pretty absurd copy/delivery. I just love that guy who grabs me
on the street shouting in my face about free energy.

------
x87678r
Also product placement in the video is pretty common.

I'm starting to look at Twich, vimeo more, any other alternatives?

~~~
timbit42
lbry.tv

------
rcarmo
Yes. I have been getting ads on my Apple TV at a much higher rate over the
past few weeks, which is putting me off a fair bit. Enough to consider auto-
downloading certain channels and shoving them into Plex.

------
szszrk
I recently got a survey on youtube. On TV. I won't file a survey on TV!

------
kobc
I think Google is preparing the axe, or at least something equally drastic.

------
bluedino
If I watch while not-signed in, I get an ad every couple minutes. Unwatchable.

If I'm signed into my Google account, I usually just get an ad at the start of
a video, and they are usually skippable, so no big deal.

~~~
onion2k
That should be a strong signal about how much data about you is worth to
Google.

------
TheAdamAndChe
On Android, if you install f-droid, you can install newpipe and avoid all ads.

On Linux, ublock origin plus Firefox removes basically all ads. You can also
use youtube-dl in the terminal, though that can be difficult.

~~~
opencl
Ublock origin also works in Firefox for Android.

------
Priem19
No idea. Since I'm using FireFox, Blokada (AdGuard DNS) on Android, and
FireFox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix, NoScript on PC, my mental RAM does not get
strained by ads and other nonsense.

------
drcongo
I was happily blocking them with NextDNS and 1Blocker until about a week ago
when suddenly they started getting past both blockers, multiple ads on every
video.

------
blaser-waffle
> Are YouTube ads getting worse?

Yes.

Longer, more consistent, and so wildly off the mark at times I feel like I
should be offended.

------
fheilz
Does anybody else only get scam ads?

~~~
ravenstine
I don't see YouTube ads because of uBlock Origin, but from what I can tell
from other people's computers not having any form of adblock, I've seen that
Adsense serves scam ads all the time, so it wouldn't surprise me if YouTube
ads were the same. (It's astounding how these corporations can hold the mantle
of "fact checking" but are happy to serve potentially dangerous bullshit when
it helps their bottom line)

~~~
fheilz
I use ublock too. I only see ads on mobile. I have started screenshotting all
of the scams I see. Maybe I will send them all to the FTC at some point.

------
fastball
I use Brave and haven't seen a YouTube ad in a long time.

------
oijewoif32m
Install uBlock Origin and you will never see an ad again

------
ChadTheNomad
Yes, I use Brave which has always blocked the ads, but they've been coming
through since ~1-2 weeks ago.

~~~
KKPMW
Was the same for me. I updated Brave yesterday which fixed it.

~~~
j-james
YouTube recently made changes to how they display their ads that affected a
fair amount of filter lists.

[https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/7519](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/7519)

------
kindly_fo
1) Try not to use youtube 2) if u really need to watch smth that's on yt use
browser with adblock or newpipe app

------
zozbot234
ITT: people complaining about a _free_ service. Why not just pay for YouTube
Red?

~~~
p2t2p
Oh, where do I start:

\- I don't want music and there is no discount for that \- I don't like random
benign channel removals/strikes \- I don't like censorship \- I don't like
copyright situation \- There is not option to pay for family for whole year \-
They are getting closer and closer to killing rss support.

My setup right now is that I receive youtube updates into my newsboat. I run a
macro if I want to watch a video and it goes into download queue and is
downloaded by youtube-dl. It synthing-ed onto every single of my devices
(including Emby) and then I watch it whenever I feel like, offline, no adds,
no nothing, through a normal video player.

~~~
zozbot234
YT has a lot less censorship than most cable TV packages, all things
considered. And "I never watch video category X, so I'd rather not pay for it"
is neither here nor there, unless you'd rather have to pay a la carte for
every single YT category you may want to watch in the future. Having a single
payment for the service as a whole is just better.

