
Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads? - sarreph
I never used to have a problem watching the first 5 seconds of a sponsored commercial on some of the more <i>popular</i> YouTube videos, but I&#x27;ve noticed a <i>startling</i> increase in the amount of ads being served to me. It is at the point where I would say 3 in every 4 videos plays an ad now. It&#x27;s disgustingly frustrating.<p>Has anyone else noticed this?<p>If so, has there been an announcement regarding this that I&#x27;ve missed? Perhaps even something to do with Google+ IDs being used for user accounts?
======
alanctgardner2
I don't know why it did't happen sooner. I started pre-roll seeing ads on
mobile as well, which I don't remember until recently.

I don't get why it's disgusting. This is how video creators and Google are
supposed to get paid. It's annoying to me that people want free content, and
they keep pushing companies to "get traction first, then monetize". This is
what has to happen, or else Google has to keep subsidizing progressively
larger bandwidth bills - and the people who are creating the content have to
keep their day jobs.

~~~
bad_user
To me they are annoying because they disallow you to skip them for the first
few seconds. Their targeting also doesn't do a very good job.

But let me tell you the real problem with YouTube ads. Recently in my country
there has been a public outcry against a mining project, which is dangerous
not only because of ecological reasons, but also because it needs special laws
that trump our constitutional rights and the whole deal is filled with
documented corruption. Movies started popping on Youtube describing the perils
of open-pit gold mining with cyanide.

Well guess what, the company behind the project started displaying ads on
every one of those clips, showing local poor villagers crying for "jobs", with
one of the big fat lies of the project being that it will create plenty of
jobs. It won't of course, but that's besides the point.

The point is, say somebody believes in something and posts a video on YouTube.
A company or an individual can always display ads right at the start of that
clip in disagreement and there's no way in hell that you can stop it. If you
report it, what are you going to report it for? Now, I believe in freedom of
speech, but that's just immoral, as freedom of speech doesn't imply forcing
your opposition to present your case in their argument. And it's not freedom
of speech when your opposition is a multi-national with all the money it needs
to buy whatever it wants.

So that's why YouTube ads are immoral. Because they are more intrusive than
normal ads and can be used for disinformation. And because I don't use
AdBlock, I limit my visits to YouTube. I used to use it for listening to
music, but there are much better options for that.

What I don't get from such services ... maybe I'm willing to pay a monthly
subscription. That's what I do with Google Apps. Why not give me the option to
turn those ads off?

~~~
ejain
I don't think you can place ads in any movie--only movies that have the
"monetization" feature enabled.

It's the same issue as with Google AdSense, though there you have options to
exclude certain ads.

~~~
bad_user
I have a hard time believing that the radio select in YouTube's settings
works, because I'm talking about dozens of videos, posted by different
publishes, all of them with ads from the company I'm talking about. Maybe the
publishers in question weren't aware of that setting.

Let me tell you more - I was visiting the US when the protests started and I
posted YouTube links on my Facebook account, completely unaware that the
videos in question were served with those ads, because those ads targeted only
Romanians. The act of publishing a link is also an act of publishing. When I
publish a link, I should be completely aware of what I'm publishing, OK?

Also, we go back full circle to monetization needs. I'm not seeing controls in
YouTube for banning certain ads from happening. That radio select is a global
switch. You either want ads or you don't. Also the question is stupid. Because
it's an opt-out and if you are unaware of the setting, you're implicitly
opted-in AND most importantly, that doesn't mean you'll receive any money from
your views and likes [1]. Like, seriously?

[1]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en)

~~~
corobo
It's an account-wide setting to allow the monetize option. From there it's up
to the account owner to enable/disable per video they upload [1]. There are
other things in place such as the ContentID matching which will disable ads
until you prove you're allowed to use the content if it matches anything but
generally speaking it's up to whoever owns the channel you're viewing videos
on. They would almost definitely know they have ads enabled - there's even a
green dollar sign next to the video in the manager if ads are enabled

Advertising-wise you can target pretty much anything/anyone Google knows
really - You could very easily (It's one of the easiest options to configure
even) target people in a specific country. There's more advanced stuff such as
re-targeting people who have already seen the ad/content specifically too. I
wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to target a specific channel or at
least whatever common content is in each of the videos (the most notable mine
name involved, for example).

[1]
[http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png](http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png)

------
Urgo
In short yes there are more ads, but it's actually not anything that new. Let
me explain..

Around summer 2007 (when I started using YouTube myself) YouTube started its
beta version of the "partner program" where they salaried somewhere a bunch of
people for a year and monetized their videos. In about Dec 2007 they let
anyone apply for the program doing the rev share on videos we see today. I
myself became a partner around March 2008. Anyway until about May 2011 the
program ran like this, you applied, waited months normally for a reply, and
hopefully got accepted, or if rejected tried again and waited..... In May 2011
they started trailing out a program where accounts in good standing could
monetize videos w/o ever applying for partner, launching the start of the
"monetization" program. In about March 2012 they basically killed off the
apply for partner program and replaced it with this where basically everyone
on YouTube was a partner. It's been since then that any video COULD be
monetized, its just as time has gone on more and more people actually
monetized them.

My dates may be slightly off as its thanksgiving evening and I'm doing this
off the top of my head but thats basically how things have gone. It's really
nothing new...

FYI I run a website that reports YouTube & Twitch statistics called Social
Blade so youtube data is something I've been watching for quite a while now.
Hope that helps :)

------
HaEB4zcjbp
[https://adblockplus.org/](https://adblockplus.org/)

[https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl)

~~~
herbig
After having used adblock plus for like the last 2 years, I disabled it the
other day and have been amazed at how terrible the Internet is without it.

~~~
yeukhon
You should read this: [https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the-
numbers](https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the-numbers)

after hearing a talk Robert Hansen gave at AppSec USA, I then realize why
adblock plus has been doing a poor job :( it can't stop most of the pop ups
and ads anymore.

~~~
nullymcnull
I think you misunderstand. AdBlock doesn't force this whitelisting, it merely
defaults to using it.

~~~
yeukhon
Did you just say they default to use the whitelist ad program?

~~~
nullymcnull
Yes, I believe if you just blindly click through the initial install for the
extension, the limited whitelisting (for 'unobtrusive ads') will be in effect.
That's the whole idea, isn't it - to whitelist for the majority of users who
don't read the fine print or tweak things, while still allowing anyone who
cares to shut it off.

------
kitsune_
The problem I have is the really shitty targeting. With as much as Google must
know about me, their ads usually are about stuff I have absolutely no interest
in.

I am from smaller country, so I get that the pool of advertisers must be
smaller too.

I bought a new bike this year and religiously researched this topic and
consumed a ton of cycling videos. What ads do I see? Cars. I don't have a
driver's license.

Facebook isn't any better. Last year I was in South Korea and logged into
Facebook once. After my return, FB managed to exclusively display ads in
Korean for over a month.

Then there are the occasions where you research a topic, buy a product, and
then get to see ads for the product you already bought for a year after (I saw
ads for the NI Maschine midi controller for over a year after my purchase).

~~~
Amadou
_The problem I have is the really shitty targeting._

I strongly believe, to the point of it being an article of faith, that
effective _relevant_ ad targeting will never happen, that it is an AI problem
that can't be solved without enormous improvements in AI technology.

I _suspect_ that what will happen is that industry will give up on trying to
do relevance and focus on manipulation -- the big brother version of nubile
women in commercials for beer. They'll stop trying to show you stuff that you
want to buy, but they will have ~10 different ads for some product X and they
will pick the specific ad most likely to convince you to buy product X based
on the profile they have of you.

------
jjwiseman
I worked on the YouTube ads team (Adsense for interactive media, or AFIM) for
a while.

The people on that team saw themselves as helping to create the replacement
for TV, and part of that job was to create a model that paid the expense of
hosting and distributing video, with all the associated infrastructure, as
well as allowed for content-creators to make money--basically to make it a
viable business. Ads are the primary means of making that happen, but they've
experimented with other methods too.

They care a lot about the user. To contradict another poster, they don't show
ads at every opportunity; that's not the Google way, and they have detailed
data on exactly how many ads you can show people before they stop watching
videos. They also strongly encourage advertisers to use skippable ads--they
make users happier and they encourage more interesting ads (it's also not
entirely true that advertisers don't have to pay for skipped ads).

The only thing worse than YouTube ads are the non-Google attempts at video
ads. Google's UI and targeting are 10x better than the competition I've seen.

(It's been over a year since I've worked on AFIM, so my info could be out of
date.)

~~~
davedx
Interesting info.

> they have detailed data on exactly how many ads you can show people before
> they stop watching videos

Anecdote: YouTube caused me to install AdBlock. I'm not anti-advertising, but
the amount of ads shown on YouTube videos reached a tipping point for me
sometime earlier this year. I'm not ad-intolerant, but it seemed to be showing
me more ads per minute than on regular TV shows. Of course that's just
perception.

~~~
option_greek
Also, ads in middle of a video are much better than ads at the start of a
video. Some times it becomes ridiculous when the ad length is 1/4th of video
length (though most become skippable after 5-10 secs).

------
Amadou
The net is soooo ripe for a distributed replacement of Youtube, Facebook,
Gmail, etc. Once upon a time those sorts of sites provided real value in
hosting files, pictures, video and providing a well-known endpoint like gmail.

But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, p2p
protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables for
finding files. Someone is going to come along with a distributed system that
gains enough traction and just wipe all of these guys off the map.

To paraphrase the founder of RedHat, whatever comes next won't be the size of
Youtube, it will make youtube the size of a bittorrent tracker.

~~~
ceejayoz
> But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files,
> p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables
> for finding files.

And 2 GB data caps. I don't want my phone's hard drive, processing power, and
my cell phone bill all being used up for P2P videos.

~~~
Amadou
So, let your phone hold the _canonical_ copy and let the swarm handle the
_efficient transfer of files_ \-- not everybody will be on cellular data
plans, hell _you_ won't be on a cellular data plan when you are within range
of a wifi AP like at home or the office.

------
tjmc
Frustrating yes. Disgusting no. YouTube is provided to you as a free service
and advertisers pickup the tab.

Google paid over $1B for YouTube and people upload over 10 new hours of video
every minute. Did you honestly expect they'd wear that kind of expense for
ever?

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Is YouTube even profitable yet? A few years later, despite being one of the
most visited websites on the internet, it still was at a loss I think.

------
Detrus
It's totally obnoxious now and destroys usability. I was on a slow internet
for a while and youtube mercilessly shoved ads on it. It was impossible to
use. I found Youtube center and it smoothed the experience, allows me to
disable ads and download video easily.

I also got it on the faster connection. It really makes life better. I'm
willing to pay a few bucks to never see ads. Until that's an option youtube
and deserving content creators will lose a few bucks.

Oh well. Just won't tolerate the current volume of ads.

~~~
eru
> Until that's an option youtube and deserving content creators will lose a
> few bucks.

Not necessarily. Allowing the people most willing to spend money to opt out of
ads, removes exactly the people someone would want to advertise to.

~~~
Detrus
Not sure what profit is from the average youtuber, but if it's $5 or lower
that could work. Enough people might pay the fee instead of blocking ads and
eating bandwidth.

------
yRetsyM
I've found that YouTube ramps up ad volume as you increase your viewing. I can
do a short session of a video or two (5minutes) without any. But if I increase
that to long form content or longer session then ads seem to get center stage.

------
OafTobark
Users enable ads on their account I believe. If people are choosing to
monetize their videos, thats going to happen more and more.

------
razvanr
The problem is that most people go to YouTube for quick content. It becomes
useless when you have to stop 3 out of 4 times for 5-30 seconds, as OP pointed
out. It completely changes the YouTube experience and just doesn't feel
"right" or scalable as a business model.

Or, if Google sticks to it then the sort of content that gets consumed might
change. I already find myself skipping to see videos under 2 minutes if
there's an ad before.

I never felt pushed around by ads on Netflix, South Park or any other premium
content though.

------
hcarvalhoalves
I can confirm that.

It also used to skip pre-rolls when you reloaded the page, now it will keep
displaying the pre-roll until you watch it.

~~~
simcop2387
I've had it show the pre-roll ad every time I watch a video before, i suspect
it's a malfunction but can never be sure.

------
drawkbox
Compared to hulu and others they haven't yet but it is more pervasive.

The 'skip' link is still in after you watch one longer ad in a series. At
least they have that because watching ads for online videos is not the same as
TV.

Back in the day on TV you'd get 10-15 minutes of entertainment before a
commercial. Here you are watching :30 spots for another minute long video or
maybe a few minutes on most occasions. So ad sites really need to take that
into consideration.

Noone wants to watch more ad time than actual video time, keep at least a sane
balance. A balance that will keep people watching not turn them away forever.

------
sjtgraham
I have definitely noticed this too. It also brought to my attention how much I
use YouTube as I noticed how often I felt pissed because of yet another pre-
roll.

------
belorn
If you freely give Google access to display ads on your computer, they will do
so at every opportunity until you can not take it any more.

The obvious method to prevent this is to deny Google free access to your
hardware, and thus stop their efforts at displaying ads to you. Alternative,
one could stop interacting with Google altogether, but thats a bit more
drastic step.

------
DigitalSea
I don't see any problem with it. Google are providing a free service to
everyone (brands, content curators and those who consume it), why shouldn't
they monetise that asset? A site like Youtube consumes so much bandwidth and
space on a scale most people cannot imagine.

I am surprised the whole ad strategy wasn't rolled out a lot sooner.

------
chopete
In Chrome, I use Magic Actions for YouTube.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magic-actions-
for-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magic-actions-for-
youtube/abjcfabbhafbcdfjoecdgepllmpfceif).

Not only it blocks ads, it removes annoying annotations as well.

------
fierycatnet
Glad I am not the only one. In the last week or so I've noticed increase in
ads as well. It's really annoying now, I frequently just skip watching video
all together, I have a short attention span for this nonsense. 30 second ad so
I can watch 1 minute video, no thank you.

------
robryan
Does youtube do anything smart around showing the same ads multiple times?

I watch a fair bit on twitch who don't have a lot of ads targeted at
Australia. I think they do the advertiser and the viewer a disservice by
repeating the same ad over and over again.

Say for example they are running an xbox one ad, after I have seen it for the
10th time in say a week I think it has really reached the maximum
effectiveness that it is ever going to on me, showing it more is likely just
blowing Microsoft's money.

We have a platform where everything can be precisely measured but the
advertising is being shown like the traditional TV medium where there was no
way to track how many times something was view by each viewer.

~~~
Guest2931
It would be up to the advertiser and if they want to cap impressions per user
or not. Some advertisers simply don't care, and they'll pay to show their ad
to the same person hundreds of times. Others will cap it at 3 impressions per
user. YouTube/Google doesn't care, they'll show the ads for whoever is willing
to pay the most.

------
Resident_Geek
It's important to remember that the ads you're shown on Youtube videos are
controlled by the channel owner, not by Google. Youtube itself doesn't have
much control over how many ads you see.

------
nutanc
Skipping ads is so ingrained in us, YouTube has now taught my 6 year old
daughter to skip ads. She was not doing that 2-3 months back. But now she does
it and she does not even need help doing it.

------
zmitri
I noticed this recently as well. I had not seen any ads for a long time as I
use AdBlock and AdBlockPlus for Chrome but they have started slipping through
in the past few weeks.

------
shellehs
It is not me. Here it is like 1 in every 10 or more videos, chances are when I
continue to watch videos there could be no ads. Actually, some ads I really
like that I want to replay.

It is not like in Chinese Youtube-alike online video sites, like Youku, Letv,
they have 30 - 60 seconds ads in every beginning of a video, and there was no
chance to "skip" the ads, even I use Adblock, it MAY be block the contents but
never the ad itself.

------
tux1968
It would be interesting to try some new ideas that advertising over the
internet allows. How about an option for users to consume a few minutes of
commercials in a row, and then get X number of videos ad free? Or allowing
users to influence the ad selection by manually entering an
interest/disinterest list.

Could be alot more flexible than the television model.

------
mongrelion
I feel your pain, bro. Lately I've been using
[http://fixyt.com](http://fixyt.com) which is a website that works on top of
YouTube but without the annoying ads and without the stalking that Google does
on you.

------
rcthompson
Incidentally, I find that having a "skip" button available to me actually
makes me more interested in the commercial, because I have to make an active
decision about whether to watch it or not.

------
aroman
Just today I started noticing this, yes. It's driving me insane.

------
ereckers
I noticed the same thing the other day. The ads I don't care about so much. I
immediately notice a performance hit. The experience itself was degraded.

------
sudomal
Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels
and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.

~~~
hemdawgz
Eh, the ads are easy enough to circumvent on a PC. I think what OP is
complaining about is just the fact that they're being pushed a lot harder
recently.

------
arcticf0x
Yep, noticed this annoying feature too, I guess its been there for a while but
till now Adblock used to block it. Google has found a way to bypass it.

------
DatrixTSW
i have had a lot of problems with Ads. Ads used to be ok and not as bad as
they are now. They are as bad as those pop ads that used to show up on
websites. But no matter what argument is raised as to how good or bad ads are
I will always use an Adblocker. And Yes Google+ has gone Fanatical with the
Ads ever since they bought out YouTube and I am fed up with it.

------
axansh
If youtube will come with paid plan like 99$ for year without ads in
videos,user surely go for that.

------
nicholas73
The worst is that they place stickies all over some videos that you now that
to click to close.

------
gojomo
Christmas marketing season?

------
bekman2
Youtube doesn't show in-video ads from where i live. (Africa)

------
judk
Do paid videos (like GoT and BrBa) have these ads?

~~~
Kiro
Since when can you see GoT on YouTube?

~~~
judk
[http://www.youtube.com/show/game-of-
thrones](http://www.youtube.com/show/game-of-thrones)

Don't know since when, or if it is just an ad for a redirect to HBO Go that is
cleverly mocked up as a video before you try to pay for it.

------
sreejithr
AD BLOCK PLUS. You're welcome.

------
nbrogi
Can't you just use AdBlock..?

I haven't seen a YouTube ad in years.

------
byjove
Since when did HN become a YouTube support area?!

I personally haven't seen any uptake in ads nor will your anecdotal
observations attract any sort of factual comments.

Also I don't think that a supposed 75% of videos showing ads is excessive (to
get a perspective on "exessive" I suggest you take a look at Hulu).

Bandwidth isn't cheap and video creators deserve a paycheck, whinning about
this sort of stuff strikes me as petty and a mark of false entitlement, also
the FUD about G+ is unwarranted.

If you're truly wondering about related updates check their blogs, it's where
the announcements usually are.

