Comment by dylan-m | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dylan-m | Hacker News Reader

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YouTube's ads are a colossal mistake waiting to happen. Back in the day, Google was successful because they realized advertising on the web was a problem: ads were trying too hard to grab attention, resorting to hostile tactics that basically forced people to run ad blockers. Google said "okay, what if ads were simple blocks of text that - while not as loud and screamy - got more impressions because they aren't terrible?". And over time everyone agreed with them and they made billions of dollars.

Somehow, (probably because there is no competition - yet), Google has not applied this reasoning to YouTube ads. YouTube ads are often louder than regular videos (which they could fix on their end if they cared), they are sometimes insanely long (I recently got an "ad" which was a 40 minute "free music" thing), and depending on the video they can pop pop up at terrible moments. They still haven't figured out that YouTube is loaded with exercise videos - a content category which has exploded since 2020 and where YouTube enjoys a tremendous lead on the competition. Rudely interrupting one of those is bad and brews resentment. Instead of doing that, they could plaster the entire video with unobtrusive ads and people would both look at the ads and be happy with the service.

A few years ago I was eating in an indian restaurant and I noticed a muted TV on the wall playing MKBHD's review of some drone. I was very confused why would they decide to show that. As I was eating the video ended and I realised the full review was an ad that played inside a 10 hour atmospheric video the restaurant intended to play.

I found it pretty smart, because I can imagine myself succumbing to watching a full video that was inserted as an ad if it's interesting enough.

No. You are just a MKBHD fan. There's nothing more to it. Someone else who doesn't know who Marques is will see a talking head interrupting the relaxation video. For the restaurant owner, it means they cannot rely on YouTube to play requested video content as commanded. This proves the point even further, technology instead of being smarter in the case of YouTube here, has grown to become an annoying anti-consumer product that constantly moves in the opposite direction of the user.

You haven't understood me. I found it ridiculous playing in a restaurant. It was muted anyway.

However, if I was at home, opened YouTube just to entertain myself and opened one of the algorithm suggested videos, then – in that situation – an interesting video from a channel that is unknown to me, inserted as an ad could hook me and could lead to me subscribing to said channel.

I think I got what you narrated. The element of surprise is your response to recognizing MKBHD's content playing at an unexpected unusual venue.

Instead of that suggestive ad being inserted into the video. Why not use auto-play or recommended videos section? Suggested videos in the menu work great, better even, in your case scenario for content discovery.

I don't watch YouTube with ads and I don't subscribe to YouTube Premium but I pretty much doubt in-video content suggestions disguised as ads will do a better job of predicting what I'll watch next over menu video recommendations.

No, we still don't understand each other. Sorry.

I'm not happy about seeing MKBHD's video in that restaurant, I don't care at all. I also don't care about seeing that ad (or any ad for that matter).

The original comment I was replying to mentioned watching a 40 minute music video placed as a YouTube ad. I chimed in with my experience of seeing a long tech review video placed as an ad.

>I found it pretty smart, because I can imagine myself succumbing to watching a full video that was inserted as an ad if it's interesting enough.

I'm not praising the ad as a user. I'm explaining why it might be smart from the POV of the advertiser (in this case MKBHD), because it serves their goals.

Strange that MKBHD (an ad funded media of sorta itself) would pay to get people to watch the content. What's the reasoning here? Additional reach for a sponsored video?

My guess is that a viewer who doesn't know him might get to know him, perhaps even check other videos or subscribe.

I guess the only reason youtube ads exist is to get people to pay youtube to get rid of ads.

My parents have a smart TV and the youtube app w/o the paid youtube premium makes it a really bad experience. On iOS devices, I have yet to find a free ad blocker that properly blocks youtube ads after they put in new measures to defeat content blocker based ad blockers.

It also provided some incentive for creators to edit and post video.

I had a problem that I figured out the solution to and put up a video of it that made me a few dollars a month. Then YouTube moved the goalposts and demonetized it because I don’t (and frankly, won’t) have 1000 subscribers.

So that’s the end of my video posting on YouTube. I’ve discovered some “hack” repairs to other devices (common washing machine and MacBook speaker issues), but you won’t see my solutions on YouTube, just 99 videos saying to replace it or fumbling with software settings that aren’t the problem.

Please share your knowledge, if you don’t expect to have 1000 subscribers surely you wouldn’t expect revenue anyway. Maybe a better approach would be to encourage ‘buy me a coffee’ donations. Either way, you’re punishing society for google being an asshole.

I don’t expect (and didn’t get) subscribers because I just solve the problem. I’m not entertaining enough for you to continue watching the next video on a thing you probably don’t own.

Most likely outcome will be me posting videos on some alternative video platform. Looking at rumble.com

(I wish Amazon got into hosting videos like this, being at the place to buy seems the best place if you fail to fix).

IMO youtube is the primary platform where those looking for videos will search first up. Thing is that if you have a large number of videos, you never know when one of them will get you a large number of views and subscribers. Or maybe in future google will have different goalposts for monetization. Overall, it is always good to have videos on youtube even if you are not monetizing them.

Good for who? good for Google. But how is giving free content to Google good for the poster?

If in future google changes monetization goalposts, then the poster can potentially make some cash from the older posted videos. And it is entirely possible that one video gets popular and brings in a ton of views and subscribers to the channel.

well, I remember watching an ad for youtube premium (or whatever is called the subscription to remove ads) which was presenting the 'no more ad breaks in the middle of videos' as a selling point. So at least some people at YT are aware of that issue

Google had to use 'better' ads to drive out competition early on, but now that they're the biggest bully on the block, they'll serve whatever obnoxious and high revenue ads they want to.

That’s what’s happening.

Without any html/css/<script> intervention on my website, Adsense has been able to enable additional ads that stick to the bottom of the screen and another that pops up before going to another page. It’s all opt-in, but through the Adsense portal.

It’s all automagic now, over and above the blocks I had inserted.

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