Comment by sam0x17 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sam0x17 | Hacker News Reader

I've never understood how we got to this place where _some_ content on youtube is advertiser friendly and _some_ is not, and that is viewed as actionable information. I guess my whole mental model is you run ads on the whole network, and advertisers have nothing to do with the content being shown, and only an idiot would look at an ad and think, oh this brand is knowingly sponsoring this content. Advertisers used to be content with that, and wouldn't dream of being choosey about what content their ads run alongside of. However we got to this place, it's done a lot of damage -- would much rather live in the world where there is no concept of demonetizing a particular video or channel, and ads just run on the entire network. Caving to advertiser demands is the #1 best way to make a platform worse for the actual users and content creaters and slowly drain your value. Note that for example google AdSense could run alongside _any_ content that appears on youtube probably without issue. They've just created this different, pickier world when it comes to video ads.

What's worse is youtube entirely controls the market, and they opened the floodgates of caving to advertiser demands. Now advertisers expect it wherever they go. They should be 4th class citizens if anything, not a meaningful constituency. As long as youtube keeps driving users to the platform, that should be the only concern.

> only an idiot would look at an ad and think, oh this brand is knowingly sponsoring this content.

I don’t disagree but I also think

* many companies want to sell to idiots

* vocal fringe ideologists can blow these financial relationships up into a PR incident

* some responsible companies actually do care about where their money goes

* YouTube also doesn’t want negative PR “YouTube financially supports [bad thing]” but at the same time understands that demonetized content is important attracting factor to the platform overall

I don’t think YouTube is to blame here. The issue is that ad supported platforms inherently have advertisers as customers, and viewers are only a means to an end. The entire business model is flawed in the lens of the viewer or content producer, and there’s no way to fix it.

> I don’t think YouTube is to blame here.

They are. They opened the floodgates of coddling advertisers. Before they did, no one listened to them at all.

Is that true? Even back in the TV days I remember people going after advertisers who advertised on certain channels or programs (to protest if the advertisers were supporting "bad" content)

I mean specifically in the world of online advertising. For a long time it was essentially CPM with no targeting, and that was considered fine.

Companies have always had a say about where their ads are placed. This is a core responsibility of any company’s marketing department.

Advertisers don’t just get customers out of thin air, they have to convince their customers to become customers.

This is incorrect, advertisers and especially the American Christian lobby is responsible for most of the censorship leverage.

Back in the day, it was conservatives doing all the censorship because Johnny couldn’t hear a profanity on tv without becoming an idiot. (At home was always fine, that is of course freedom of speech).

I mean -- you do get that the "idiots" are the target market, right? That's who you want to target as an advertiser, the people who aren't thinking critically like this.

These sort of associations are literally one of the main ways Google sells ads.

We should give the idiots more credit though. Specifically everyone pretty much ignores ads anyway. The main way Google sells ads is convincing advertisers that ad clicks are anything other than miss-clicks and that organic traffic that you would get anyway is actually the result of your marketing campaign.

We subconciously make associations, and this works on everyone.

In magazines, advertisers might want to know what article is facing their ad. Or which show their commercial would be on.

And advertisers are very cautious of being associated with things they do not like.

And there has always been content that most advertisers have not wanted to go near. Porn, being the easiest example.

This is not pop psychology it's real stuff.

Advertisers were making such 'demands' since the dawn of advertising nothing is new here.

The thing I never understood is why is "demonetization" black and white. Why not by default have a filter on ads that prevent them being shown on any "unsavory" content but allow the advertisers to opt-in to this. I'm sure that many brands would be fine with their ads being shown next to sexual content they can just uncheck the box "Don't show my ads next to sexual content". Other brands may be fine with violence and others with both.

Obviously getting your video flagged as sexual, violent or whatever other default-disabled category would still greatly impact your profits as you will have less ads bidding on your video but it is far better than the 0 revenue of today.

This already exists.

I think, in disagreement with other responses, almost everyone understands a random advert is not sponsoring the content it is near.

But if you hate 1. the advert, or 2. the content, then you can make a public argument that they are and there's not a good way to say you arn't. I mean there's kind of a justification for it. If you wern't bidding on that adspot, someone else would have gotten it for a bit lower.

The fact that you CAN say it and kinda defend it allows you to activate demographics of people that already hate your target. No one is interested in sober analysis when they have axes to grind.

> only an idiot would look at an ad and think, oh this brand is knowingly sponsoring this content.

Yes, but also, we live in a very incendiary society where some people are willing to take on whatever story and blow it out of proportion. Your face or trademark in a banner on the wrong website is enough for someone to link you to whatever cause that site is promoting and that could be the end of your business/career, literally.

The whole demonetization thing seems like a response to manufactured outrage that got a few large brands to feel threatened.

As a rule, people spend time watching content they like, and that's where advertisers should want to be, it doesn't matter if it lines up with their image or not, for the most part the only people that see your ad next to a video of something potentially disagreeable are people positively predisposed to that idea anyway.

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