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Comment by jklinger410 | Hacker News Reader

> The problem is not that Google wants to put Ads on YouTube. The problem is that they are putting too many ads there, a disproportional amount of them.

Ah, ok. Just let YouTube know how many ads they are allowed to run and we can clear up this whole issue.

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Personally I would probably accept a 3 second ad-snippet before the actual content, preferably skippable ;)

But that's not even the issue. For instance the entire Steam platform is built around advertising computer games to me that I might be interested in, and I have zero issue with that. I discovered lots of interesting games by following Steam's recommendations which I then bought and enjoyed.

I also accept "sponsor ads" that are directly integrated into YouTube content creator videos, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

What's entirely pointless is YouTube showing me some fancy lifestyle ad that's entirely unrelated to my "lifestyle" and also unrelated to the video that I actually wanted to watch instead.

>What's entirely pointless is YouTube showing me some fancy lifestyle ad that's entirely unrelated to my "lifestyle" and also unrelated to the video that I actually wanted to watch instead.

Youtube rarely knows what ads to show me. I don't make enough money to visit Saudi Arabia or buy a luxury EV, and I don't have Crohn's Disease, but those are the ads I get shown. If the ads were relevant it might be a different story, and that's supposed to be the entire point of targeted/personalized ads, but it routinely fails to deliver.

Obviously since you pay for the Steam games on Steam, advertising them at you in the platform is a win-win.

But you don't just buy more videos on YouTube. The videos are mostly free. So they have to advertise other stuff at you.

Yeah that much is clear. I still find it fascinating though that in one case I accept a platform where basically everything I interact with is an ad (like Steam), while otherwise I reject ads that are tacked on from the side (like YouTube).

In case of YouTube it should be guiding me towards interesting content creator videos about things I might buy (like video games I'm interested in). YouTube just needs to find a way to get a chunk of my purchase money from Valve if I end up buying a game on Steam after watching a Let's Play video for that game on YouTube.

But that's something for YouTube to figure out, not me ;)

Ads at the beginning and at the end of videos. Sometimes. Ads in the middle of a music video is only something a bad human would think of as acceptable.

From people who run websites and do analytics on this stuff, the number of acceptable ads people with the knowledge to use an ad-blocker will endure is:

zero.

People say dumb stuff like "I whitelist my favorite sites and would be happy to watch a few short ads"

But the fact of that matter is that virtually no-one in the ad blocking crowd actually does this.

I would watch ads if the friction they caused were lower than the friction of maintaining an ad blocker and random sites that break every so often.

I suspect that is the same for the vast majority of people. Just like with music back in the day: people accept a minor nuisance (either ads or a small monetary cost) if they feel they get a good deal (a smooth experience and reliable content).

That's why Google is removimg ad blockers on Chrome, the second friction is then infinite.

I was only watching it because it was possible to block ads. Now they take it away, the value to me is less than my attention is worth.

The product is worth 0 ads.

> The product is worth 0 ads.

I really doubt the acceptable number of ads on a really well-crafted video player and search engine sitting on top of a nearly infinite amount of content is zero.

Well it is only as valuable as its users feel it is.

That's ostensibly what Youtube is, a big pile of users AKA consumers that Google promises to smartly match with relevant ads to improve the chances those consumers spend money with a company they saw an ad for. It fails to live up to this goal constantly, and seems to just barely check if an ad is relevant anymore.

Google essentially holds creators hostage in this arrangement. Creators provide content the consumers want, but they only get paid well if the consumers don't skip the ads. So creators have to pander to what Youtube as a platform "seems to want" (thumbnails with :O face are so hot right now) in hopes that the algorithm will deliver videos to consumers who want them AND they are shown ads they don't immediately hate and skip. If any of those things fails to happen, they don't get paid as much as they should and it's not even their fault.

So don't watch.

That's the end game.

> Ah, ok. Just let YouTube know how many ads they are allowed to run and we can clear up this whole issue.

I did. I installed a blocker once they added unskippable adds and I was fed up with 2 ads in a row before a 10 minutes video. They did not seem to get the message as every time I try to disable the blocker it seems to be getting worse.

Well in the UK there are limits to how many ads you can put on broadcast TV.

So if we can let broadcast TV know, why not YouTube?

Obviously the UK can legislate whatever they want.

Please make your point more explicitly.

You seemed to be mocking the entire idea of "too many ads". I think this kind of law is a pretty strong argument that it's a reasonable idea and not mock-worthy. But you don't seem to think that argument matters, so please, explain yourself more.

So you sarcastically suggest that we can't decide on a reasonable amount of ads.

I supply a counter example, where a nation has collectively decided on a reasonable amount of ads.

And now you're handwaving that away?

Your two comments don't seem to be consistent with one another.

Thanks, I just did :)

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