Comment by spacedcowboy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spacedcowboy | Hacker News Reader

Not for me it’s not.

YouTube is useful for things like “how to build a giant 3D printer” or “compare this CNC machine with that one”. It’s ok for a general place to link a video to (though I generally just put them on my own server”. It absolutely sucks at entertainment.

And the reason it sucks so badly at entertainment is just greed - I tried the free trial of YouTube Premium this last month, because the one thing I loathe about YouTube over everything else is the number of adverts, and ‘premium’ promises an ad-free experience.

But no, this sucks too, it just sucks slightly less. You still get loads of ads in ‘premium’ except they’re called ‘sponsored content’. That’s just sophistry and frankly makes me dislike the platform even more. I hate being lied to as well as forced to watch ads (sometimes the whole thing, sometimes there’s a ‘skip’ button after 30 secs or so.)

I can put up with this shit when it’s some instructional video, when I can mentally ignore whatever crap someone is trying to sell me for 30 secs or so. I cannot and will not put up with it when I want to be entertained. Ads ruin the entire entertainment experience.

If traditional TV is having its lunch eaten by YouTube, then I guess I start watching less TV, or subscribe to Apple TV+ / movie-streaming services (without ads). There’s a lot to do in this life, TV is not a requirement…

The sponsored content thing is not really a YouTube problem, unless you're of the opinion they should offer circumvention for it and/or ban it altogether. It's on the individual creator. You can install Sponsorblock to get rid of them (in the browser). Works like a charm, is reliable, YT isn't interested in fighting it, trivial to set up.

The way I see it, it's 100% crystal clear that YouTube should be asking creators to register the timestamp ranges of their sponsored blocks when uploading a new video, in order to make their Premium subscribers to automatically skip them, as part of the premium they are paying.

I’m a YouTube premium subscriber. It is absolutely a YouTube problem because content creators are blatantly bypassing the entire “ad-free” experience with impunity. And nobody can convince me with any clever wordsmithing that “sponsored content” is not an advertisement. It would be the same as saying those happy-ending massage parlors are not prostitution or that OF is not porn. And by the way, YouTube’s own TOS and other related literature make no distinction between these two types of ads; in fact the language is pretty broad because it says “ad-free experience” and makes no distinction between non-skippable ads and so-called sponsored content.

Content creators reap the benefits by essentially double-dipping while YouTube looks the other way, because, I would assume, it has no legal or financial impact on them. I put up with some of it because I really enjoy certain channels, but in other cases I have simply unsubscribed and have stopped engaging.

I have nothing against ads or making money in principle, but I detest being deceived and gaslighted, especially when I am paying for something.

Yes, I am of that opinion.

An ad is an ad is an ad. If I pay for "no adverts" (as, unfortunately, advertised), it ought to be "no adverts". Calling an advert "sponsorship" is not a solution, it's lying.

I will not be continuing my "free trial" of premium YouTube at the end of it, it's not worth the money to pay for something it singularly fails to do.

Maybe my perspective on this is different because of my experiences, but I won't deny it, content creator ads are annoying, and if I didn't have Sponsorblock, I'd be banging on the desk for it to become a proper Premium feature too.

In my location, the ads served up by YouTube were a whole lot worse than what you'd see in videos. Think unapologetically ragebait local political propaganda. Passing through adblocking, even multiple layers of it. And since YouTube is actually interested in serving you those ads, they'll engage in an increasing amount of technological efforts as time goes on to ensure you see them. That's when I decided I'll rather pay up, than to see any of those ads even just one more time. Compared to that, being yapped to about some water bottle merch some creator is selling is almost like heaven.

But yeah, if I didn't need to go the extra mile, would be happy about it too.

> Apple TV+ / movie-streaming services (without ads)

Apple TV+ doesn’t have an ad-free tier. They have a tier they call ad-free where they still force you into pre-roll ads for apple products. Unfortunately that’s the same for most streaming services that claim to be ad free.

Is apple tv+ pre rolls a new thing? I had it during covid, zero ads

I was interested to see which idiots would choose to advertise during the new Black Mirror episode "Common People" but it seems Netflix got no takers (at least in my territory) and so it didn't happen.

[In Common People an apparently life-changing medical intervention is gradually monetised, jacking up fees, adding new "premium" tiers that degrade until they're no better than the old baseline and eventually by inserting advertisements directly into the patient's actions any time they aren't paying everything they have ...]

Nice, I didn't expect advertisers are that selective

I just started using apple tv+ again this month - the only pre-rolls I've noticed are previews for other shows/movies and the previews were skippable.

yeah, the pre-rolls for the other shows are exactly what I'm talking about. Those are ads. And they are only skippable if you scrub forward past them. You are forced to deal with them.

Yep. I don't count those as ads. Often they are shows I'd watch and if you can just ffd them it doesn't matter

I don't really remember when they started, but they now include 1-2 prerolls for other Apple TV+ content. You can scrub past them, but you can't disable them.

You're right, Apple TV+ does do that, but there are two crucial differences

- I can always fast-forward through anything on Apple TV, and in fact for the ads you mention, there's a button in the lower-right corner specifically to do that. It's the same as the "skip intro" button, which I also habitually press.

- These ads never come up slap bang in the middle of the content, they're only ever at the start and that's it.

Together, these make it far far less intrusive.

Don't forget the majority of 'how to...' or 'compare this...' are just infomercials at this point. I make music, and music how to Youtube is almost completely infomercials pushing something.

> one thing I loathe about YouTube over everything else is the number of adverts

Use uBlock Origin and they are gone.

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