I’m all for consumer awareness but I’m begging everyone to stop freaking out over prosaic non-issues like this.
Yes I see that as an ad. Do you not? Does anyone not? And if I'm on the highest paying ad free plan, what are they promoting to me?
* Ads in YouTube feeds for other google products and services.
* Ads underneath videos for products from the channel owner.
* Sponsorships within videos from the channel owner.
* Advertising overlays (supported IN THE APP BY GOOGLE) for products and services from the channel owner.
* Email advertisements for Google products and services.
* Community post advertisements from channel owners which show up in the YouTube feed.
I contacted support to enquire and they state these are not considered advertising.
Howver recently I’ve noticed adverts for “membership” for channels, and that is getting me close to picking my youtube habit. Same with Spotify and advertising concerts, but that seems to have gone away for me after I complained.
Sadly even the bbc does adverts on iPlayer. You used to be able to instantly skip them, but then in a big (internal) fanfare some idiot decided they could make them not skippable and increase some metrics and then get a promotion.
I remember about 10-15 years ago YouTube actually did try to ban sponsor spots in videos, but the backlash from creators was strong enough that they walked that back to "ok well we'll allow sponsor spots but you can't just insert the sponsor's own ad, it's gotta be your ad read and B-roll".
That said, I don’t think YouTube owes it to Premium subscribers to add a sponsor block. That’s part of the video’s content as it was provided to YouTube, and YouTube never advertised YouTube Premium as something which will block in-video sponsor reads. This is part of how YouTubers make a living & a Premium sub doesn’t replace the money they receive for those the way it does for YouTube’s own ads.
Sponsorblock has zero issue jumping to the precise moment after the sponsor vs jump ahead always leaves just enough time to still hear the name of the sponsor.
That's their choice, and it's deliberate – it gives enough of a window for advertisers to get their message across, while still selling Premium users the notion that they've 'avoided' the ad.
Once you’ve transitioned from an ad-watching customer to a paid one, YouTube actually turns into something that treats your product experience and satisfaction as important.
It’s fascinating how it switches that off for non-paying users. Not a lot of companies’ services do that so obviously and blatantly.
In other words, when YouTube is being watched for free, they have that typical engagement incentive: keep you watching as long as possible, watch as many ads as possible, etc.
When you’re paying? Who cares, skip the content if you want. Use Gemini to summarize it, we don’t care if you watch the video.
If they don't want people watching videos without logging in, they should gate them behind a login screen rather than fucking with their users.
They are very logically making that difficult for you. They are exercising their right to refuse service to you.
I actually agree this is a bit annoying, but also the alternative is Google banning Youtubers from finding their own advertising partners, which I'm sure people would hate.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to the practise, as long as that's clear up front. YouTube advertises Premium as an ad free experience, and in reality it's full of ads.
If they couldn't make money, 80% of the content worth watching would not be produced.
Premium works for me. Is it perfect, no. But there's that saying about perfect being the enemy of good.
YouTube could tell content creators not to include sponsorships. The terms are long and onerous. Of course content creators would be upset and they would make less money. Ultimately my issue is that YouTube advertises an ad free experience with Premium and it still has a LOT of ads.
YouTube isn't paying people properly, despite its vast revenues. At least with sponsorship the people themselves make some money.
Unpaid cooperation of human to generate knowledge or entertainment predates YouTube by tens of thousands years.
It is a basic right of people to be able to afford to live. It's easy to work for free when you have family money but you cannot support yourself when you don't.
Massive corporations such as Alphabet do have the resources to pay YouTubers, especially given how much tax they avoid in most countries.
That's completely fair. YouTube offers content creators many ways to do this. For example, they can put content behind a paywall. They can ask for donations. They can ask for memberships. Members get all kinds of fun perks. The part I have an issue with is YouTube advertising an ad free experience with Premium and then allowing content creators to fill their videos with ads.
> YouTube isn't paying people properly
I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly, and not allowing content creators to shit all over viewers. That's pitting the little guys against each other while Google laughs all the way to the bank.
The solution is proper competition to google. Because Youtube is pretty much the one true monopoly out there. But as we all know, video hosting alone is very,very, very expensive. It really is something you need to be a billion dollar company to do, and Youtube wasn't profitable until like... 2 years ago?
So I tolerate the user ad reads as the best compromise because nothing else would work. I don't think Youtube is a model where Google is being greedy so much as practical. At least not in how it monetizes creators (there's plenty of hostile means they do to creators as is, but the monetary structure seems fine).
There is also a very limited range of content on Odyssee, Bitchute and all the rest. If you want to find music tutorials for example, you're unlikely to.
You don't get hourly pay for it, it's vaguely commission based and you do all your own promotion. They can demonetise you at a whim and refuse to pay you (I've seen this happen to craft channels and other content that wasn't remotely controversial.)
I think it's clear. I don't want YouTube going in and editing movies and creator videos removing any form of advertising. Maybe you want them deleting that content. But the average person realizes what Premium means by no ads. Being obtuse or willfully ignorant isn't reasonable.
Let’s freaking do it.
And the real annoyance with YouTube Premium is that the UI is still full of engagement dark patterns.
I worked on backend subscription management and the implementation of benefits. The team that business guy worked on was the group eventually at the center of the predatory subscription issue (I can’t say whether they were still around when that happened or not).
Some people can’t seem to live without YouTube though.
Get a Fire Axe. Put it in the TV. Enjoy life.
SmartTubeNext automatically updates itself, but the Apple TV and iPhone apps don't. Surprisingly, it has not been an issue. They keep working fine without updates for the year. I just update once a year when I refresh the certs.
That would make a great title for a write-up of your experience.
And any ads underneath a video is at least not shown in the Roku YouTube player, nor are ad overlays as far as I know, since I've never seen one.
It could be that this is a phased approach so as not to anger their creators too much.
Worth noting is that there are thousands of high quality YouTube channels without any sponsored content. So those are effectively completely ad free with Premium.
Are you suggesting that the burden should be on channel owners to upload variations of their videos that don't include sponsor blocks? That's a bit onerous. My commercial agreement is with YouTube, not with the video creator.
If you don't like ads from creators, don't watch those channels?
YT Premium does provide the "skip ahead" functionality that almost always jumps over sponsor blocks.
I will say I've been a YT Premium subscriber for years and I've never seen any ads for other Google services in my feed, and I don't get advert emails either.
It is completely within Google's control. They have a hundred pages of terms of services, dictating everything the content creators may and may not do and say, down to individual words, symbols, and opinions. If Google wanted to, they could tell content creators to stop adding sponsorships. I understand you'd make less money.
> If you don't like ads from creators, don't watch those channels?
I stopped paying YouTube and I use SponsorBlock now. You're not entitled to my time or attention or money.
The problem is ultimately that Google advertises an ad free experience, which it's not. I'd be willing to pay for an ad free experience.
Ahhh but you're entitled to someone else's hard work in producing the content you watch, and god forbid they'd be entitled to compensation for that work.. Got it..
Rules for me, not for thee..
No, just mark the sponsored segments, so YouTube can skip over (like SponsorBlock does). And they already pay more per view from Premium users vs ad-supported ones, so it just makes sense to skip ads in the video as well.
That being said, I think paying creators directly is more sustainable in the long term.
To the end user they are indistinguishable from other video ads on the platform except the ad read is often (not always) done by the creator.
I don’t have hard data on the ratio but it’s not uncommon for a 10 minute video to have 1-2 minutes of full-interrupt ad segments embedded in the video.
It always gets more expensive for a lesser enshittified version, removed/fucked with features to keep a bloated product team employed
I’ve dismissed it every time. I don’t mind being shown that ad once. But it bothers me that they don’t care enough about my experience using their product to provide a “never show this again” option.
Or just use some metrics to know that if I dismiss it 50 times then maybe I’m not interested.
It's very easy to know for people inside the company who actually care about the product and for their clients. It is really hard for directors and VP that anything they understand are numbers.
If I say "hey this modal/pop up is making customers angry" they are going to ask how much they care (is there even an unit for that?) and how much revenue is lost. The only way for them to handle a project is creating a goal for next Q and assigning people, when in most cases what you need is actually the opposite.
The problem is not that no one knows how to fix it, the problem is that managers organize around big problems and become useless at improving the small things or details. They become blind. It happened to me 100 times. They do not want things to be fixed unless there's a clear revenue increase, which is stupid.
I have actually cancelled my subscription because of this.
Apple Originals are always commercial-free.
You can't even find wired (aux) headphones... So tempering expectations when you finally decide to "go back" to simple things is required.
I like to buy my media rather than pirate (I am a man of means after all) but I can't even buy modern media.. Silo, Ted Lasso, Severance and Slow Horses do not have purchasable releases at all. At least some Prime TV shows have blu-ray releases I suppose.
I’ll always pay more to see fewer ads. My kids see far, far, far fewer ads than I and my peers did growing up watching linear TV in the 90s and I’m going to keep it that way. If Disney+ gets in the way of that I’ll stop paying them and stop using their service, easy as that.
These media companies cannot help themselves. Advert money is very tantalizing and they'll always want to find ways to sneak it in whenever and wherever they can.
But now these are targeted ads based on browsing data for ad profiles linked to your IP and devices. IMO just a few of these are far worse than the general run of commercials we used to have on TV. Corporations obviously think so too otherwise we would still have that.
But there are a few crucial differences between then and now: The ad spots were there to keep the timetables accurate, which is no longer necessary. They also served as a way to let you know what else was on the channel, which again is no longer necessary because that app opens to a menu of all available programming. And, now this is the important part, back then I wasn't specifically paying for ad-free access.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, my Jellyfin server is about to get much more use.
The answer could be nothing and I still respect the choice to speak with your wallet.
I think the iCloud password manager also works pretty well, provided you're using Apple products.
And I didn't know what to say. Either I like the series and I'm going to buy the next season or I don't and I won't.
People turned a blind eye to Apple advertising it's own services in it's products for years. I saw people defend here, on HN. So, while yes, it's advertising, Disney is far from the first to do this.
I'm not saying it's right, only that people who claim to be opposed to ads are accepting of the type of ads we are discussing.
> if I'm on the highest paying ad free plan, what are they promoting to me?
I'm assuming they aren't showing you ads for the plan you are on.
I don’t see adverts embedded in content as adverts. Be sure I’m watching the World Cup on bbc and see an advert on the players shirt doesn’t mean I want my money back, I’d rather we had no adverts, but it’s not unreasonable.
You are implying something false. That he’s suggesting thats not an ad. Hes not suggesting that at all.
What he’s suggesting is that that’s very different from Disney gating or interspersing movies with ads. Which it is. You may disagree with that but you’re strawmanning him.
But ads in the middle of something I'm watching? Fuck right off with that.
Why would anyone give them the benefit of the doubt?
[0] https://lawcouncil.au/international-law/ils-insights/tangled...
In case folks aren't aware, Disney tried to avoid an allergy-related wrongful death lawsuit from a restaurant at Disney Springs (large publicly available outdoor mall that doesn't even require tickets) because a couple had a Disney+ streaming trial:
That's just how lawyers work. They'll try to invoke any defense that's vaguely applicable, just like any plaintiff lawyer will try to invoke any cause of action that's vaguely applicable, like the plaintiffs in this exact case.
The TOS argument was so awful it deserves some kind of bonus loss, but let's put that aside for now.
Let's say I paint a fence, and my neighbor complains I ruined a particular segment that shouldn't have been painted. Why can't I argue that this segment was on my property and that my neighbor gave permission to use that paint on all segments on their property?
Let's say there's a 15% chance the survey was wrong about the fence location, and a 15% chance the court disagrees with how I'm interpreting the agreement. If I can use both arguments I have a 2% chance of losing, which seems fair to me. Both arguments are reasonable, so why should I have to risk it on only one?
Stop infantilizing these people as if they have no other way to behave. It isn’t a law of nature that companies have to behave immorally. Hopefully you apply that understanding to your own job, too.
The new agreement allegedly introduces a third term “advertisements”.
> We’ve clarified that all Service Plans may include: (i) promotional content, (ii) sponsorships, and (iii) advertisements before/after playback of Content and in channels, live/as-live, special events, and any third-party services content.
I say allegedly because I haven’t received any communication from Disney yet but various reporting refers to email people in European markets have received.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/disney-putti...
Ads embedded on the playing field? Sure. Billboards visible or sponsor logos on uniforms? I get it. Actual commercials? This is a solved issue for decades, there are "alternatives" as others have pointed out. This is a "Boiling frog" situation.
For instance, if you have Paramount+, you can watch sports broadcast by your local CBS station through it. That station is going to be running commercials, Paramount+ has no input on it. The most they can do is run ads over their ads.
I'm assuming there's something similar with Disney+. You can watch your local ABC broadcast or ESPN broadcast of a game, but you're just getting that broadcast as being currently aired.
But even for broadcasts wholly owned and controlled by a streaming platform, like Thursday Night Football on Prime, there are just times when it would be dead air. I don't entirely mind commercials in that instance. Nothing else is going on.
I noted that the streaming service, like Paramount+, would be able to overlay their own ads over the broadcasted commercials, but they won't have control over the cameras. That's on the broadcast station, they're the ones controlling the remote production.
Paramount+ can only rebroadcast what my local CBS affiliate is broadcasting.
I think only Netflix and Prime have deals to actually produce sports broadcasts.
> But even for broadcasts wholly owned and controlled by a streaming platform, like Thursday Night Football on Prime, there are just times when it would be dead air. I don't entirely mind commercials in that instance. Nothing else is going on.
I.e. instead of dead air, they could show some live feed in the spot that other broadcasters use for commercials.
What's happening in that time is just random bullshit. They'll run bits on the jumbotron, hold raffles, go play games with people in the stands, etc. All sponsored by "<SO AND SO>, the official <THING> of your <LOCAL SPORTS TEAM>". Or, in other words, ads.
You could show the players and coaches on the sidelines, but that's also rather boring. It'll be a couple of guys shooting the shit on a bench, or a couple of guys hunched over a table, or some guys warming up.
The best thing they can do is like information from other games maybe.
> What's happening in that time is just random bullshit.
Are most sports events like this? It sucks then, but the playing games with people in the stands thing sounds better than just plain ads. Mix that with sidelines shots, some alternative commentary maybe (with some instant replays?), and sure, information from other games, and you get a nice, coherent broadcast with some ads from the stadium but none that are as out of place as the usual commercial breaks.
I genuinely don't know and am asking out of curiosity.
To be honest if I'm paying for no ads I'd be expect to have an option to blur that crap on inpaint it with AI.
Monitors and TVs should have this option.
I guarantee they will eventually use this to show more ads. The goldfish grows to fit its bowl.
I usually go for reputation and precedent rather then legalese. And in the case of Disney, they had ads in their video tapes and DVDs, so I don't need to read the user agreement to know that it has a good chance to come to Disney+, whatever the legal pathway is.
And it will be true because the only way to defeat these people is actually being an asshole.
That's extremely broad. They won't show you ads, unless "other limitations require" them to? Would "our internal agreement between our streaming division and our content division requires ads" qualify? What would qualify as "promotional content" and in what sense is it "limited"?
This reads to me as "we can show ads anywhere we feel like it even if you paid us not to have ads." The only actual limitation will be their desire not to piss off paying subscribers.
fwiw... I believe Peacock is also allowed to run ads during live events, but at least during my motorcycle races they do not. a couple seasons ago they would go to a peacock banner and not show anything during the commercial breaks, but at some point they switched to just showing the raw video.
The full text for that section:
All Service Plans may include: (i) promotional content, (ii) sponsorships, and (iii) advertisements before/after playback of Content and in channels, live/as-live, special events, and any third-party services content.
Perhaps you could share, from the email, what you read that everyone else is missing.
But ideally, just stick to some non-video recommendation UI during the credits, and let me discover things on your platform by myself otherwise, and don’t get in my way when I’m trying to enjoy the show.
someone has to protect Disney from these unjust opinions!
I don't like when I press play and an advertisement starts for some other freshly released content on the same platform.
Call it what you want, if it's serving me content I didn't ask for, I'm not happy about it, especially if I'm paying extra for them to not do that explicit thing.
Sheesh ... they're a big company. This should be easy.
1. Now you just have a blank screen. Sure some people might like that but others will think there's an issue with the stream.
2. They're purchasing the rights to show the sports stuff, not actually producing it themselves and removing the ads would make the cost of the rights astronomical.
Even when expensive linear TV packages were the norm, they still came with ads. With live TV paying has never negated the need for ads.
2. What? They own ESPN which is producing the content, right?
Baseball literally has an ad-free tier for its live streaming service. I’m sure it’s not the only live service that does.
None of your points seem well considered. Why run interference for these companies?
2. It probably depends on what sports we're talking about. Again, I'm thinking internationally where they've started showing La Liga this season.
Unless MLB blurs/bleeps all of these, it's not really ad-free.
NASCAR has a separate feed for international broadcasts without their ads. During the ad break they'll just show an overhead camera or maybe an in car camera.
(More cynical take: the ads are the whole point, the content itself is just a vector to get those ads in front of people, and prime them to be receptive.)
Is that a GREAT alternative to seeing an ad? Nope. But in many peoples opions it sbetter than being force fed the same ads over and over when you paid for an ad free service.
And if you read the wiki in full you will see it also is talking about preroll content. I dont HATE the HBO pre roll ads for their own shows that play before I start an episode but it is still an ad. Its for content I might actually enjoy instead of for paper towels or insurance but it is still an ad. This is something that is entirely optional and that disney/hulu has decided doesnt count as an ad.
Words matter. Words in advertising should matter. The slope is ice when we allow corporations to wordsmith around what they sell you.
To me, my time has value, and my thoughts have more. A party whose goal is to interfere with both, and who actively schemes to interfere with the integrity of both is not merely greedy, they are a hostile actor.
This fight was lost at least a decade ago. Everything must now be a constant source of outrage
And ads for their own services are still ads.