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Frustrated YouTube viewers seek explanation for hour-long unskippable ads (Update: Statement) (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 82 points 2 years ago (28 children)

While their statement is entirely correct, they're still wrong. YouTube is basically unusable without an ad blocker. Multiple 10 to 15 second long unskippable ads before the video even starts, and unless you watch videos all the way through you end up watching as much ad as you do content. It is damn near impossible to hop around between videos trying to find the one you want because of the pre-roll ads on every vid. On the other hand, with an ad block enabled YouTube is actually quite nice. The engagement algorithm is fucking trash of course but if you know what you're looking for and you go directly to it it's pretty good.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (27 children)

    Do you habitually not watch videos all the way through, or am I misunderstanding your comment?

    No judgement, you obviously should consume media in the manner you find most enjoyable, but once I start and enjoy a video - YouTube or otherwise - I tend to get invested and want to watch as much as is available.

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  • [–] 57 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    If you're looking for tutorials or other immediately applicable information, you've often got to skip a LOT of bullshit before even determining if this video is relevant to you.

    "Hey everybody it's Mike from Mike's the guy named Mike, it's a snowy day out there, I got my coffee, took my dog for a walk, it's been the morning of a day, and now I'm out here in the garage and I figured I'd make a video about a topic a bunch of you have been asking me about. You guys have been asking me a lot lately "Hey, Mike's the guy named Mike, could you show us how to properly lick a drill press?" Well let's find out.

    10 second title screen because Mike thinks he's making TV

    "So a lot of you guys have been asking me "Hey, Mike's the guy named Mike, could you show us the right way to lick a drill press?" Before we get into that, be sure to leave a like, drop a comment below and be sure to subscribe. It'll really help me out more than you can think..."

    19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn't been a drill press on screen yet.

    Three weeks later Mike's the guy named Mike along with his entire family is killed in a rock slide. The UN declares it an international day of celebration.

    What was I talking about?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    19 minutes into a 21 minute video and there hasn't been a drill press on screen yet

    And that's intentional. The algorithm rewards them for having people watch more / watch longer, and a 21 min video might have 2 or 3 ad rolls. If someone watches all the way thru, creator gets more money and higher placement in search results.

    I like YouTube as a concept but the algorithms are totally enshittifying it.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I remember the early, pre-Google days of Youtube, when it was fail videos, that one particular kind of lyric video, lonelygirl15 and mememolly. It was about the time South park had run that episode where they had all the people who had become internet famous like Tay Zonday and the Star Wars Kid who were sitting around in a waiting room waiting for their "internet money" to make the point that there was no method in place for them to monetize their fame...

    If you had asked me then what Youtube would look like in the year 2025 I don't know what I would have said but I wouldn't have guessed correctly. I probably would have said it's not going to last that long. I would not have guessed that fifteen years of Google changing the algorithm, but not letting anyone know what they did or why, so there's this constant game of trying to design video formats around what the software would promote would twist it into what it is...

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    You need to get sponsor block. Not only does it block all the sponsor segments because they are also ads, that the ad blockers don't otherwise block, but they also block all of the other annoyances, like instructions to subscribe and intro animations.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    yeah that's really the key to an acceptable youtube experience. after google nuked UBO on chromeOS, sponsorblock is still there to do the heavy lifting. I'll be switching to a windows machine soon, but for now all I have is my chromebook, which is still functional even without the real UBO-- but I'm sure they're working on a way to fuck us out of the "lite" version of it and take away extensions like sponsorblock

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Can you run Firefox on a Chromebook?

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    When I'm 'watching a video' I watch it all the way thru. However often I'm looking for something specific, like how to do something, and a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don't love but whatever). In that situation I'm usually looking for a specific piece of information which often requires scrubbing around in multiple videos. Same thing if I'm doing research on a product, while I might watch a review will the way through I'm more often looking for some specific things like video of the interface or does it have some specific setting or can I set it up without needing a phone app or cloud account. That requires scrubbing around in multiple videos to see bits of the setup UI. Unusable if each video has an ad

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don't love but whatever)

    You're not alone in that, and it seems neither am I

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (9 children)

    a lot more tutorials are now in video form than written (which I don’t love but whatever)

    One of my favorite Youtubers (Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles) has excellent in-depth content mostly about WWII piston-engined aircraft with lots of detailed discussion and reference to original source materials. But it's just him reading a written script while presenting still photos and excerpts from flight manuals and the like. It really would be perfect as a blog or in book form, but he has to turn it into videos in order to have any chance at making decent money from it. It's just such a shame that this is how things are going now.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    This makes no sense to me. It's significantly more expensive to create and host video content, yet somehow we've gotten to the point where that's the most profitable? It makes no sense.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    It's all about advertising. On a web page, which is cheap to create and cheap to host, the only ad you can really get is a pop-up or similar, and those don't pay very much. On the video, which is expensive to create and expensive to host, you can have 30 or 45 seconds of video ads, which pay a lot more.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

    It has nothing to do with the expense and everything to do with the fact that most people do not enjoy reading (any more, at least).

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I guess I'll just appreciate the fact that my books don't have ads.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I read a lot of books on Kindle. It's just a matter of time ...

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