[eveningcoffee]

>YouTube allows you to pay to show an ad before a video plays.

Is also the reason why I installed an adblocker.

I do not know if anybody still remembers the time when ads were not intrusive and did not try to hog all the CPU cycles.

[Buge]

Do the ads use any more CPU cycles than the regular video does?

And which are more intrusive, TV ads or youtube ads? I can skip youtube ads.

[glandium]

I haven't used an ad blocker so far, because I don't browse a lot of sites with ads, but have started seriously considering it when, last week, Youtube started to feed me with unskippable five minutes long ads. Five. Freaking. Unskippable. Minutes. Infuriating.

Fortunately(?), reloading the page made them skipped.

[cornstalks]

That sounds like a bug. All ads longer than 30 seconds should be skippable: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/2679940?hl=e...

That sucks, and certainly would be frustrating. If something like that happens, sending feedback (right click and select “Trouble shoot playback issue”) can help (and no, those feedback reports aren’t just sent to /dev/null; they really are helpful!). Additionally, some employees have been known to lurk on r/youtube, but they might request the debug info for the playback (again, right click on the video; do this while the ad is playing and save it for later if you/someone needs it).

Disclaimer: I work at YouTube, but I’m just posting this in a personal capacity and don’t represent my employer in any way.

[petercooper]

My favorite ad related story is I went to YouTube to see a movie trailer and got the very same movie trailer as the unskippable ad before the trailer :-D It's rare things get that good though..

[nukeop]

Makes one wish we'd get closer to 100% adblock coverage...

[lwansbrough]

Who do you think pays for the content you consume?

[michaelt]

Myself, obviously.

Sometimes it's Patreon or Netflix between me and the content creator

Other times they show me a video that attempts to influence me to go to the store, pick up a different brand of detergent, then the store gives money to the multinational behind the brand, then the multinational gives the money to an ad agency, then the ad agency give the money to Youtube, then Youtube gives the money to the content creator. Except I buy store-brand detergent, so this pipeline leaks a lot.

[joosters]

So what? Do you feel obliged in any way to watch the ads on tv? And yet they pay for the programmes...

[r0fl]

Advertisers do. If the economics stop making sense then the content stops being created. As a consumer it’s not my concern as to how money is made. That’s the creators job.

[lwansbrough]

The end result is either you're paying for the content or someone else is. And if someone else is, it'll be on their terms and not yours.

[nukeop]

Unless I'm using a content blocker and can watch the "content" without accepting intrusive ads and profiling, then it's on my terms.

[nukeop]

I can live without the "content". If the "content" is made by somebody who thinks creating "content" on the internet is a viable substitute for a day job and advertisements are an acceptable way of making money, then I would prefer they rather create no "content" at all.

[mrep]

Businesses will find a way just like how cryptocurrencies will find a way to scale /s

[paulcole]

Believe it or not, you can actually save even more CPU cycles, precious as they are, by not visiting the sites that show the ads you find so offensive.