[yencabulator]

> Compare it with TV though, which is what youtube is; nobody blocked ads because they couldn't, there was no escaping them unless you physically exit the room.

VCR & fast forward.

> In my country that worked, because ads were neat 5 minute blocks every 15 odd minutes, but in the US it seems every few minutes there's an ad interrupting - but they're too short to tune out / do something else.

The US television ads switched to that format to make them more obnoxious and harder to fast forward over.

This battle between attention spam and users thinking that's obnoxious has been going on for decades.