[wsc981]

> The AI product rollouts in the last two years have been some of the most aggressive and user hostile product rollouts in my entire life.

I’m getting extremely annoyed by the Base44 ads I see on YouTube every other video.

First I pressed skip all the time, but the ads keep popping up. So now, every time I see it, I click on the ad and then immediately close the site. At least I can make their aggressive ad strategy a bit more expensive.

[gorgmah]

Youtube revanced on your phone + ublock on firefox and you'll never see youtube ads again. There's also a replacement app for android TV that I forgot the name of that works well. Do not use chrome, google nerfed its ad-blocking capabilities a while ago

[weikju]

You’re just proving to them their ad costs are effective so they’ll spend more to show you ads though

[account42]

I can't fathom why anyone would still willingly watch ads when there are so many ways to block them online.

[nik282000]

Up until about 2019, I did not block ads. I felt that the ads a site or service chooses to run was a pretty good way to gauge whether I wanted to continue to use that site or service, and ads are what cover the operating costs.

Over 20 years I got to watch a HUGE change in the ecosystem of advertising, starting with static imaged baked right into the page and transparent pop-overs at the bottom of YouTube videos. If an operator used horrendous popups, un-muetable audio, or other adversarial tactics I would generally just not use them, the internet is a big place, I can shop around.

By 2019 it got to the point that nearly every operator was using ads so large and offensive that nearly every website was unusable. Even YouTube had moved to multiple, sequential, un-skippable, mid-roll ads that made the viewing experience worse than cable. I installed a browser extension and set up a pihole.

I do however feel like this leaves things broken. There are very obvious holes in pages that look like some developer spammed line breaks randomly throughout the page. If operators moved back to static images or animated banners I would honestly prefer it to the disjointed look you get with no ads at all.

[ipaddr]

Its probably why you keep seeing them a click is marked as interest and clicking away doesnt cost anything they refund it.

[wsc981]

No, for a long time I never clicked. But since I keep seeing the freaking ads, I decided to click on them, because from what I understand they have to pay money for each ad click.

[ipaddr]

They don't if you click away in a second or two. Spending more time will cost them.

But your best strategy is to zoom past those ads quickly no pausing or close the browser when you see them