[alanctgardner2]

I don't know why it did't happen sooner. I started pre-roll seeing ads on mobile as well, which I don't remember until recently.

I don't get why it's disgusting. This is how video creators and Google are supposed to get paid. It's annoying to me that people want free content, and they keep pushing companies to "get traction first, then monetize". This is what has to happen, or else Google has to keep subsidizing progressively larger bandwidth bills - and the people who are creating the content have to keep their day jobs.

[brc]

I personally have no problem with including ads with YouTube content- it was always going to end that way.

The problem is the fact you have to 'pay' before you get to play. When a FTA tv puts on a movie, they give you 10-15 minutes of content to hook you into he movie, then ramp up the ads toward the end, knowing hor going to stick around to see the end.

YouTube != TV movies, but it feels like you have to watch all the superbowl ads upfront before a player takes the field. When you're speculatively flicking through YouTube videos looking for the right one, it degrades the experience when you have to go through the ad process before even committing to watching even 10% of the video.

So to me it would be better if the ad cut in during the frat x seconds of the video. The video owner could pick a break-point when editing so the more pro channels could properly cut to an ad-break, and the viewers could could set through the dross to find the one without the cheesy music and graphic overlays or terrible quality.

[judk]

I would much rather wait five seconds than have the video ruined by an interruption. Yt videos are short. You don't have a 10 minute warm up.

[bad_user]

To me they are annoying because they disallow you to skip them for the first few seconds. Their targeting also doesn't do a very good job.

But let me tell you the real problem with YouTube ads. Recently in my country there has been a public outcry against a mining project, which is dangerous not only because of ecological reasons, but also because it needs special laws that trump our constitutional rights and the whole deal is filled with documented corruption. Movies started popping on Youtube describing the perils of open-pit gold mining with cyanide.

Well guess what, the company behind the project started displaying ads on every one of those clips, showing local poor villagers crying for "jobs", with one of the big fat lies of the project being that it will create plenty of jobs. It won't of course, but that's besides the point.

The point is, say somebody believes in something and posts a video on YouTube. A company or an individual can always display ads right at the start of that clip in disagreement and there's no way in hell that you can stop it. If you report it, what are you going to report it for? Now, I believe in freedom of speech, but that's just immoral, as freedom of speech doesn't imply forcing your opposition to present your case in their argument. And it's not freedom of speech when your opposition is a multi-national with all the money it needs to buy whatever it wants.

So that's why YouTube ads are immoral. Because they are more intrusive than normal ads and can be used for disinformation. And because I don't use AdBlock, I limit my visits to YouTube. I used to use it for listening to music, but there are much better options for that.

What I don't get from such services ... maybe I'm willing to pay a monthly subscription. That's what I do with Google Apps. Why not give me the option to turn those ads off?

[ejain]

I don't think you can place ads in any movie--only movies that have the "monetization" feature enabled.

It's the same issue as with Google AdSense, though there you have options to exclude certain ads.

[bad_user]

I have a hard time believing that the radio select in YouTube's settings works, because I'm talking about dozens of videos, posted by different publishes, all of them with ads from the company I'm talking about. Maybe the publishers in question weren't aware of that setting.

Let me tell you more - I was visiting the US when the protests started and I posted YouTube links on my Facebook account, completely unaware that the videos in question were served with those ads, because those ads targeted only Romanians. The act of publishing a link is also an act of publishing. When I publish a link, I should be completely aware of what I'm publishing, OK?

Also, we go back full circle to monetization needs. I'm not seeing controls in YouTube for banning certain ads from happening. That radio select is a global switch. You either want ads or you don't. Also the question is stupid. Because it's an opt-out and if you are unaware of the setting, you're implicitly opted-in AND most importantly, that doesn't mean you'll receive any money from your views and likes [1]. Like, seriously?

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en

[corobo]

It's an account-wide setting to allow the monetize option. From there it's up to the account owner to enable/disable per video they upload [1]. There are other things in place such as the ContentID matching which will disable ads until you prove you're allowed to use the content if it matches anything but generally speaking it's up to whoever owns the channel you're viewing videos on. They would almost definitely know they have ads enabled - there's even a green dollar sign next to the video in the manager if ads are enabled

Advertising-wise you can target pretty much anything/anyone Google knows really - You could very easily (It's one of the easiest options to configure even) target people in a specific country. There's more advanced stuff such as re-targeting people who have already seen the ad/content specifically too. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to target a specific channel or at least whatever common content is in each of the videos (the most notable mine name involved, for example).

[1] http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png

[jjkmk]

I honestly would not be able to use 99% of the internet without adblock plus. I would end up infected with malware / spyware weekly, being misdirected.

Also to add to what you said, I personally don't care to see any more ad's. One can argue about the merits of this statement but I'm strictly approaching this from a pragmatic standpoint.

I wish there was a middle ground between using Adblock plus and helping content creators get paid; from what I can tell there currently isn't an option like this.

[psathvik]

There are initiatives like http://subbable.com that aim to help bridge this gap - Subscribers such as yourself can help fund your favorite channels and keep them ad-free

[itchitawa]

The real problem is the viewer who get suckered. Let people watch both and learn to make decisions for themselves.

[bad_user]

I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about piggybacking the efforts of your opposition to get your message across. And when we are talking about a company that has been delivering advertisements for 10 years (I'm not kidding), to the point that during the protests there has been a total media blackout happening, probably because they were afraid of losing money, the fight is really not fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Romanian_protests_against_...

[xerophtye]

I guess "report" is too strong an option, but you tehy should provide you the ability to ive feedback. Even FB lets u tell them that this ad is against my beliefs and i dont want to see it.

[janlukacs]

Rosia Montana Gold Corporation? :) nasol.

[xyproto]

If anyone from Google is reading this: what happened to "don't be evil"?

[matthewmacleod]

1. Making money is not evil.

2. Adverts only appear on YouTube for videos where monetization has been enabled or a third party owns the rights to the content. The description given by the GP post is somewhat misleading.

[bad_user]

2. You're wrong. Monetization doesn't have to be enabled. The switch is in YouTube's settings and it's called "Allow advertisements to be displayed alongside my videos". That's not monetization.

I've also never met a single Romanian that earns money from YouTube videos. Google treats us as second-class citizens anyway (I still can't sell apps in Google Play btw). The clips I'm talking about have been in the dozens, many by volunteers, by different publishers, all of them with the ads in question. And as I was explaining in another comment, when I started distributing links, I wasn't aware of those ads because I was not targeted and publishing a link is also an act of publishing.

So yeah, rejoice in the availability of that checkbox. Everything is good.

[gcb0]

It's pretty obvious why it didn't happen before... There were still competition.

Google is following Microsoft 90s playbook for a decade now.

[graeme]

Here's one example use case where the ads are horrible: playlists.

Youtube has these "top tracks" playlists. When I discover a new artist, I'll often put that on and go do something else.

If a rollover ad comes on, I have to come back to the computer, and click the "skip" button, since I'm not sitting down.

One thing I was wondering: does the content creator make money when I skip the ad, or only when I take some kind of action based on it?

[GauntletWizard]

The content creator might get paid when you click, or might get paid per impression. The the creator is absolutely not paid is when you click Skip. Click skip when you don't like the ad; It drives up the price for a successful watch, because ads that get skipped don't get played. There's an ecosystem, it can be played, but it has the proper knobs and controls to combat the playing.

[alan_cx]

The creator will get zero if punters get irritated with having to run back and forth to their PC's, and just down load the work and consume it locally.

[bryan_rasmussen]

This is true, but really if you are running a playlist of music you are using it like a radio - I tend to get an ad per every video which is quite a bit more than other radio solutions, it breaks up the flow and so forth.

[xerophtye]

are the ads same? If so, either the system should be smart enough to not show me ad if i skipped it a few times. Or perhaps provide a "dont show me this ad" checkbox

[icebraining]

Click skip when you don't like the ad

I do, that's why I click it every time.

[DatrixTSW]

That would be gould if there weren't ads that last 20 seconds or 30seconds long without a skip feature which is what I have had to deal with and was forced to use Adblocker Plus. Now I don't have to see such stupid ads.

1. Presidential Smear Campaigns (I hate those because it really is a matter of choice for the person voting isn't it...Who cares who did what let the voter decide)

2. Movies I don't care to see (Reality TV Movies and those numerous remakes).

And anyothers I hate.

[socillion]

Advertisers do not pay for skipped ads.

[phillmv]

I'm sure they could drive some value out of a skipped ad. There's definitely some brand impression, and not to mention metrics on what works and what doesn't.

[judk]

Maybe Google is being non-evil, only accepting payment for ads users accept.

[cclogg]

I guess it's just annoying that it's practically on everything now... like everyone is trying to make that 4 cents in ad revenue off of their kitten rolling around or whatever lol ><

I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started (as in I closed the browser tab after seeing I had to wait 15s or 30s). Youtube still has dominance now but if you keep getting in the way of people, something better will come along and usurp you (ie StackOverflow vs Experts Exchange).

[enneff]

> I've personally stopped watching several videos just because an ad started

If you don't like ads, keep doing this. YouTube will notice and it will affect their decision making.

[gizmo686]

Youtube has 2 types of users it needs to worry about: viewers, and uploaders. One of its major offerings to uploaders is the ability to monotize. It is difficult to see how a competitor can offer this without advertisements.

[daveid]

Perhaps paid subscriptions per channel, with free tiers (or amounts) of content?

[davedx]

I'd rather pay a monthly subscription to YouTube than see the amount of ads they show. Instead I've installed AdBlock. Now they get 0 revenue from me.

Games on app stores have figured this out: many of them have "Ad supported" or "Paid" versions. Why can't Google?

[cpleppert]

It's annoying because google has done the worst possible thing and put ads in front of every video because you even decide to watch it. It totally breaks the point of being able to browse selections of video if you can't do it without seeing an ad every time.

Google really needs to leverage all the screen real-estate on youtube or take advantage of the active video discovery process of its users. Youtube shouldn't just be a TV where ads are pushed every x minutes or every video like clockwork.

[zmonkeyz]

I don't have a problem with their ads either. What I do have a problem with is that the videos sometime load really slow while the ads are always lightning fast :P

[sologrrl]

Edit: Found the article, here it is http://socialtimes.com/youtube-pre-roll-ads-drive-users-inst...

Can't find the article now, but I recently read that the Youtube ads getting more obnoxious is hurting a lot of small advertizers and sites. Because of the annoyance, even many non tech people are increasingly looking for solutions and installing ad blocks, which block all ads and not just Youtube's. Google can get around this somewhat by paying Adblock Plus to unblock it's own text ads, but a number of small fish cannot.

Previous discussion of Youtube ads on Reddit here. http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/18m95j/has_anyo...