[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.