The Verge reports that YouTube is rolling out advertisements that show up when you pause videos, continuing experiments that the company started a year ago. A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”
The representative said that advertising on paused videos is designed to create a “less interruptive” experience. But as The Verge notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a drop in the increasing load of obnoxious and often unskippable advertising on YouTube. And since I’m seeing more and more creators pack their videos with sponsorships, I somehow doubt that the people making YouTube’s content are going to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.
“We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures,” said the fictional CEO (of a company that bears more than a passing resemblance to Google) in Ready Player One.
Apropos of nothing, it’s possible to block every single ad on YouTube — even the sponsorships that are baked into the videos themselves — on both desktop and mobile.
A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”
Anyone else get the idea that these two “responses” were vastly different?
What they mean to say is, “Surprisingly, this didn’t annoy people nearly as much as we had assumed. Score!”
More like “we forced an ad while the video was paused and only 30% of viewers immediately closed the window”
“Did that pause screen ad make you want to quit using YouTube?”
“Yes, but what alternative is there?”
“Success!”
Invidious
Peertube
Yt-dlp script + jellyfin
Imagine… “I just love sitting through annoying unskippable ads so much! And I simply can’t wait to see more ads still when I pause!”
There was a Black Mirror episode where if you close your eyes, the ad stops playing and continues only when you open your eyes again.
This is next.
The only thing stopping them doing this right now, is that they know it would get regulatory pushback. It has a real chance of causing laws to be made about when and how advertising is appropriate, and those laws might stop some of the things they’re doing now. So they sit as close to that line as they can without crossing it so they can keep self-regulation.
The moment they believe world governments wouldn’t stop them doing it, is the moment they’ll do it.
And in terms of benefit for the advertisers and service providers, it’s a no-brainer. Advertisers know that a large percentage of people tune out, or even leave the room when an advert is on. I think it’s part of the reason they kept them so short on youtube, because if they showed you that there’s 1:30 ad break you might go to the toilet, get a drink, or anything else that takes you away from the ad. If they show you 15seconds, well you’ll probably just sit that one out.
An advert they know people are actually watching is worth a LOT more to advertisers.
On my Galaxy S24+, I have this option:
Keep screen on while viewing Keep the screen on while you’re looking at it, using the front camera to detect your face.
Creepy. I wonder if Samsung can do this if this option is on…
Yes, the tech exists already on phones. Not sure how they’d enforce it on pc.
“Sorry, YouTube is not available to systems without a functioning camera.”? Perhaps with a link to premium :p
Sorry, YouTube is not available to systems without a functioning camera
Actually, a fixed camera (on a laptop, for example). Because any webcam connected by cable can be moved, which means the algorithm cannot detect whether you are actually looking at the screen.
If they cannot see a verified human gaze they won’t let you even load the site!
It’s the new anti-bot measure!
…ohhhh fuck they’re gonna do that, aren’t they.
The second Apple rolled out face ID, I knew this tech was ready and waiting for forced ads
Genuinely one of the all time best Black Mirror episodes
So many good episodes. This episodes, “Fifteen Million Merits” stands out. It’s really good.
My favorite is “Shut Up and Dance”.
You’re not doing that scene justice. It blares a loud siren and bright lights until you open your eyes again.
blares a loud siren
IIRC, it was a high-pitched sound, like a screeching cicada.
That’s true.
I glossed over the worst parts.
a Black Mirror episode where if you close your eyes, the ad stops playing
And a deafening high-pitched sound started to play, until the character opened his eyes to resume viewing the ads.
I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not even the first one thinking of this. I’ll have to look for the source but a company was trying to do this on phones. Basically they’d track your eyes with the phone camera to stop the ad when you’re not looking at your screen.
Edit: found it
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moviepass-relaunches-ads-track-eyeballs-face-recognition/
How the fuck did they get access to the camera?
New Google PayForAccess™
What is the industry as a whole trying to get out of this advertisement craze anyway? In the 80s many people in the developed world earned more than twice of what they needed for living. They had lots of cash to just shop around. Now most people barely earn enough to get by and we’re bombarded with easily a hundred times more ads or more. Sorry, but I can’t afford your millionth AI powered NFT sneakers subsciption model no matter how many ads you throw at me. I just cant’t.
They’re banking on people spending more than they have, putting them in debt to banks (which they want) so they can own you more. They want you right on the edge so you are never able to achieve true freedom from under their thumb.
I so look forward to seeing an ad when I pause a video to inspect whatever is on the screen at that moment.
That won’t push me to use yt-dlp to just download the fucking video and watch it locally or anything, completely giving up on using their shitty fucking site. VLC has no ads on pause.
I just downloaded FreeTube today after seeing that.
When these tools hit their bottom line enough, they will go the extra mile to block them.
The nice thing about FreeTube and Invidious is that they don’t use the YouTube API and the most YouTube can do (at the moment) is issue takedown requests. You can just self-host invidious (which I believe FreeTube uses). The code is unlikely to be taken down as YouTube-dl has successfully fought off those takedown requests.
So, aside from numerous other angry words I could say…
How is this going to affect incoming phone calls? Will I be able to at least talk with my friend, without having to hear ads the whole time because I was watching a video?
Just a friendly reminder, https://grayjay.app/ is a thing, screw the YouTube app.
I will often pause educational videos to study something on screen. Putting ads over that ruins the experience.
I have YT premium mainly for YT music, but I do consume a lot (read: too much) YT content. I split the family plan with 4 other members outside of my wife and I, so it’s like $3 per month for just me. I’m not logged in on my work computer, and the amount of ads is insanely intrusive and a off putting. I honestly think that if I didn’t have a premium sub, I’d almost never use the platform because it’s so bad.
[Google] will shove ads in your face [literally any time any place they can get away with it]
Fixed title
There’s always just…. Not watching YouTube as an option.
Could as well be suggesting me to leave the internet. 95% of my time spent online I’m watching YouTube videos.
Blocking ads seems like the more viable option.
How long will they f around, before we make them find out, I wonder…
Without viable competition, they’ll get away with it for a long time
Fucking hell, I had to check several times that I wasn’t reading an onion-y article.
I barely use YouTube and when I do, I use tubular or freetube apps, but I think I’m going to use it even less from now on.
No. Use more. Via proxys. Cause them lots of traffic and zero revenue.
My monitor has a power switch.
Fuck you, Google.
I guess it’s time for a “mark this time so I can go back to it” feature, to reduce the need to pause. 🤷♂️
Or just… block ads.
Or just… ditch Youtube and de-google the digital life.
I ditched Youtube many months ago. I really try to avoid, at all costs, to access Youtube videos, preferring Odysee, for example.
Yeah, I’ve been moving away gradually. I have a few subs on Odysee, one on Rumble, and I’ve signed up for Nebula which handles a few more. If I had to, I could drop YT and get enough content from those other sources.
Odysee is behind clownflare. I’m more partial to peertube.
They won’t. I use piped.
Piped is pretty awesome 🪈
One way to fight back is to try to get the video ID of the advertisement from the debug info, go to the video directly and leave a dissatisfied comment. This will work until they hide that ID anyway. Or the advertiser turns off comments. At that point we’re left with sending our disapproval in other public forums, preferably the more public the better.
“Your ad was shown to me on a pause screen where I don’t want to see ads. As such I will ensure that I do not purchase your products for the foreseeable future and that I will recommend that friends and relatives do the same. Thank you for participating in YouTube customer feedback.”
