My take on ads is this: I've been using the internet since 1989 - before search engines, advertising, SLIP/PPP/ADSL, etc.

When ads began to appear on websites in the late 90s, I was OK with it. A banner ad here, etc. Then they started to move. And flash. And make noise. And then popups, and pop-unders.

At that point I started to BLOCK THEM ALL. If your business model is a game of distraction from the site I'm visiting, then fuck you, your family, and anyone you've ever met.

Moving on to UI web-based stuff, the demise of excellent sites like AltaVista (with its superior search syntax) and the growth of Goooooooogle (with its astonishingly and intentionally shit search syntax), the progress and intention was obvious.

There was a brief period where Google, etc, provided what people wanted. But that time has passed. Now it's all in on GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.

tl;dr: Once advertisers started to behave like gambling sites, they were yeeted to the hell in which they belong.

Know what I don't understand? My wife watches YouTube in bed and I hardly notice ads. Granted, I have my ear plugs in while I read, but I'm not completely tuned out. Ads are rare enough that I'm a bit surprised to notice one.

When I watch YouTube on my PC, without a condom so to speak, fuck me it's unusable. I simply refuse to engage until uBlock catches up.

All I got is that her content isn't easily monetized? One one hand, she watching a lot of political news from the Philippines. OTOH, she's mostly on those dumb crime shows where it's all white trash confessing to the pigs.

As of this week, I can no longer watch in Firefox and have to go to Edge. Anyone?

I was fine with pre-roll ads and mid roll ads.
Then YouTube became ultra greedy during Covid when tons of people watching, they went from 1-3 ads per video to 30 ads for a 30 minute video (2 ads every 2 minutes).
What the fuck.

I installed adblocker because they did that. YouTube was not watchable at all.
Sucks, because I didn’t mind supporting the platform and creator, but their greed ruined that.

My problems:

• Ads not for kids in kids videos.
• Very long "ads". Let's say, 1 hour? I know that there are longer ads, but, well, if you think that an hour ad is not a problem, well...
• Ads everywhere. In the video, in the recommendations bar, in the main page.
• Ads INSIDE the video. I know this is not about a youtube thing, but I really hate being in middle of some video an then the guy starts talking about Brave or something.
• The pourly implementation of ads in middle video. On TV you were able to tell when and how the ads would came and felt natural because your content wasn't cut out of nowhere.

Taking it from the last point: that's why I love Pluto.tv. I can be watching my, whatever, and then I know that ads are coming, because uses the same timing as regular TV, so I can use that time of ads to just ignore them and get on my phone or do something else, like old TV times. Not in middle of my video that it's gonna last 5 minutes, damn.

Edit: One last thing that I've forgot. I hate that everyone can submit ads, making the platform more like a town with no law. Why would I care about a product made with AI which ad itself is also made with AI?

There were a time when I wanted to study marketing. I always love how Coca-Cola doesn't try to make you buy its product, it's just there, it doesnt say "buy!", "we cheap!", "we are better than the others!" or any bullshit. That dream ended when I learned what SEO was and what was doing to internet.

Advertising is pollution

Full stop.

Every marketer is trying to coerce you into a decision you wouldn’t arrive at on your own by limiting the information available and lying to you.

If I were chief ad engineer at YouTube i would probably be afraid of anyone knowing what I did for money.

You know facilitating the theft of people’s money by targeting them with brainwashing.

If you’re a marketer. Get a real job pal.

Products that don’t advertise can easily be better value.

This is exactly my reasoning in refusing to do business with service providers that (in my view) over-advertise (looking at you Geico, Progressive, United Health, Taco Bell, other major advertisers)...

Any service provider doing that much advertising is telling me 2 things with every ad: First, you already obviously have too much money and, Second, you obviously don't need my money.

Fuck you and your "brand recognition".

Ads can exists, I do not have any problem with it. I think that we need to have tools and techniques to avoid them. If the medium doesn't let you use those tools, it's right there where I have a problem: Ads in a magazine? Just change page, Ad on TV?, just change channel, Unskipable ad? Woah woah woah. YouTube, dear, you are forcing me to watch something that I don't wanna. Edit: The same with Netfilx... Amazon... Spotify... It's not like I can change of app like I would with TV channels

Advertisements are an attack to manipulate me and change my behaviour. I don't tolerate them at all. They also ruin the product, because it eventually becomes more important to cater to the advertisers than the users.

If Youtube went back to how it was originally (no ads, downloadable videos, creator-controlled, etc), I, and many others, would happily pay them even if we could get the content for free (see Patreon, or GoFundMe, or PornHub, or Imgur, or Reddit, or many other sites as examples).

People seem to think the cost is just the wasted time from playing ads, but the lasting mental pollution in my brain is worse. I don't want that shit in my head. I don't want to think about ads. I don't want to see ads when I close my eyes. I don't want shitty ad jingles popping up in my mind while I'm trying to live my life. A youtube video is not worth having to carry more ads in my head.

It's not the ads I hate, it's the data harvesting I hate. Static ads without trackers don't exist on YouTube, unfortunately.

I just have a moral objection to advertising in general, and try to subject myself to it as little as possible.

^ this. All of it. It’s death by a thousands cuts and just shows the incredible amount of greed they have (not shareholder value, it’s bloody greed).

There is no tolerable amount of ads, because not only are they an awful experience, they explicitly drive user hostile growth and decisions in the future (ie enshitification).

I used to pay for YouTube to avoid ads, before I got sick of Google and refused to give them any more money. Now I use a pihole and a browser based adblocker, as well as 3rd party front ends, because fuck Google. I don't give a shit if I'm denying them income.

to me I still use the paid version because, for me it's not that expensive on the family plan, and I do want the content creators to get paid. I do hate the monopoly etc... but as far as I can tell it's one that can't really be broken. Far as I can see no other site can actually arrange a system in which creators get paid any substantial amount.

also do have to note the inevitable put up or shut up part of nature. There's basically only 2 options of systems when it comes to the internet, either we deal with ads or we pay for services. Until a magical extra option appears I'm OK with paying to avoid ads.

There are lots of local brands that don't advertise that are better than nationally-known brands, at a much lower cost.

I pay to avoid ads on Amazon Prime... Now i have to endure unskippable ads every 10 minutes, and my annual fee is up over 50% since i started.

Fuck them. No matter what, these mercantilists will extract everything they can, and they will break any promise or contract they sign as soon as it bemefits them. We, however, cannot do the same.

Ads are a brainwashing technique designed to turn my baser instincts against myself for someone else's gain. And they're unwanted content that disrupts the flow of the content I've chosen to watch.

Ads bad. If I want to support a creator I will do so personally not via watching ads. I'll stop watching YT before I suffer through a single ad.

• The ads aren’t targeted properly for one thing. I see ads for stuff that would never apply to me. Such a waste of money.

• Many of the videos already have a sponsor, so they are double-dipping.

• Also I’m not going to sit through 60 seconds of ads for a five minute video. Get real.

• And don’t lie to me about “Watch this long ad break and we won’t show you more ads during this program.”

I think Prime has the right idea of front loading the ads at the beginning of the program instead of interrupting thinks every few minutes.

I’d pay for ad-free YouTube if it didn’t cost as much as HBO. Charge $3 to $5 a month and I’d consider it. Otherwise I’ll just mute the TV, or skip the programming altogether.