Have you noticed youtube is slowly ramping up the ads?

[hans]

So far on youtube, the ads have come from a different domain than youtube.com, that's how ad blockers work. The ad blockers can't really tell the difference between different types of content, just where they come from. If youtube starts feeding the ads from the top level domain or the same domain as the videos are sourced from, blocking them will become very difficult.

This is incorrect.

An adblocker like uBlock Origin can tell difference between types of content, has blocklists based on URL patterns instead of only domains (which is the most you can do on router level given SSL), and e.g. also only block JavaScript from particular domains (see expert mode). Thereby it is also a perfect replacement for NoScript.

It's amazing how much crap some websites load in for visitor analysis tools, ad companies and whatever. If you went out and stopped all of those requests you'll find that your internet is much quicker.
After all, if a website accesses 20 different domains, it needs to send 20 different DNS requests (+RTT time), connect to 20 different webservers (even more RTT times), etc.

[yada]

I always wondered what youtu.be was and how do they make the file names case sensitive. You cant buy .be domains that I know of.

[rdl]

So far on youtube, the ads have come from a different domain than youtube.com, that's how ad blockers work.

This is incorrect.

I stand corrected then. Thanks for the clarification. Apparently uBlock Origin is much better than I thought. Hopefully it will continue to be able to block the ads on youtube, since I do find a small amount of what's there useful and not a complete waste of time.

[ataradov]

This is incorrect.

But the issue remains. In this new scheme, ads are indistinguishable form normal youtube videos. The only way to know is to mess with javascript that loads the video.

From what I can tell, this is not wide spread. When ads started to fall though my AdBlock, I tried to search if others has similar issues, and I came up with nothing.

I'm probably a part of some experimental group of people.

I tried to look at javascript, but quickly got lost, and $10 eventually won, since I did not want to waste any more time.

[ataradov]

I always wondered what youtu.be was and how do they make the file names case sensitive. You cant buy .be domains that I know of.

What do you mean? .be is Belguim, and anyone can register a .be domain, you don't even need to be in Belguim, or Europe.

[ajb]

If you subscribe to Google Play music then you get Youtube Red for free, well at least in Australia you do

Same in the US, I signed up for the unlimited music service at $10/mo, and was pleasantly surprised when I eventually figured out why I hadn't seen any YouTube ads for a while.  I think there's a family music plan for $15/mo, not sure if that also includes YouTube Red though.

[hans]

This is incorrect.

But the issue remains. In this new scheme, ads are indistinguishable form normal youtube videos. The only way to know is to mess with javascript that loads the video.

From what I can tell, this is not wide spread. When ads started to fall though my AdBlock, I tried to search if others has similar issues, and I came up with nothing.

I'm probably a part of some experimental group of people.

I tried to look at javascript, but quickly got lost, and $10 eventually won, since I did not want to waste any more time.

Good observation.
Indeed, I just wanted to point out how ad blockers work. They are quite sophicated.
Anti-adblock is quite the rage last few years. Some of the most silly ones I've seen were just seperate scripts that you could easily find in uBlock network list as something like "domain/static/js/antiadblock.js" or something. Add that URL to adblock list and done.
Integrating the code into the whole framework JS of the website is much harder to remove.

I have a house in America I stay in for half the year and I don't even bother getting TV, just the slow internet. The worst thing for me is American news at 6:00PM on a week day. Its almost 50% commercials, then on top of that they mention their sponsors and spend a lot of the remaining time talking about the stories they are going to play after the commercials. In a 30 minute news program only about 7 minutes was actual news, I timed it on my phone today. No wonder why these people have no idea what's going on, their news has been whored out down to 7 minutes a day, rest are ads for pills that people cant get because they have no health insurance.

I think the US TV situation is really bad. On Dutch television the show "Dr Phil" is sometimes broadcasted during off hours. The dozen interruptions per hour are pasted together, because they are not allowed on Dutch TV to show that many ads/hour. It's absolutely horrendous. "5min of program * We'll be back right after the break. * Before the break, this drama happened"


I personally have made a few scripts not so long ago that automates my media capture. It downloads YT videos of subscribed channels, so they appear in a common media folder which my TV can playback via PLEX server. Another script captures live IPTV at scheduled times, so I can skip through commercials and just watch the program. I often save 10-15 minutes for an 1 hour program/documentary.

[james_s]

There are some shows that have commercials near the end, then they come back after the commercials just to show the credits, it's ridiculous.

I stopped watching broadcast TV years ago and have never missed it. If I want to read the news it's far quicker to read it online.

[Retep]

I don't see any ads on YouTube when watching videos on my PC. This might have something to do with the uBlock Origin plugin I have installed (some websites pretty much require this plugin if you want to see the actual content). However I do occasionally get ads with the YouTube app on my Android tablet. Most of them are of the type "you can skip after 5 seconds", which I can tolerate. Sometimes I do get ads that require me to watch them for at least 30 seconds which I won't tolerate. A simple workaround for those that worked sofar is to reload the video after which it starts immediately without having to watch the ad first. I don't got the impression that the amount of ads has increased significantly, though if they do it slowly enough I might not notice it until it exceeds my tolerance level.

On the tablet I do have sometimes the unfortunate habit to unintentionally touch the screen. With the YouTube app that can result in unintentionally clicking on an ad. After that happens then the next couple of days the number of ads increase dramatically (especially those that force you to watch them for 30 seconds or so before the video starts). After a couple of days the number of ads returns back to tolerable levels.

[GreyWoolfe]

I use Adblock Plus for Chrome.  No ads.  A site that I visit everyday, however, puts a red banner across the screen letting me know that I have ads blocked and they want me to white list the site so they can keep the site free.  Oh, well.

[yada]

I always wondered what youtu.be was and how do they make the file names case sensitive. You cant buy .be domains that I know of.

What do you mean? .be is Belguim, and anyone can register a .be domain, you don't even need to be in Belguim, or Europe.

Through what service can you buy those domains? Goddady doesn't sell them.

[ataradov]

Through what service can you buy those domains? Goddady doesn't sell them.

Neither does hover. But this https://www.eurodns.com/domain-extensions/be-domain-registration comes up on a quick search.

[W2NAP]

I use Adblock Plus for Chrome.  No ads.  A site that I visit everyday, however, puts a red banner across the screen letting me know that I have ads blocked and they want me to white list the site so they can keep the site free.  Oh, well.

adblock+ here as well, not seen ads in long long time. I have seen the red banner on some places as well, if these idiots would figure out they have caused the rise of ad block because they kept pushing more and more ads. so nope ya dug the hole im not whitelisting should have thought of that when you pushed annoying flash ads, screaming ads, ect.

[NiHaoMike]

You can always setup your very own video sharing service with a worldwide reach capable of dealing with 1000 petabytes of storage across numerous data centers that can deliver extraordinary amounts of bandwidth to supply millions of simultaneous users - and give it away for free. Maybe monetize it well enough to break even and call is a public service?

P2P is the answer. No single entity pays for the majority of the resources and what it does take is small enough that it is effectively free to most users. With the developments in cryptocurrency, it's even possible for creators to make paid content or ask for donations. Rather than reinvent the wheel, just make it based around two technologies that have proven themselves - Bittorrent and Bitcoin. Just wrap it up in an app that anyone can use.

[james_s]

I don't know if I'd say Bitcoin had proven itself. It's far too volatile to be useful as a currency IMO.

[yada]

Bitcoin needs to sell tbills or something. Everytime I get a payment in bitcoin if I want the money I take it out right away. The money I leave in the account I realize the next day it may be way more, or mtgox could strike again and its value goes way down. The other day I found a nook with less then one bitcoin on it. I hadn't checked it in a long time and for curiosity I turned it on, thinking it was around 60USD. It had $400USD on it. I withdrew it immediately but if I withdrew it today it would have had 500 on it. Unless you want to gamble, don't leave your money in bitcoins.

[nctnico]

You can always setup your very own video sharing service with a worldwide reach capable of dealing with 1000 petabytes of storage across numerous data centers that can deliver extraordinary amounts of bandwidth to supply millions of simultaneous users - and give it away for free. Maybe monetize it well enough to break even and call is a public service?

Nope - you charge for that. Either direct billing or advertising. It is one or the other.

What you describe is the bittorrent network but there is no way to not pay for the content. You pay for the commercials through any product you buy and since the government usually buys advertisements as well to inform the public even part of your tax is used to pay for content.

[rx8pilot]

So, in the end, nothing is free - ever. Someone somewhere pays for anything you get for free. Personally, I prefer to pay up front if I am able if I can avoid a torrent of commercials. Otherwise, I have to pay with my time to watch commercials/ads that someone paid money for. Something has to pay for the delivery system at some point.

Google (and of course their adopted baby YouTube) is rather genius in the way they have convinced people that if they do not directly pay for something it is free. That attracted a user base measured in billions that advertisers salivate over. The funny thing is that people have become so used to the 'free' content and other Google tools - they actually get frustrated when Google tries to monetize the system to make a proper business out of it.

[Kilrah]

What ataradov says... get YouTube Red.  Seriously.  It's damned nice.

I'd pay for Youtube Red... but it's not available in my country.

So AdBlock Plus it is, works fine on Chrome and Firefox.

You can always setup your very own video sharing service with a worldwide reach capable of dealing with 1000 petabytes of storage across numerous data centers that can deliver extraordinary amounts of bandwidth to supply millions of simultaneous users - and give it away for free. Maybe monetize it well enough to break even and call is a public service?

Nope - you charge for that. Either direct billing or advertising. It is one or the other.

Sure it costs - but that's their problem.

It was their choice to offer a free service, which they obviously did in order to get known and attract people (=marketing expense).
Turns out most people who got used to a free service won't want to subsequently start paying nor lose "service quality", but like many others it's again their problem for not having thought about that earlier, it's extremely easy to figure out.

You're MUCH better off creating a service that's payable from day 1 à la Netflix than starting off free for publicity then trying to convert people to a paying model. Only took people 10 years to figure that out, and some are even still ignoring it.

[rx8pilot]

Sure it costs - but that's their problem.

It was their choice to offer a free service, which they obviously did in order to get known and attract people (=marketing expense).
Turns out most people who got used to a free service won't want to subsequently start paying nor lose "service quality", but like many others it's again their problem for not having thought about that earlier, it's extremely easy to figure out.

You're MUCH better off creating a service that's payable from day 1 à la Netflix than starting off free for publicity then trying to convert people to a paying model. Only took people 10 years to figure that out, and some are even still ignoring it.

It is not really a problem at all for them. It is the drug dealer model. They offer something addictive for a low cost. Once the addiction has set in, the cost goes up. Some customers will go elsewhere, but most will stick around and either pay directly or indirectly. If it was a paid service from the beginning they would never get the full head of steam that they have now. Based on the YouTube and Google revenue - it is unlikely that it is ever being described as a problem at the executive level. If they ramp up ads and lose 10% of the viewers - who cares? They are likely profitable at only 40% of the viewers so they can lose a few and STILL make more money by increasing the revenue per viewer.

[Kilrah]

As far as I know Youtube has never ever been financially profitable. It only lives on because it's a potential entry into Google's services which they value more than the loss it causes.

[rx8pilot]

As far as I know Youtube has never ever been financially profitable. It only lives on because it's a potential entry into Google's services which they value more than the loss it causes.

I believe you are correct - the founders likely had one mission. Sell the value of the audience which they did for an all stock sale. Google has the ad infrastructure in place to make money, but clearly wanted to roll this out slowly which I would guess to continue to build the audience before pushing for profit. The YouTube user base is absolutely massive and growing. Google could afford to be patient, especially with an all-stock acquisition. Mere mortals like me would need to make the money back ASAP, but Google is not in any rush in the quest to own the planet.

Well played Google, well played. The users have a crack addiction to YouTube and will either deal with ads or pay for RED. Those that run away, have few places to go with the breadth and depth of content.

[james_s]

I think their goal was to transform it into the video sharing component of Google+, which of course took off like a lead balloon. People realized after the Myspace to Facebook transition that any future social networking site was going to be the same deal, just a trojan horse for mining data.

[Yansi]

havent really noticed any increase in youtube adverts, however noticed my youtube income had dropped from $15 a month to half that in just two months. 

[nctnico]

Nowadays more people use ad-blockers because they are fed up with websites which light up like a Christmas tree, use data from their mobile phone subscribtions and slow down their phones/tablets/computers.