Youtube (like every other popular web platform) will keep pushing the button that says "make more money by degrading the user experience" until it (eventually) stops working. It's basically the iron law of encrapification.
This was my first thought. I would probably actively avoid a product if I saw ads pop up in the most annoying way possible.
I already have Premium, so this won’t really impact me, but I hope it fails.
I’ve really liked the engagement graph on videos, so I can jump to key moments, but I guess this is the monkey paw of that feature.
Though I do expect the AI to get it wrong. A significant number of peaks on the graph are after ad reads or when text is flashed on screen quickly, which people go back to read. These aren’t necessarily peaks points of the narrative.
what are people going to do, switch? There are no other viable (across a number of dimensions) alternative, it'll take many many years even at the worst levels of user experience before youtube dies. And large companies like this do not do long-term planning.
More premium users means fewer ad slots to sell. Which should drive up the price of each ad spot. Or, as you suggest, they can cram more ads in per video, and risk repelling the audience. I wonder what the equilibrium point is.
Eventually they'll just start driving up the price of premium too to make up for the lost ad revenue. The equilibrium is probably that no one bothers to use it without a subscription, and the subscription is way overpriced.
No wonder Chrome has been cracking down even harder on ad blockers recently...
This is why almost all communities need to be built on platforms backed by nonprofits and social ventures rather than on the shifting sands of corporate technofeudal overlords. The threat of being extorted and held hostage by corporate demands is an ever-present Sword of Damocles.
I've noticed on iPhone Youtube Premium I've had overlay ad widgets appear. I think they're for a creator's own merchandise, but I'm guessing that there's some sort of revenue mechanism for Youtube being happy to include these. To me it's still an ad and it's what I pay for to avoid seeing it.
I wonder how long we'll go for before we start to see ad-lite Premium, and something like Premium+ to view ad free.
This is why I quit paying for premium as well. The ads were less obnoxious but they were still there. Ads for channel stuff, ads for YouTube premium features, ads for channel memberships and whatnot.
I now pay for Nebula and it is a world of difference. I love that there is nothing but the video. I wouldn't mind comments but there are no related videos and nothing else. I just follow via RSS, click, watch video and leave. No fuss, nothing trying to grab my attention. It is just so relaxing compared to other platforms.
Oh good Lord. In fact I have noticed that lately YouTube was tracking the "most-watched" periods in every video with a little bar graph below it, so that was inevitable.
I am a satisfied & loyal customer of YouTube Premium Family edition [my "family" consists of 5 separate Google accounts I operate.] However, I still see more ads encroaching from every direction. The latest method is merch -- a lot of influencers will have customized keepsakes on offer, and YouTube will display the wares in the dooblydoo as you're watching each video. Each will link out to the storefront where you can purchase it. You know, tee shirts, mugs, plushies -- the kind of swag that says "I spend my disposable income to line the pockets of obscure entertainers."
The other ads I've got are for show tickets. Any group or troupe or entertainer who tours live will be hooked into YouTube's algorithm to find tickets for their shows. YouTube once told me that the closest venue for my favorite act was next week in Finland. It often leads to consternation because I hate live shows at this point, for many reasons, and sometimes I will price out a single ticket to my most-hated live show to see if it's $300 or $500. Sometimes in guilt for coveting that live ticket, I will donate the same amount to my favorite charity. That is how much I hate live shows and advertising.
The tour dates are completely made up in a lot of cases (no, YouTube, I don't think Tom Petty is playing next month in my town). I have a feeling it's just llm hallucinations that they're dumping on the page.
Google actually offered something along those lines for a few years, called Google Contributor, though I don’t think it applied to video ads like YouTube’s.
I have no inside info on why it didn’t survive even though I worked for Google when it initially launched (not on Contributor), but the fact remains it didn’t survive.
As pure personal speculation, I suspect it didn’t receive enough user uptake for Google to decide that it was worthwhile.
To avoid any confusion: I don’t work for Google now and am certainly not speaking for them in this comment.
The version that outbid ads was unreliable and not how I want an ad-replacement to work, and then the later version worked on a tiny tiny list of sites.
So even when it existed, I just lamented it didn't work like youtube red.
And that's in addition to them not telling people about it.
I’d pay to get them to stop tracking me. There’s no way to implement that without tracking me, so I just go with anyone but Google whenever possible.
The fact that Google has been intentionally making their products worse to enable price gouging (as proven in court) has made it easy for competitors to outperform all of Google’s offerings (except, arguably, YouTube, but that seems pretty moatless / prone to piracy).
You worked there and don't really know much about it. How in the world would Google expect anyone else to have known about it? I personally don't remember such a thing ever existing.
So assuming they did try it, I'd say it died from lack of awareness rather than people just didn't want it.
I knew a bit about it at the time (nothing confidential that I remember now), and saw both internal discussions and external media reports about it at the time. Wikipedia continues to document that it did exist. But sure, I don’t think it was very well publicized.
I will say that Google has generally been bad at product decisions and execution, such as genuinely understanding what their customers and users want or need and effectively giving that to them in a logistically and commercially viable way, more often than they’ve been good at product decisions and execution. (Engineering quality and technical innovation are completely separate questions, and ones at which Google has historically been excellent.)
It’s very possible that better product decisions or better execution could have made Contributor a success.
"If you’re an advertiser, this might sound like a brilliant move. For viewers, it’s pretty much the worst possible timing"
associating your product with a negative experience is not a brilliant move.
Youtube (like every other popular web platform) will keep pushing the button that says "make more money by degrading the user experience" until it (eventually) stops working. It's basically the iron law of encrapification.
they are trying to move to subscription model, seems like a reasonable alternative
Are they? I’m not convinced that could make more revenue from subscriptions compared to ads.
This was my first thought. I would probably actively avoid a product if I saw ads pop up in the most annoying way possible.
I already have Premium, so this won’t really impact me, but I hope it fails.
I’ve really liked the engagement graph on videos, so I can jump to key moments, but I guess this is the monkey paw of that feature.
Though I do expect the AI to get it wrong. A significant number of peaks on the graph are after ad reads or when text is flashed on screen quickly, which people go back to read. These aren’t necessarily peaks points of the narrative.
what are people going to do, switch? There are no other viable (across a number of dimensions) alternative, it'll take many many years even at the worst levels of user experience before youtube dies. And large companies like this do not do long-term planning.
Data proves otherwise.
They want to make it unusable without Premium. This will just get worse and worse until everyone gives in.
More premium users means fewer ad slots to sell. Which should drive up the price of each ad spot. Or, as you suggest, they can cram more ads in per video, and risk repelling the audience. I wonder what the equilibrium point is.
Eventually they'll just start driving up the price of premium too to make up for the lost ad revenue. The equilibrium is probably that no one bothers to use it without a subscription, and the subscription is way overpriced.
No wonder Chrome has been cracking down even harder on ad blockers recently...
This is also an opportunity to start showing ads in premium and then create a ultra-premium subscription with none of these ads.
This is pretty much what happened in India with all the OTT subscriptions (looking at you Disney+Hotstar)
[dead]
or until revenues drop because people either watch less or avoid buying from companies that pay money to ruin videos...
or you know, just don’t use the fucking platform. last time I loaded youtube … it’s been years
If consumers don't own the tech they rely on, they should expect it to be weaponized to control them
This is why almost all communities need to be built on platforms backed by nonprofits and social ventures rather than on the shifting sands of corporate technofeudal overlords. The threat of being extorted and held hostage by corporate demands is an ever-present Sword of Damocles.
I've noticed on iPhone Youtube Premium I've had overlay ad widgets appear. I think they're for a creator's own merchandise, but I'm guessing that there's some sort of revenue mechanism for Youtube being happy to include these. To me it's still an ad and it's what I pay for to avoid seeing it.
I wonder how long we'll go for before we start to see ad-lite Premium, and something like Premium+ to view ad free.
This is why I quit paying for premium as well. The ads were less obnoxious but they were still there. Ads for channel stuff, ads for YouTube premium features, ads for channel memberships and whatnot.
I now pay for Nebula and it is a world of difference. I love that there is nothing but the video. I wouldn't mind comments but there are no related videos and nothing else. I just follow via RSS, click, watch video and leave. No fuss, nothing trying to grab my attention. It is just so relaxing compared to other platforms.
When Twitter enshittified like this and got away with it, the precedent was set.
Monetization of misery for the almighty $$$. Airlines to streaming tier plans.
Dumb move, I don't mind ads during normal viewing but if they happen at the crescendo it will piss people off
Firefox and uBlock continue to be a must for navigating the web.
Firefox is actively blocked by many services.
Never encountered that, do you have an example?
What? I use it (or its forks) exclusively and can't remember the last time I was blocked from anything.
Oh good Lord. In fact I have noticed that lately YouTube was tracking the "most-watched" periods in every video with a little bar graph below it, so that was inevitable.
I am a satisfied & loyal customer of YouTube Premium Family edition [my "family" consists of 5 separate Google accounts I operate.] However, I still see more ads encroaching from every direction. The latest method is merch -- a lot of influencers will have customized keepsakes on offer, and YouTube will display the wares in the dooblydoo as you're watching each video. Each will link out to the storefront where you can purchase it. You know, tee shirts, mugs, plushies -- the kind of swag that says "I spend my disposable income to line the pockets of obscure entertainers."
The other ads I've got are for show tickets. Any group or troupe or entertainer who tours live will be hooked into YouTube's algorithm to find tickets for their shows. YouTube once told me that the closest venue for my favorite act was next week in Finland. It often leads to consternation because I hate live shows at this point, for many reasons, and sometimes I will price out a single ticket to my most-hated live show to see if it's $300 or $500. Sometimes in guilt for coveting that live ticket, I will donate the same amount to my favorite charity. That is how much I hate live shows and advertising.
The tour dates are completely made up in a lot of cases (no, YouTube, I don't think Tom Petty is playing next month in my town). I have a feeling it's just llm hallucinations that they're dumping on the page.
> "most-watched" periods in every video with a little bar graph below it
I use that to skip the in-video promotions
Sponsorblock extension does that automatically
I remember when everyone was wishing they could just pay their own ad revenue in money and not have to see any ads.
Isn’t that what premium does? Or do they have ads?
Google actually offered something along those lines for a few years, called Google Contributor, though I don’t think it applied to video ads like YouTube’s.
I have no inside info on why it didn’t survive even though I worked for Google when it initially launched (not on Contributor), but the fact remains it didn’t survive.
As pure personal speculation, I suspect it didn’t receive enough user uptake for Google to decide that it was worthwhile.
To avoid any confusion: I don’t work for Google now and am certainly not speaking for them in this comment.
The version that outbid ads was unreliable and not how I want an ad-replacement to work, and then the later version worked on a tiny tiny list of sites.
So even when it existed, I just lamented it didn't work like youtube red.
And that's in addition to them not telling people about it.
I’d pay to get them to stop tracking me. There’s no way to implement that without tracking me, so I just go with anyone but Google whenever possible.
The fact that Google has been intentionally making their products worse to enable price gouging (as proven in court) has made it easy for competitors to outperform all of Google’s offerings (except, arguably, YouTube, but that seems pretty moatless / prone to piracy).
> There’s no way to implement that without tracking me
Monero.
You worked there and don't really know much about it. How in the world would Google expect anyone else to have known about it? I personally don't remember such a thing ever existing.
So assuming they did try it, I'd say it died from lack of awareness rather than people just didn't want it.
I knew a bit about it at the time (nothing confidential that I remember now), and saw both internal discussions and external media reports about it at the time. Wikipedia continues to document that it did exist. But sure, I don’t think it was very well publicized.
I will say that Google has generally been bad at product decisions and execution, such as genuinely understanding what their customers and users want or need and effectively giving that to them in a logistically and commercially viable way, more often than they’ve been good at product decisions and execution. (Engineering quality and technical innovation are completely separate questions, and ones at which Google has historically been excellent.)
It’s very possible that better product decisions or better execution could have made Contributor a success.
Some people want something like that, other people just want ads to not be terrible.
And that desire can vary per-service.