For context I’m in the US. The last time I used YouTube without an ad blocker, there were 2 ads back to back, and way too frequently. I tried watching on my PlayStation tonight, and not only are they more frequent, they’ve increased in quantity by 150%. It’s also very common for the last ad to last 2 minutes to over an hour long. What the actual fuck, why would anyone watch YouTube without an ad blocker at this point? It’s literally unwatchable

Edit: the amount of unsolicited advice in the comments is unreal. I don’t get ads on my phone or on desktop, I’m very aware of how to block them. I simply won’t watch YouTube on my PlayStation anymore. I’m not looking for suggestions, please stop with the recommendations.

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nlEnglish
    10·
    9 months ago

    I imagine those are just to trick autoplaying kiosks into becoming ad displays. Nobody expects you to watch more than a minute, but Youtube will let you select practically any video as an ad as long as it’s not age restricted. If you wanted to, you could spend money on pushing a “12 hours of white noise” video as an ad.

    This can be used to game the algorithm: ads are pushed out, but they’re also video plays. I believe the Spiffing Brit did a video on how he manages to manipulate the Youtube algorithm by promoting a certain uninteresting video of his as an ad, because Youtube suddenly saw a spike in impressions. I think Youtube patched that, but no doubt similar exploits still exist.