[HN Gopher] YouTube on TVs getting unskippable 30-second and pau...
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YouTube on TVs getting unskippable 30-second and pause screen ads
Author : thesuperbigfrog
Score : 56 points
Date : 2023-05-18 12:33 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5google.com)
| zamnos wrote:
| I have discovered the _ultimate_ secret to skipping YouTube ads!
| See what you 've got to do is sign up for YouTube Premium and
| then the ads magically go away! Crazy, innit?
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I would love to get premium. But I can't. There is only a
| creditcard option and creditcards are not common in my country.
| So until youtube will implement a way for me to actually pay I
| will continue to ad block.
| lxgr wrote:
| Doesn't Google sell gift cards (the kind you can buy using
| cash in stores) in almost all countries at this point?
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Last I checked I need to add a credit card even if I want
| to use google play store funds.
| cheeze wrote:
| I don't understand why some people are SO OPPOSED to YouTube
| Premium.
|
| Maybe it's that I watch a tooon of youtube, but it's the best
| subscription I have. Easily worth the cost IMO. Hell, don't get
| ads in my browser with yt regardless (ad blockers) but I pay
| for premium solely so that when I'm watching _youtube on
| someone elses TV_ I don't see ads.
|
| IDK. I'm fine with them having to make money. And I'm fine just
| paying instead of having to sit through ads.
|
| If you're not paying the company, you're the product. I'm happy
| that I can pay to not get ads.
|
| I do the same with Twitch Turbo as well. It just... seems
| straightforward to me that this would be the preferred option
| for someone who can't sit through an ad.
| fakedang wrote:
| Because you're the kind of customers Google wants. Not
| because you're paying for a service, but because you have
| shown that you want to pay for a service, which they can
| otherwise show for free with ads. You're the kind of customer
| advertisers want to see their ads blasted to. And trust me,
| while Google may not have ads for you now, it will happen
| eventually - and you won't see it coming. Heck, they might
| already be serving you to the advertisers in other ways.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > while Google may not have ads for you now, it will happen
| eventually - and you won't see it coming.
|
| That's fine. It's good for now. If Google starts showing me
| ads anyway, then I'll cancel my subscription and stop using
| YouTube.
| unpopularopp wrote:
| >I don't understand why some people are SO OPPOSED to YouTube
| Premium.
|
| Making something worse then let people paying for to make it
| better is not a deal at all.
| pb7 wrote:
| They're not making it worse, they're monetizing it in a way
| that's palatable by those that can't afford to pay.
|
| Video is expensive to serve. There's no way around it.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Video is expensive to serve.
|
| Whatever Youtube is commonly serving me doesn't exactly
| look like premium bitrates, to be honest.
|
| I recently uploaded a pan/landscape shot and was shocked
| by how blocky the result looks like - even (or
| especially) in "4K60 HDR".
| pb7 wrote:
| What are you comparing it to? What are some alternatives
| that serve up 4K@60 HDR for free?
| lxgr wrote:
| I'd honestly rather they make 4K60 a paid tier, and stick
| to a resolution they can afford to deliver at an
| appropriate data rate for non-paying viewers.
| haupt wrote:
| > They're not making it worse, they're monetizing it in a
| way that's palatable by those that can't afford to pay.
|
| If it were so palatable I don't think there'd be such a
| fuss about it (which there clearly is). Most people don't
| like ads at all.[1]
|
| 1.
| https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-
| repor...
| pb7 wrote:
| There's a fuss because people want something for nothing.
| This is not at all surprising or interesting.
| rlpb wrote:
| I'm not hugely opposed to it, but my understanding is that
| whether or not I'm subscribe the videos will still be
| produced with clickbait titles, beg me to subscribe, include
| product placement, stretch everything out to try and keep me
| watching for as long as possible, over-promise and under-
| deliver, and so on. I'd pay to get rid of all of that
| nonsense. But just the ads? I have yet to be persuaded.
| bmarquez wrote:
| I'd rather support the creator directly through Patreon or
| buying their products (which I do occasionally) than sending
| money to Google.
|
| Besides, YouTube Premium doesn't get rid of creator
| sponsorships.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I subscribe to Premium. It seems like a fair deal to me. My
| monthly payment is to Google in exchange for them
| delivering a service that I find valuable (the video
| storage and delivery mechanism). If I had to watch ads
| instead, I wouldn't use the service at all.
|
| Creator ad reads, Patreon, merch, a portion of my Premium
| fee, etc., is to the creators in exchange for the work that
| they do that I find valuable.
|
| It's a win all around as near as I can see.
|
| That said, when a non-Googly service appears that can
| satisfy my video desires approximately as well, I'll bail
| on YouTube in a heartbeat and use the Premium money to pay
| for that.
| lxgr wrote:
| I'd subscribe in a heartbeat if it wasn't bundled with
| Youtube Music.
|
| Paying for two music subscriptions at once just seems silly.
| liampulles wrote:
| If you are watching for free, then you are the product (for
| advertisers). This is not a new thing. If you don't like ads, pay
| for a subscription.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I mean, just hook your TV up to a PC, even a raspberry pi can
| handle streaming video. Spares you the janky remote control
| navigation as well. Not sure why anyone even bothers with all the
| terrible smart TV apps.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| You don't know why people prefer hitting a button that says
| "YouTube" vs. setting up a raspberry pi?
| icybox wrote:
| You still can, SmartTube could be sideloaded on smart TVs
| and/or TV sticks with usbOTG cable. https://smarttube.app/
|
| It can skip ads and/or sponsor segments, intro, outro etc.
| jon-wood wrote:
| Or I can pay YouTube for the premium tier without ads. I'm
| aware these things exist, but I'm also allergic to having
| to sysadmin things that I use to unwind after a day of
| sysadmining things.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| How do I control my PC from across the room?
| mkl wrote:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wireless+keyboard+with+trackpad&at.
| ..
| Barrin92 wrote:
| through the magic of bluetooth peripherals you can buy for 15
| bucks on amazon
| globular-toast wrote:
| Some kind of wireless controller. Tons of options ranging
| from branded (e.g. Logitech) to cheap generic Chinese stuff
| from Amazon/AliExpress.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| "Using an IR Remote with a Raspberry Pi Media Center",
| https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-ir-remote-with-a-
| raspber...
|
| You will have to buy the Raspberry Pi from 3 children in a
| trenchcoat in the subterranean parking of the abandoned mall,
| but it should work.
| xnx wrote:
| YouTube doing its best to get people to shift their time to
| Tiktok where (for now) you can skip any ad immediately.
| rchaud wrote:
| > The second big announcement are ads that appear "when people
| pause a video." What you're watching will shrink and an
| advertisement will appear next to that window. In the example
| provided, we see an "Ad" that's labeled with some text and a QR
| code.
|
| An ad strategy inspired by pirate soccer streaming websites.
| What's next, a "Close Ad" button that moves a few pixels away
| when you try to click it?
| Arrath wrote:
| No there's an 'X' in the usual close ad button spot but its
| just part of the picture/video. The real close button is
| camouflaged with the contents and hidden in a random sot.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Are YouTube unskippable ads reviewed for content, or is it a
| free-for-all system like the current ads? That's the problem I
| have as some of the current content is annoying, if not
| disgusting, the ad I saw that showed cartoon poop was awful.
| ddeck wrote:
| Such is the nature of public companies and the need for continued
| growth.
|
| Much like search before it, they've saturated the market, and so
| instead of growing by adding eyeballs, they now need more revenue
| per eyeball.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Or maybe consider this is a somewhat necessary evil for the
| service provided (free HD streaming of infinite amounts of
| video that also rewards creators in the most sustainable
| fashion for any social media platform). Bandwidth, storage and
| monetization isn't free. What exactly do you want? A service
| that will spend their money to deliver arbitrary HD video on
| demand and lose money?
|
| YouTube premium exists, costs less than Netflix and provides
| infinitely more value for the money at this point. Every single
| person I nonconsensually forced YouTube premium on has come
| back to thank me for doing so. The last time people were happy
| i techno-assaulted them was when I introduced them all to
| Dropbox a decade back.
| tm-guimaraes wrote:
| > Or maybe consider this is a somewhat necessary evil for the
| service provided
|
| No.
|
| Monetisation is needed, going to extremes is not. The quest
| for infinite growth has created these extremes, it is indeed
| to blame. User # is exhausted, now it's time for more $ per
| user. Profitability is not enough, more money needs to be
| made, and when imagination is lacking to find more business
| areas, you simply fuck up the users or customers of your
| products which have the biggest lock-in.
| sircastor wrote:
| > YouTube premium exists, costs less than Netflix
|
| My family just ditched YT premium because they upped the
| price to $22.99/month. Or Netflix subscription is $9.99.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| You just compared a family YT plan to a single user Netflix
| plan. The single user plans are equivalent in cost as are
| the family plans.
| sircastor wrote:
| That's fair, I was comparing the prices I was paying.
|
| That said, as of this writing Netflix's premium plan is
| $19.99/m. YouTube's is $22.99. While they are comparable,
| they are not equivalent.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Let me see, endless entertainment plus education vs another
| documentary glorifying a serial killer or the lost
| continent of Atlantis?
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Let me see, paid endless entertainment plus education or
| ad-blocked endless entertainment plus education?
| ddeck wrote:
| I wouldn't say necessary, but I also don't think it's
| unreasonable. They're simply doing what is in their interest
| to do.
|
| YouTube generated about $30 billion in revenue last year.
| Google don't break out their operating or net numbers, but
| I'd be pretty confident that they are already quite
| profitable.
|
| What is reasonably apparent though, is that their user growth
| is flattening [1], and thus their revenue also [2].
|
| Trying to increase ARPU is the obvious move, as it was with
| search.
|
| [1] https://infogram.com/youtube-users-1h1749vqe9nzl6z
|
| [2] https://infogram.com/youtube-revenue-1hxj48pqyenmq2v
| bm3719 wrote:
| > What exactly do you want? A service that will spend their
| money to deliver arbitrary HD video on demand and lose money?
|
| I'd probably want options instead of a singular proprietary
| garden, antithetical to the open web, where all content is
| hosted.
|
| Just one example: I'd be fine with a service that respected
| my time and just had a list of sponsored links associated
| with the content of the video, but everything was in
| 480p-720p. Maybe that wouldn't be ideal for everyone, but
| that's how the web was supposed to work: lots of approaches,
| only unified by consensus-derived protocols.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I'm ok giving Google my money/data in exchange of this
| service. However they constantly increase it service over
| time : more functions, better quality, higher fps while I
| don't need neither want it.
|
| Nothing wrong with higher bandwidth enthusiasts but I won't
| pay or see ads "for them".
|
| Google, give me a YT with price/ads adapting to the data
| consumption (plus some fix extra if needed), I'll encourage
| everyone around me consuming "the right video with the right
| ad"
| paul7986 wrote:
| I rarely watch any other streaming app! 95% to 98% of what I
| watch is YouTube. I've gotten so use to the short clips that I
| noticed I haven't had any interest in watching any Disney plus
| shows and I loved season one and two of The Mandalorian.
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| For this to work they would need to really improve the
| recommendation algorithm by a lot! E.g. if I knew that I had a
| couple of high quality videos lined up to watch this evening, I
| might tolerate a couple of minutes of ads in between. But I would
| not tolerate them between random short trash videos... I would
| just watch a lot less Youtube then (which would maybe be a good
| thing tbh).
| maxbaines wrote:
| Rare I say this but I think broadly YouTube has a good offering
| even with 30second ad's. If you don't want ad's pay for premium I
| do and get more entertainment and education value than say
| Netflix and others. For instance in the UK there is a service
| called NowTV run by Sky, you pay ~PS10 a month for entertainment
| package and more for sport and then still get ad's which for me
| makes it a no go.
| bhanu423 wrote:
| I also seem to get ads on TV if I cast on it from a different
| account. Both the accounts in question have premium, so it seems
| Google has also forced ads on casting by non-primary users. Does
| anyone else face same issue ?
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Honestly expect this to only get worse as a Premium user. Now
| its ads on cast, next it'll be a 15s ad every video, and so on
| and so forth till you're forced to watch 1m ads per video. And
| it'll absolutely cost more too.
|
| Us non-Premium users? Probably unskippable 5m before, during,
| and after.
| kjsingh wrote:
| If you are averse to ad blockers getting your browser history,
| you can disable video auto play. For me it freezes the ads and
| brings to Skip Ad button.
| smallmouth wrote:
| Yeah, youtube is the new boobtube and it's become somewhat of a
| mild addiction for me. Maybe if I start seeing these 30 second
| unskippables it will help in the cure. There are so many more
| productive things to be doing than watching youtube.
| lsllc wrote:
| "Did you know Nova Scotia has over 13,000 miles of coastline?
| Wanna bet?"
|
| I have seen that same damn ad 1000's of times over the last few
| months while watching Picard in the Paramount LG TV app -- it's
| usually played twice, back to back to fill a 60 second slot ... I
| see it at every ad break. What is the point? That's why I have an
| adblocker for Y-T.
| belltaco wrote:
| There's also a new "1080p Premium Bitrate" option in the
| resolution settings menu for some videos now which needs a sub to
| YouTube Premium to unlock.
| baybal2 wrote:
| [dead]
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Someone really needs to make the Sonarr equivalent for YouTube
| (or maybe it already exists) where you plug in your list of
| subscriptions and it just automatically downloads them and adds
| them to Plex/Jellyfin. Sidestep this bullshit entirely.
|
| YouTube is a lot like reddit in that, if you're curating your
| subscriptions, there's a lot of good and worthwhile stuff to be
| found, but if you're just taking the default stuff that the site
| pushes to you, you're going to be mired in absolute garbage non-
| stop.
|
| Take the power back!
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| Yt-dlp has this feature, all I had to do was set up a cron job
| to run it once a night and clean up videos more than 3 days
| old.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Tubesync? I actually just tried this out a few days ago and it
| didn't appear to work out of the box - I need to play with its
| knobs and switches to figure out why it isn't indexing the
| channels I fed it.
|
| In any case according to the instructions on the tin it should
| work.
| dageshi wrote:
| [flagged]
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Why give YouTube money? They make plenty off Premium, ads,
| and user data and _still_ do shit like this. Not to mention
| the fact that they censor legal content, their algos have
| gotten worse, they broke search, they manually select most of
| the trending tab, false DMCAs get accepted constantly, and
| what little algos do work snuff out small channels who
| struggle to reach viewers like me because I keep getting
| recommended the same 5 videos regardless of what I watch.
|
| Tl;dr fuck YouTube I genuinely hope LBRY or Peertube take its
| place sooner rather than later.
| dageshi wrote:
| Because youtube is probably one of the most expensive sites
| on the net to run, it's also one of the most useful sites
| on the net full stop.
|
| If ads are the problem, google provides a solution in
| Youtube Premium, a solution I should add that I frequently
| hear people on HN begging for e.g. "Don't make me deal with
| ads, let me just pay for it".
|
| When the rubber meets the road though, people won't
| actually pay to remove ads, they, like you, will come up
| with any number of excuses to avoid doing so.
| whatarethembits wrote:
| No, YouTube DOESN'T provide a complete solution to ads.
| Once I pay for premium, I still have to sit through 2 -4
| sponsor reads per video for many channels I follow. I
| know that's not entirely on YouTube, but that doesn't
| matter to me as a consumer. I pay, and ads are still
| there. That's a no go for me.
| dageshi wrote:
| Excuses. With premium you could install sponsor block and
| legitimately say you've paid for the content. Youtube
| would be happy because they don't care that you skip
| sponsor reads, the creator would be happy because they
| got your revenue from premium AND the sponsor can't tell
| you skipped so even they don't care.
|
| In other words win, win, win.
|
| But I'm assuming this still isn't enough for you to pay
| because as evidenced by this thread there is always some
| excuse why it's not possible to pay for the content
| watched while at the same time blocking ads.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Youtube is one of the most expensive sites because they
| chose to model their infustructure this way. Same reason
| facebook needs such massive servers. It wants control of
| the data.
|
| Youtube could be re-done in a peer-to-peer format a la
| torrents. You subscribe to someone and watch their videos
| you're also re-uploading to others. Tada, massive server
| problems disapear.
| realusername wrote:
| > Youtube could be re-done in a peer-to-peer format a la
| torrents
|
| This is my dream, it's not going to happen though because
| what Youtube cares even more than server costs is
| controlling videos
| holoduke wrote:
| Lol your peer will run 100% CPU whenever a video is
| requested on basic hardware. Live transcoding, subtitles,
| tagging. Every time a video is published your system
| becomes hugged to death. Nobody is able to watch videos
| normally unless there is some decent spread. Nah end
| users don't want to have this problematic user
| experience.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| So my genuine grievances with a platform are "excuses"
| for not giving them my hard-earned cash? Maybe you need
| to re-evaluate your relationship with YouTube.
|
| I won't give them my money nor time because on every
| level I find them a disgusting business. I only put up
| with them due to the fact that they are, unfortunately,
| the only major player in town with many content creators
| I enjoy. I wish they would move to FOSS solutions, but
| unfortunately adoption is slow amongst non-tech channels.
| Instead, I use RSS and Invidious to interface with the
| content I enjoy in a way far superior to YouTube's own
| offerings, all for free. And thus I can take the money I
| save from Premium and give it to creators directly via
| donation services/merch.
|
| If you believe its somehow "worth it" to support a
| multibillion company that is backed by an even larger
| corporation who has made it clear time and time again
| they don't care about their creators, then by all means
| go ahead, but your assessment that these are "excuses" to
| "avoid" paying for a service I don't require is detached
| from reality on every level.
| mox1 wrote:
| If they are a "disgusting company" that "doesn't care
| about their creators" why are you still utilizing it!
|
| You can't have your cake and eat it too. Its incredibly
| disingenuous to say all this, then go on to watch hours
| of YouTube a week.. Sounds like mental gymnastics to
| justify your continued enjoyment of their platform while
| sticking it to them.
|
| I dislike Google, but damn sure I'm paying for youtube
| premium. I swear under my breath every month when they
| charge my card, but at the end of the day the value is
| there for me and my family, not sure what else to say....
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _If ads are the problem, google provides a solution in
| Youtube Premium, a solution I should add that I
| frequently hear people on HN begging for e.g. "Don't make
| me deal with ads, let me just pay for it"._
|
| Does it really work like that? I honestly don't know, I
| haven't tried - because I don't _trust_ it, not after
| having its advert endlessly shoved in my face.
|
| Would you trust a gangster to leave you alone if you
| agree to their protection racket? Why should I believe a
| company that engages in deeply immoral, antisocial
| activities, when they say that I can be spared from it if
| only I give them a bit of my money every month?
|
| For as long as uBlock Origin and yt-dlp work, or any of
| their current and future alternatives work, I will not
| subscribe to YouTube Premium. I'll happily pay 2x that to
| uBO, though (if Gorhill was accepting donations), because
| with respect to YouTube, on top of not having ads, it
| gives me following extra features:
|
| - _Really_ no ads. Except the ones included by "content
| creators" themselves (one of these days I'll install
| SponsorBlock).
|
| - Less tracking. Does YouTube Premium make Google track
| you less? Didn't think so.
|
| - Less of the obnoxious UI "improvements". uBO also makes
| it easy to have some minimal control of my YouTube
| experience, by means like letting me delete or forever
| block UI clutter that I personally find annoying.
|
| - Same and more benefits for embedded YouTube videos, as
| well as the whole web.
|
| Wake me up when Google actually promises to not do user-
| hostile things in Premium, and when their word is
| actually worth anything.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Doesn't remove sponsored ads, doesn't remove
| suggested/related videos, doesn't let you chron download to
| files on a schedule that works for you.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I actually do pay for Youtube, and I think for $10/mo, the
| amount of guitar related content I use to learn and entertain
| myself is well worth it.
|
| But still, pulling down the stuff you like and escaping the
| algorithm has a lot of merit.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Pause screen ads disgust me
| uncletaco wrote:
| YouTube following in porn's footsteps I see.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| Advertisers hate him! Here's one weird trick to block ads...
| ericmay wrote:
| Feels like it's better to be an investor in $GOOG than to be a
| user...
| Zetice wrote:
| YouTube's ad platform had a bug in it yesterday that looped the
| new Little Mermaid ad through most of the 4th quarter of an NBA
| playoff game, and I haven't seen much from them about it.
|
| Twitter was on fire about it, so I don't think it was just me.
| hqudsi wrote:
| For me it was that coinbase ad.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| 'YouTube on connected (smart) televisions is adding 30-second
| "non-skips." These unskippable ads will appear on YouTube Select
| content, which is what the company deems to be the top videos.
| This longer format allows marketers to "use existing assets in
| front of the most-streamed content."'
|
| 'The second big announcement are ads that appear "when people
| pause a video." What you're watching will shrink and an
| advertisement will appear next to that window. In the example
| provided, we see an "Ad" that's labeled with some text and a QR
| code. There's a "Dismiss" button at the bottom to presumably
| return to the normal fullscreen pause screen, or you can just hit
| play again to resume.'
|
| We are quickly approaching the "drink verification can"-level of
| ad injection and user hostility:
| https://i.redd.it/t9hsu8y6cts11.png
|
| Sony wants users to play an "ad game":
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US8246454B2/en
|
| Google wants you to acknowledge an ad to unpause a video.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I mean, obviously more ads are annoying, but I don't see how
| this is functionally worse than TV ads. You can't skip those
| either, and unlike with YouTube there's not even an option to
| pay to get rid of them.
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| 1) people use youtube to not have to see TV ads 2) tv ads of
| today are wildly different that TV ads of years ago; they
| (ads) are simply getting more aggressive every year 3)
| electronic DRMs means an AD company knows exactly which
| microseconds were watched and by whom; many folks do not want
| to be tracked like that (and more folks simply "dont care"
| and offer "logic" along the lines "everybody poops, who cares
| if they know when i go poop", ect
| tssva wrote:
| > 1) people use youtube to not have to see TV ads
|
| Then the good news is they still can by paying for YouTube
| Premium. The service has to be paid for somehow and Google
| gives you two choices, your eyeballs or a subscription.
| wpietri wrote:
| As a person with a low tolerance for ads, I work hard to avoid
| them in all contexts. So it's absolutely wild to me what people
| will put up with. There seems to be some sort of unholy
| alliance between "number must go up" and "cooking the frog
| slowly" that means things are going to keep getting worse. I
| figure there must be a breaking point somewhere, but I would
| have expected it to come years ago, so I genuinely wonder how
| bad it can get.
| mkl wrote:
| Half the time when I pause a video, it's to have a better look
| at something on the screen. The related videos that pop up on
| pause are annoying enough, but at least I can close that panel.
| albert_e wrote:
| > "drink verification can"
|
| This reminds me ...
|
| There was a video ad many many years ago (2004 or older) that
| showed a future with strict authentication and access controls
| ... where employee has to "submit a DNA sample to continue"
| when they log into a workstation.
|
| The ad shows a bald man first running his hand over a
| completely bald head deviod of any hair, then opening a couple
| of buttons of his shirt only to find his chest is also
| completely hairless (presumably already used for previous
| logins) then he finally sighs and starts to unzip ... ad cuts
| to black.
|
| I have never been able to locate this again nor recollect what
| product / service / brand the ad was for. It was probably some
| cybersecurity or consulting firm.
|
| Anyone here remembers?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Reminds me of a more mundane version in an excellent sci-fi
| TV series, _Incorporated_ (cancelled for $deity knows why,
| while lesser series continued). IIRC, it featured login
| authorization by DNA sample, with a neat-looking circular
| device that would stick a needle in your finger to draw
| blood.
|
| Another interesting concept from that show was NDAs being
| treated quite literally - per the agreement, if you're to
| quit or get fired, you'll be put in a device that wipes all
| covered corporate secrets from your memory. The process
| wasn't perfect, and could result in a total memory wipe,
| removing all your memories from the employment period.
| Allegedly. It's not like there are people who remember it
| happening.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The memory-wiping thing was also the premise of _Paycheck_.
| rideontime wrote:
| I do remember this, why do you ask?
| albert_e wrote:
| Great! I would like to know which brand or service it was
| for.
|
| Curious to know what they ridiculed as the absurd future --
| and how far/close actual biometric security has come in
| these two decades since.
|
| Sorry it is off-topic, just my curiosity.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I doubt it was for a security product, but unfortunately I
| saw it exactly once and I don't remember what it was about.
|
| I seem to remember that a colleague shows up briefly, also
| bald. But search engines have been aggressively unhelpful.
|
| _Edit:_ your comment is now the Google top result for
| searches on this ad. Congratulations?
| bheadmaster wrote:
| _Write a small essay on the advantages of capitalism to skip
| this ad._
|
| The world is really turning into an episode of Black Mirror.
| xg15 wrote:
| And with LLMs we now would actually have the ability to
| automatically verify such an essay. The future is gonna be
| fun ...
| tehbeard wrote:
| So looking forward to pausing a video on the TV to answer the
| phone / talk to someone in the room, only for said TV to start
| blaring an advert at a stupid volume, as I assume the horrible
| audio level mixing on regular TV will be present here.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Don't you worry. Most (all?) companies in smart TV space are
| also making their own mobile phones, so of course they'll
| offer you a special service that mutes the ads when it
| detects you're close to the TV and are picking up a phone
| call.
|
| There is no problem adtech creates, that cannot be solved by
| more invasive telemetry.
| ballenf wrote:
| There's also the silver lining that eavesdropping on the
| call would be complicated by ad audio.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > There is no problem adtech creates, that cannot be solved
| by more invasive telemetry.
|
| Well, except for the "invasive telemetry", of course.
| whitemary wrote:
| Exactly. This sounds like Hell.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| It was bound to happen.
| pers0n wrote:
| They need that money to try to invest more into the AI war
| tikkun wrote:
| If you can afford it, YouTube Premium is well worth it. It's high
| up on my list of time and annoyance saved vs $ spent.
| mkl wrote:
| But you have to be logged in. I often pop into an incognito
| window to watch a video that I don't want YouTube to recommend
| things related to, which seems to work. YouTube Premium
| prevents that, right?
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| I've found that just removing the video from my watch history
| after I watch it side steps this issue entirely. Frankly,
| seems a bit easier than opening a whole incognito window and
| being forced to watch ads anyways.
| mkl wrote:
| It's hardly an ordeal to press ctrl-shift-n, or right-click
| and "Open link in incognito window". There are no ads with
| uBlock Origin allowed in incognito windows. There is no
| need to worry about manually maintaining watch history
| either.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| Fair point, but I'm already paying for YT Premium and on
| mobile switching to an Incognito tab would be a lot more
| work. I tend to watch a lot more YT content on mobile
| like during my commute on the ferry. On desktop
| definitely agree though!
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Turn off YouTube history tracking. Then subscribe a lot to
| content you like. Then ignore the front page, and just scroll
| your subscriptions. The algorithm is really just candy, you
| are much better just curating your subscription list. You
| will get recommendations from end the end of videos.
| [deleted]
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| And if you can't/don't want to give YT anything but scraps, a
| VPN set to Turkey does wonders.
| RhodesianHunter wrote:
| That just feels like rewarding bad behavior to me.
| adictator wrote:
| You got to pay somewhere - either for the premium or for the
| ads. Nothing is really free in this world.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| How? TV has Ads, and then you pay for Cable and you still get
| ads. This removes all youtube provided ads.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _TV has Ads, and then you pay for Cable and you still get
| ads._
|
| Yup, and Cable was the YouTube Premium of TV back in the
| day. Advertising is cancer - it slowly consumes every
| communication medium it touches.
|
| Remember: by paying to remove ads, you self-identify as
| someone who has disposable income and is willing to spend
| it, making you the _prime_ target for advertisers. This
| money isn 't going to be left on the table to waste
| forever.
| rchaud wrote:
| You pay for cable to get cable channels. It was never
| offered as an ad-free option.
| rblatz wrote:
| Who is paying for cable???
| nickthegreek wrote:
| in 2021, 56% of Americans.
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's well worth it. Unfortunately it's also increased my binge
| YouTube consumption but I haven't seen an ad in years and it's
| so refreshing.
| glitcher wrote:
| And it seems they're making every effort to drive you crazy if
| you don't subscribe to premium.
|
| Hulu is doing something similar using crazy loud ads on their
| non-premium subscription. Searching their support forums for
| "ads too loud" brings up threads going back multiple years. I
| thought this practice was illegal, but perhaps there is a
| loophole when it comes to streaming content?
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Even if it is (I'm not sure), good luck getting regulators to
| do anything.
| rchaud wrote:
| Spotify mastered this a decade ago. They could detect when
| your PC volume was muted during an ad. They'd pause the ad
| and resume it once the mute was turned off.
| kldavis4 wrote:
| I totally agree. Over time it has became one of our family's
| most consistently used streaming services. Seeing this actually
| reminded me that we were using premium (I had forgotten about
| the free option). The subscription also includes Youtube Music
| (which is a passable replacement for Spotify).
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I like to have Long plays of old retro video games playing on
| my TV in the background while I work, almost like a fancier
| screensaver, so YouTube premium has been a godsend.
|
| There's a hell of a lot of money it takes to maintain a content
| hosting infrastructure as massive as YouTube, so I always shake
| my head when people naively expect they should get something
| like that for completely free.
| hdlothia wrote:
| Fine by me, and we should bring commercials back to regular tv
| too. I enjoyed the golden age of streaming as much as anyone
| else, but I always wondered how streamers were able to replace
| the huge sums of money from advertisements with just subscription
| money. Turns out they can't? We'll see, but I don't find
| advertisements to be as much of a plague as the rest of my
| generation.
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| am i the only one worried that this will be one step closer for
| youtube to fight against yt-dlp and others, with a means to say
| it is circumnavigating more of their stuff?
| ipython wrote:
| Glad I kept my 10+ year old TiVo equipment around. Sounds like
| time to switch back to "old school" cable tv.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sounds like a lot of work to avoid paying $12 per month and
| getting a much inferior quantity and quality of service.
| rchaud wrote:
| It's 20% less inefficient than it was when YT Premium was
| $9.99. It'll be paying for itself in a couple of years.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Nah, time to move on to a single board computer running Kodi or
| Jellyfin, time to access YouTube only through a proxy like
| Invidious, time to become self-sufficient.
| dogleash wrote:
| You can homebrew a modern replacement with Plex, HDHomeRun
| Prime and a cablecard.
|
| I did that for a few years until I realized I wasn't really
| watching TV.
| gspencley wrote:
| I bought a "tiny PC", installed Kubuntu on it, bought a USB
| remote control and used KDE's insane configurability to set it
| up to look and feel like a TV OS in order to turn my "smart" TV
| into a "dumb" one. One where I can watch YouTube in a full-
| screened web browser with an ad blocker installed.
| Jochim wrote:
| A potential alternative for those with AndroidTV devices is
| sideloading SmartTubeNext[0].
|
| I've been using it on my nVidia Shield for a while now. No
| ads, a lot of UI customisation, and Sponsorblock is
| integrated as well.
|
| [0] https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
| bentcorner wrote:
| This app also works on Fire TVs. The Fire TV UI is kind of
| a dumpster fire but installing and using SmartTubeNext on
| them is pretty easy.
| wisam wrote:
| That's interesting.
|
| Would you share the details of the hardware setup (MiniPC,
| USB remote control) and screenshots of your configured
| KDE/Plasma desktop?
| czx4f4bd wrote:
| Yeah, I plugged a NUC into my TV, installed Pop OS on it, and
| got a Pepper Jobs USB gyro-remote to control it, and it
| instantly upgraded my living room.
|
| I previously used my PS4 for watching everything, but having
| a full desktop OS is just way better: I can browse the web on
| my TV, control it remotely with my laptop's keyboard and
| mouse using Barrier, open multiple live feeds in picture-in-
| picture mode, play music in the background of whatever I'm
| watching, etc. Also, when I'm watching sports and they go to
| a side-by-side commercial break, I use the zoom accessibility
| feature to zoom in on the tiny live feed so I can watch that
| full screen without seeing any ads haha.
|
| I'd be curious to know more about how you configured KDE. I
| run a pretty vanilla Pop OS setup right now, which is more
| usable than I expected with my USB remote, but I've been
| meaning to explore how to set up something more "smart
| TV"-like that's a bit easier to navigate. My initial thought
| was to write a browser extension or a custom app with an
| embedded browser, but that feels like a bit too much work for
| something that's supposed to be a leisure/entertainment
| setup.
| bsaul wrote:
| It's going to be funny to see if the rest of the world adapts to
| the stupid amount of ads beeing shown on american TV, now that
| youtube seems to embrace that road (.)
|
| My guess is they won't, and youtube will collapse. But it may
| take some time..
|
| (.) I vividly remember my first attempt at watching a movie on
| public tv in the US, 20 years ago. The movie was cut because
| there was so many ads that the total length of the movie would
| have occupied the whole afternoon. so they simply removed random
| scenes, and as a result, the story didn't make any sense at all.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| They even speed up TV shows to fit more ads in. And to think
| the whole point of paying for cable was initially to remove the
| need for ads.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I expect Youtube to thrive and grab some of the revenue that
| cable/satellite TV and other companies in the media delivery
| chain used to.
|
| Various pricing tiers would segment the customers based on
| their ability and willingness to pay. Pay $100 per month to
| avoid all ads, pay $50 for some ads, pay $0 for all ads. And
| then throw in family/individual discounts and music, or Google
| Drive/Gmail bundles, etc.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And couple years down the road, when they hit diminishing
| returns on subscriptions again, that $100 per month is going
| to start showing ads too.
|
| Once advertising is on the table, there is no stopping.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Cable style commercials are ideal for me, out of all the possible
| choices. I have full control over the DVR video stream, nothing
| is unskippable.
|
| Streaming technology had to be temporarily superior in order to
| win adoption, but now that it's mature it will only evolve in the
| direction of taking away control and privacy from viewers.
|
| And if I'm watching live and can't skip ads, I prefer a full
| 3-minute break at a predictable cadence to more random and
| frequent 10-30 second interruptions. I have time to get up and do
| something, or else mute and browse on my phone for a few minutes.
| likeclockwork wrote:
| 1. Build goodwill
|
| 2. Destroy competitors
|
| 3. Degrade service in pursuit of maximum profit
|
| Is anyone else starting to feel cynical? I feel like anything
| good today is just portending a tomorrow even worse than
| yesterday.
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| Embrace, extend, extinguish. A tale as old as any in
| computing (and more broadly, many other product areas)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I feel like anything good today is just portending a
| tomorrow even worse than yesterday.
|
| Everything has a lifespan, without exception. The only
| variable is how long that lifespan is. That's just how things
| work.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Cable style commercials are ideal for me
|
| Those commercials are why I stopped watching cable, and why I
| stopped watching broadcast TV, in the first place.
| comprev wrote:
| Maybe research has shown the adverts get less engagement with
| longer, more predictable scheduling. Technology these days
| makes it relatively easy.
|
| Most people won't bother getting up for the shorter adverts -
| so whilst on mute - the advert will get your attention
| visually.
|
| Win-win in the eyes of the advertiser.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Yeah I take it for granted they wouldn't be doing this if
| they didn't know it was effective at extracting more
| attention and value from viewers.
| colpabar wrote:
| If they ever lock down the ability to use your own machine with
| your own media through an HDMI port and ignore all the "smart"
| features I'm going to riot.
| butterfi wrote:
| My Home button always works. Frankly, there's so much content
| that I just move on if the service pisses me off.
| superchroma wrote:
| Well I guess we're in the worst timeline where Susan Wojcieki's
| hand-trained goon somehow manages to have worse ideas about how
| to run youtube than she did.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I don't mind unskippable ads so much when I am watching a 10
| minutes video. But a lot of information these days is mostly on
| youtube as opposed to text content. For example, how to change an
| obscure setting in windows or how to replace an alternator. But
| these videos also usually have a lot of background fluff. It's
| infuriating to skip back and forth to find the one relevant bit
| of info. If it takes 3 attempts to find the right timestamp,
| that's potentially up to 3 skippable ads and 3 unskippable ads
| before you get there.
|
| Ironically videos with misinformation get demonetized and you can
| consume those much more conveniently.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| This is user hostility on purpose- Google knows it's not what
| people want, but they need something to strong-arm them into
| picking up YT Premium. What better way than to provide a feature
| their advertiser want, and a way to push YT Premium?
| [deleted]
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