Are YouTube ads getting worse?

Yes, Youtube ads are getting more aggressive. Instead of just 1 ad per interruption (either pre-roll or mid-roll), it's multiple ads in succession. Instead of a few interruptions, it has increased to many interruptions. Unlike you, I don't get the yellow bars in the timeline that show where the ad spots are anymore.

Many Youtubers have made videos about the aggressive ad changes. Here's one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tkS4dvi8A

I don't know if any new definitive statistics are out but some Youtubers complain that they don't seem to be getting any additional money even though viewers are bombarded with more ads.

For $12 a month (40 cents a day) you can use YouTube ad free. Personally, I don't notice the missing $12 but I do notice the missing ads, so it's worth it to me.

If you don't want ads, this seems like a more than fair offer from YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/premium

Yes, it is from the recent changes in YouTube's manage ad breaks policy. Starting July, they will be doing mid-roll ads for videos longer than 8 minutes [1].

  Today, only videos longer than 10 minutes are eligible for mid-roll ads. Starting in late July, videos longer than 8 minutes will be eligible for mid-roll ads. As part of this change, mid-roll ads will be turned on for all eligible existing videos and future video uploads, including those videos where you may have previously opted out of mid-roll ads. Videos that already have mid-roll ads turned on will not be impacted. If mid-roll ads are not a good fit for your videos, you can indicate this preference in YouTube Studio by July 27, 2020.

  Mid-roll ads will be automatically placed at natural breaks in your videos to balance viewer experience and monetization potential for you. After these changes, you will still be able to turn mid-rolls off or adjust the placement in each video manually.

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6175006?hl=en

I've also notice a huge push for youtube premium on mobile. It used to be a once a week thing. Now almost every time I open the app I'm greeted by the popup asking me to upgrade.

If I understand correctly from a friend, the problem is YouTubers (and YouTube/Google) are currently making _much less_ money per ad. It sounds like more are getting shoved per video to make up for it (iirc, it's up to YouTube to determine this?).

Most of the content creators I follow also upload to BitChute (or have been booted from YouTube), so I've moved all my playlists there. I also donate $5/month to BitChute.

Grabbing videos off YouTube with youtube-dl for local viewing is another way to skip ads. Given their censorious policies, I have zero interest in paying YouTube to go ad-free.

The one that grinds my gears is the apparent time between ads. I’m learning how to play the banjo and I watch tutorials. This means play, pause, go back to time X and play again. Every few iterations, I get interrupted with an ad or two. Arrrrrgggh!

Youtube on my Apple TV is going bananas for ads. They're everywhere! I don't know how this feels for US users where you guys have a lot more ads in TV in general. But it's starting to feel pretty hostile with my UK sensibilities.

Youtube has ads? I never see them since I never use the Youtube site directly, only through an intermediate like youtube-dl or streamlink and programs which integrate this type of functionality, NewPipe on Android, etc. Once they start splicing ads directly into the video stream on the server I might start to get ads but by that time there will either be a way to rip them out again or I'll just keep from using Youtube - something which is getting easier with time by them de-platforming anyone who doesn't abide by the vague and ever-shifting set of rules the censors use to keep the platform palatable to those same advertisers who are making things worse as well as the screeching cancel mobs which are popping up left and right on the 'net. Eventually they might manage to cancel each other out upon which there will be a day of celebration.

Peace will return (with or without a platform named Youtube), until such a time I will flaunt the DMCA at hearts content to keep myself and those around me sane. Call me a thief, call me a pirate, call me anything you want but after decades of ever more abusive ad tech the time is long past to make a stance: the only good ad is a skipped ad. Don't like it? I understand, but the solution does not lie with me. It lies with the shysters in the ad tech industry. Line 'm up against the wall, shame them for life and never let them near a computer again and we'll talk, until such time I say Sayonara.

uBlock Origin has worked perfectly for me on the desktop, I haven't seen an ad since forever.

The frequency of ads got bad enough that some months ago I changed over to an android YouTube client that doesn't show ads. I wouldn't watch YouTube otherwise.

I saw two ads right in the middle of a 5 min kids video.

It is getting pretty bad. I did not mind the mandatory ad right in the beginning.

For me its also the quality of the ads which is a problem. Over and over I get Grammerly adverts even though I always flag them as repetitive, inappropriate or irrelevant (always signed in). They have nothing to do with my interests or viewing habits.

Twitch does an outstanding job by comparison.

I'm getting ads to porn (non-video, I have that blocked). I don't have an account and frequently flush cookies. I just didn't think I'd see the day, especially because they have no way of knowing if I'm older than 18.

Open source front-end for YouTube https://invidio.us It has no ads, no trackers , no Google account required

Recently ads have been getting through my adblockers or videos fail to load if the ad is blocked. Refreshing the page or adding a '.' to the url seems to fix this.

I'm not sure which is more surprising. That there are more ads or that anyone is surprised by this. It is owned by google.

YouTube vanced on Android and Ublock origin on desktop. Problem solved. In my POV, the ads got worse a long time ago.

Yes. Watching youtube on a smart TV on the installed Youtube app is a nightmare. Time for a Raspberry Pi for media.

Also, the advertisers are savvy to how long they have before you're allowed to hit that skip, and so pitching in the first 5 seconds is getting more common, leading to some pretty absurd copy/delivery. I just love that guy who grabs me on the street shouting in my face about free energy.

Also product placement in the video is pretty common.

I'm starting to look at Twich, vimeo more, any other alternatives?

Yes. I have been getting ads on my Apple TV at a much higher rate over the past few weeks, which is putting me off a fair bit. Enough to consider auto-downloading certain channels and shoving them into Plex.

I recently got a survey on youtube. On TV. I won't file a survey on TV!

I think Google is preparing the axe, or at least something equally drastic.

If I watch while not-signed in, I get an ad every couple minutes. Unwatchable.

If I'm signed into my Google account, I usually just get an ad at the start of a video, and they are usually skippable, so no big deal.

On Android, if you install f-droid, you can install newpipe and avoid all ads.

On Linux, ublock origin plus Firefox removes basically all ads. You can also use youtube-dl in the terminal, though that can be difficult.

No idea. Since I'm using FireFox, Blokada (AdGuard DNS) on Android, and FireFox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix, NoScript on PC, my mental RAM does not get strained by ads and other nonsense.

I was happily blocking them with NextDNS and 1Blocker until about a week ago when suddenly they started getting past both blockers, multiple ads on every video.

> Are YouTube ads getting worse?

Yes.

Longer, more consistent, and so wildly off the mark at times I feel like I should be offended.

Does anybody else only get scam ads?

I use Brave and haven't seen a YouTube ad in a long time.

Install uBlock Origin and you will never see an ad again

Yes, I use Brave which has always blocked the ads, but they've been coming through since ~1-2 weeks ago.

1) Try not to use youtube 2) if u really need to watch smth that's on yt use browser with adblock or newpipe app

ITT: people complaining about a free service. Why not just pay for YouTube Red?