I watched a Warframe (game) YouTube video on the Steam integrated browser, without beeing connected to my account and Holly s* it was horrible.
In a 14 minutes video, I got 5 ads. 1 (or more skippable once) at the beginning, 1 during the first half of the video, 2 during the second half, and 1 at the end.
All were skippable after 5 sec.
2 were close together at about 1 min interval during the second half of the video.
But that is not the only issue. 4 of those ads (not the last one at the end), were Israeli hate/war anti-hamas propaganda.
I consider these ads horrible and they should not be allowed in my opinion.
Most people, including myself, seem to agree, that ads were never the problem. When YouTube started, it had ads too and nobody cared. But the ads got worse and websites started to shove them down our throats. I miss the times of a single banner below a video. I don't think Google and all the others realise just how much determined nerds can achieve. So far the ad blockers seem to win the race, minus some minor setbacks.
Ads are the reason I stopped listening to regular FM radio. I used to live in a more rural town and it was at least half an hour to get to any city I would have to go to for more than basic groceries. Once when I was coming back somewhere that takes a whole hour drive to get home, I heard nothing but commercials the entire drive. Not one fucking song (aside from ad jingles) for a whole fucking hour. Ridiculous.
I switched to Sirius. And it was great.... Until they got bought/merged with XM. Now they have a monopoly on satellite radio, they immediately cut features and jacked up prices. They also started playing ads. So I cancelled that.
I've been using Spotify Premium ever since. It started off pretty great; they've recently been cutting back features and jacking up the price tho. So I may end up cancelling Spotify, too, if shit keeps trending downhill. Especially if they put ads in the premium service I pay for specifically to not have ads.
YouTube Ads: "You are a MAN with a GUN and you will MURDER EVERYONE if it means you can PROTECT your FAMILY"
I don't even know, or care, wtf they are selling but they missed the target audience with that one. That's the cringiest fetishism I've ever seen in my life.
These ads make it impossible to use YT as a free learning platform anymore.
When I want to dig into a subject, I want to do it focused and without being distracted, and YT makes it impossible. The only content one can tolerate ads on is entertainment, which makes YT just another TikTok.
Hi! We're Liberty Mutual! All of our ads are weird and quirky, which is funny! Quirky equals funny, right? You're laughing, aren't you? This one has an emu! An emu is funny, isn't it? Liberty Mutual!
Not only the way they keep pushing more and more ads is becoming way too much, they don't have any standards for what sort of ads they push. From blatant political propaganda to petty false advertising of apps. A reckoning is way overdue.
Weirdly, and annoyingly, I get this same thing when watching YouTube on my TV (the quantity thing, not the war propaganda stuff. Just regular ads). Whether via Roku stick, Chromecast or anything. It's sometimes an ad every 2 minutes. However watching the same thing on a laptop or my phone even without any adblock and the video will play far better. Maybe 1 ad at the halfway point and nothing else.
I don't know why the TV version of YouTube is such an arse for ads. They're not even in clean places - I get an ad mid-sentence.
Honestly, for a 20 minute video I'd be perfectly ok with a 30 second ad or so. It helps the creators and isn't that much of a pain for me. But getting adverts every 2 minutes, even if they're skippable is just a horrific experience.
The reason your ads are of terrible quality is because it doesn't know who you are. You're not logged in and it doesn't have any cookies to go off. If I open an incognito window at work and watch a YouTube video it is HORRIBLE. Get rich quick schemes, cheap Chinese scam products, etc. There are a tonne of employees behind this IP and it's a blank slate browser, so they give untargeted ads.
Think of it this way: Tech companies want to know everything about you, why? Because it helps them sell you for targeted advertising. If Dove wants to show their shampoo commercial to women age 14-30 then Google will gladly offer that for a price. Untargeted ads are literally bottom of the barrel ads and can be considered the "junk mail" of advertising. That's what you get when you use YouTube without an account. It's honestly despicable what Google will allow to be sent out in this category and it's clear they don't do any human reviews before approving the ads for distribution.