Maybe I've lost patience over the years

Honestly. I used to watch my dad have like 4 channels he could switch between so he didn't have to do commercials. I used to think that was weird, and indicative of some poor character traits. I was a judgemental little shit.

Now this meme is me. I have become my father.

90

Turns out nobody wants to watch commercials. The cycle repeats itself.

45
And you can't do this anymore, at least with broadcast TV. My local diner as a bunch of TV's on about the place, all tuned to the local Fox, CBS, NBC, etc. affiliates so you have the rare opportunity to see them all at once. They're all timed so their commercial breaks coincide with one another. It's down to the split second -- every channel goes to commercial at the same time, for the same length of time. It has to be intentional.

40
- That was mostly the case in the 90s as well. On the 30m mark, everything was wrapping up / starting at the same time. In the middle, you might have 30-90 seconds of a show on another channel that was throwing to commercial at a slightly different time.
  
  7
I had a TV with picture-in-picture. That was a great feature for avoiding commercials.

7
Used to have it down to a science. 03 Global > 25 YTV > 28 Fox > 32 Spike TV > 44 Comedy Network > 45 Teletoon > 47 TBS > 50 Space

I never had to see a commercial

5
I did the same thing and I thought it's pretty normal. You can tell your 90s self that if it makes them feel good

3
I sometimes attempt to do that with Pluto TV, but they really enforce putting ads at the same time in almost all the channels.

1

-The break meant that there would be at least 15 minutes of no ads after

-During that long break you had the ability to empty your bladder, or get more snacks

-You didn't get repeats of ads during that singular break

-The ads weren't targeted to you specifically, but targeted to the viewers of the show you were watching

-The advertisers saw value in "quality over quantity"

89

i agree, advertisements used to be way less intrusive and therefore they were more tolerable

23
I am watching sitcoms from the 70s and you notice that they last for 25-26 minutes instead of 22 minutes.

20
Oh my God the repeating ads really are what makes it so much worse. Whenever I watch something on Hulu I have to sit through the same three commercials and it becomes completely mind numbing. Cable had more variety since it wasn't as targeted.

10
- I've never been able to see the point of repeated ads. If I didn't want the thing 30 seconds ago I'm still not going to want it now. PTL for 30s jump forward, not even fastforwarding ads these days.
  
  7

Yeah sorry not every aspect of my life needs to have advertisements trying to ram themselves down my throat.

Let me just enjoy something without interrupting me every 5-10 minutes.

Also idk about you but commercials on TV were just as infuriating to deal with

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This post brought to you by Fishy Joe's. Ride the walrus!

11

Nice try Google, still I am not paying for youtube premium.

41

Stay strong. I can't stand the "annoy people into paying a subscription" trend.

23
I got annoyed enough that I got a Nebula subscription. I don't think that helped Google.

5

All ⚠️ advertising ⚠️ is ⚠️ theft ⚠️ of ⚠️ time

40

that is a great marketing angle.

10
- If companies want me to watch them while they pee they can fucking pay me for it.
  
  5

The 90s ads gave me time to use the bathroom and get snacks in an era where shows could not be paused. I took advantage of that time.

Now it's too short to do anything, or I need to press a button to end the commercial after 5 seconds, requiring my attention.

27

Not to mention that the 5 seconds countdown timer is bullshit. In actuality, the timer appears after about a second of playing through the ad, then locks at 5 seconds for about a second and a half, then slowly counts down to 1 where it locks for a second and a half again, and finally gives you the option to skip the ad. I'd wager it's closer to 7 or 8 seconds per "5 second" ad.

7

There is a limited amount of tolerance for ads, and I had that all used up by the time I was 25. Now they can all go fuck themselves and I'll read a book or build an end table before I watch another ad.

23

You need uBlock origin!

22

It’s hard to retain patience when literally everything everywhere all the time constantly tries to shovel ads down your throat

21

It could be nostalgia, but I feel like commercials used to be a lot better. Well produced jingles, kinda funny characters, etc. In the 90’s, everything on MTV was designed to make you feel cool for watching it, even the commercials.

Now there are just too many ads for medications. Oh, and those ads that pretend to be the lowest quality twitch streams with no production at all.

20

There were two types of ads on TV. The expensive widely broadcasted ads from the big firms. These are likely the ones you remember.

Then there were the locally produced low budget ads. Like the car dealerships dressed in costumes shouting at the camera.

7
- Those were fun too. Cal had a different animal in each ad!
  
  Edit: also, Ernest!
  
  2
They weren't

3

90’s me had a lot more free time, since he was a child being carried by my parents. So, my free time is waaaaay more valuable now.

20

Ads are a way for corporations to steal your life from you, 2-3 minutes at a time.

18

Brave has a counter for how much time you've saved by blocking ads. I have many days of my life saved.

2

I'll admit it does feel like someone killed my dog when it's the SAME ad over and over.

16

I've recently gotten hit by the 3-strike adblocker blocker. Had to download a Tampermonkey script to get around that shit.

YouTube makes enough money off selling my browsing history and stats, I don't need to waste my time watching 3 unskippable ads.

16

I didn't have a choice back then. Now that I do, fuck ads!

15

Also, no one had a happy face watching same ads for 150th time.

10
- Yeah, it was more like "wait until the boring commercials are done" because there was no other option.
  
  4
- Especially the very low quality local ads that ran 3x as often as any others.
  
  2

Now Youtube is doing unskippable 30 second commercials. I turn the sound off, but it's still very f#cking annoying. We're not bombarded enough with ads every time we use our computer? I'm 65 now, and I've yet to see any commercial that ever made me want to buy the product advertised.

15

"You want to watch this 10 second meme video? Please watch this 30 second ad first."

Funnier still is when you're looking up movie/TV/game trailers, which are already just ads for that product, and you have to watch another ad first.

9
- I was in the middle of watching an old Tales from the Crypt episode last night and at the most climactic part, suddenly a 5 second commercial for Maxipads came on and completely ruined the experience. Why, why, why oh LORD why!!!!!
  
  1
And it seems to be every 3 minutes or so!? It's insane to the point that finding an ad-free version for my NVIDIA Shield is a top priority this week.

8
- SmartTubeNext
  
  3
- It drives me nuts how often Youtube videos are interrupted by ads - for things I couldn't care less about. And I finally gave in and upped my subscription to Netflix to the ad-free version even though it's more expensive - not being bombarded by ads is SO worth it - so I say, go for it with the NVIDIA Shield ad-free version - we all have a duty to "shield" ourselves from this nonstop barrage of advertising!
  
  2
On phone: Newpipe

Desktop: Freetube

Also make sure to use uBlock Origin and Firefox.

6
https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube

2

I feel less like we have lost patience so much as gained a respect for our own time and autonomy in being relegated to being nothing more than a product. At least that is what it is for me.

15

I remember forgetting what I was watching because of the length of commercial breaks back then. There is a good reason to hate ads.

15

One of the very few benefits of cable was that you could be watching one channel, then when the commercials come on, you could switch to another channel and watch that until the commercials come on. Then you could just keep pressing the "Back" or "Previous" button to switch between the two.

Had this mastered back in the late 2000s, rarely had to sit through a commercial break if you knew the channel schedules.

14

Somehow I feel like tv commercials are more tolerable than the ones you get in the internet and games.
Also: use https://piped.video/ for watching youtube videos without ads. And no, that isn't a porn site domain even if it sounds like one.

12

That's because TV commercials were usually well made, or for stuff you might need. For the stuff you didnt need, it was entertaining. (You remember the IBM TV ads in the 90s?) YouTube ads are for overpriced junk and dropshipping (raycon earbuds) when it's not get rich quick scams.

12
- You forgot dodgy videos that YouTube would nuke a creators channel without a second thought otherwise
  
  7

4 second my ass. You could either get multiple ads or even unskippable one. Btw, did you enjoy having to push a button every few minutes instead of be free to do anything else?

11

ublock n sponsorblock

10

Me pushing the "fast forward 30 seconds button on my VCR remote 3 times" and not watching TV live.

9

Ain't nobody got... Wait, I closed it out of reflex... yes that was a good decision.

8

I have noticed that people are generally less patient these days. I am pretty efficient at doing stuff at work, but at home or other places when I am trying to be relaxed and I take some time to do something, or even think about something more than a second, other person is getting angry for some reason, like I am wasting their time or something, even though I've noticed that they don't really use their time for anything other than browsing social media and being distracted by notifications on their phone.

8

True, and I'm guilty of this at times

3

I don't know, something about seeing the same diarrhea pills ad over and over doesn't exactly spark joy for me.

8

How does the line go...

"Life is pain highness, anyone who says otherwise is selling something".

7

e e cummings wrote, "a salesman is an it that stinks excuse." That about sums it up in my view.

1

I've noticed more often I'm getting two unskippable 15 second ads. I've been watching YouTube less and less because of it. A lot of creators I like are on other platforms, like Nebula or Spotify. It's moved to the end of the line for when I'm looking to watch or listen to stuff.

6

At least in the 90's ads were interesting

6

Billy Mays here!

2

I firmly believe that this is because the way we use computers and cellphones and also the way the ads are used, I still watch commercials in TV without a problem, but there is commercial max 20 to 20 minutes (I'm looking bad to you MLB) and I also not so active choosing what to watch so I'm more relaxed. On youtube, If you watch sometimes 4-5 minutes video you get 20 seconds ads, in 10 minutes you have more cause they put ads in between.

Another factor is the quality of the ads, the number of right wing political ads, dumb ads or ads from companies that I hate from my soul is immense, In TV I usually find ads creative and sometimes I like to watch (yeah, I said that) when is not too spammed, just for the art lol.

5

I still watch commercials in TV without a problem

Not me. I cut the cord years ago, and whenever I go visit my parents who still have cable, I literally only last one commercial break or so before I can't stand it and quit watching.

4

We live in an era of instant gratification so any form of delay is intolerable.

But also? Three to six minutes of commercials is a snack or a piss break or even goofing off on your phone/gameboy/whatever. 30 seconds (or 4 to skip) really is nothing and you barely have time to even meaningfully look away.

4

Sorry I meant to reply to the post not your comment

1

I wonder if YouTube has metrics on how often people click the skip button while it’s not enabled yet. I hope I never find out my statistics…

3

mouse and click tracking could very well be part of the bazillion scripts yt loads.

4
That's like some StarCraft APM spamming

2

https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube

3

MythTV had commercial skip.

3

Permanently Deleted

1

I pay so I'm not seeing too many ads. Mostly hear them on podcasts, it's not too terrible.

0