YouTube is running an experiment asking some users to disable their ad blockers or pay for a premium subscription, or they will not be allowed to watch videos.
They didn’t repeat the same 3 ads every few minutes on high ad videos (No It, I will not take it >:c)
Moderated and removed obvious scam ads
Remove ads that are disgusting or clearly inappropriate (I have seen some stuff that could be categorized as porn in YouTube ads and no I do not allow them to feed me ads based on my interests)
If ads were still not being actively used to spread malware/viruses (not sure if this happens on YouTube at all but I would rather be safe then sorry)
The largest issue for me is that I’ve never watched an ad and thought “I need that”. It’s just a huge waste of time that I find disrespectful and distasteful.
That being said I haven’t watched and ad in years. A bit less then a decade now, actually.
To be fair the aim of ads generally isn’t to make you go ‘oh now I’ll go and buy that’, it’s more about unconsciously planting the idea that $product exists so when you actually do want to buy something you buy that brand. It’s why ‘show me as many as you like, ads don’t work on me’ is complete rubbish and the only real solution is blocking them entirely on a personal level and on a social level laws that restrict where and when they may be shown.
A particularly egregious example of psychologically manipulative advertising would be ‘Joe Camel’ who was nominally just a fun mascot but in reality existed to advertise cigarettes to children so they’d buy Camels when they were old enough. Given the prevalence of really awful advertising in the present day Big Tech really does deserve the increasing comparisons with Big Tobacco I think.
I wouldn’t mind ads if,
[EDIT] Removed a redundant word
The largest issue for me is that I’ve never watched an ad and thought “I need that”. It’s just a huge waste of time that I find disrespectful and distasteful.
That being said I haven’t watched and ad in years. A bit less then a decade now, actually.
To be fair the aim of ads generally isn’t to make you go ‘oh now I’ll go and buy that’, it’s more about unconsciously planting the idea that $product exists so when you actually do want to buy something you buy that brand. It’s why ‘show me as many as you like, ads don’t work on me’ is complete rubbish and the only real solution is blocking them entirely on a personal level and on a social level laws that restrict where and when they may be shown.
A particularly egregious example of psychologically manipulative advertising would be ‘Joe Camel’ who was nominally just a fun mascot but in reality existed to advertise cigarettes to children so they’d buy Camels when they were old enough. Given the prevalence of really awful advertising in the present day Big Tech really does deserve the increasing comparisons with Big Tobacco I think.