Google says pause ads on YouTube are getting a very positive reaction from advertisers. The company could roll them out widely soon.
YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it.
“In Q1, we saw strong traction from the introduction of a pause ads pilot on connected TVs, a new non-interruptive ad format that appears when users pause their organic content,” Schindler noted. He went on to share that YouTube’s pause ads are “driving strong brand lift results” and “are commanding premium pricing from advertisers.”
Schindler didn’t share any timelines for when pause ads will start appearing on YouTube, but we know they’ll first roll out on smart TVs. The nature of these ads, including their duration, skippability, and more is still unclear. We also don’t know if Google plans to introduce these ads on YouTube’s mobile apps.
I can't wait til YouTube fucks around and finds out.
I got hobbies that are way more fun than ads.
I'm addicted to their shit because it provides a constant stream of dopamine. You fuck that up with ads, I will break the addiction. Seamlessly. It won't even be difficult to do if going back kicks me in the balls with ads. I'm gone. My guitar is right here. My home server is right here. My GitHub profile could use some TLC. I got a long Todo list.
I've had this for about a week or 2. Super annoying because you can't continue the video by pressing the play/pause button, need to "Ok" the video window. Come on Google, you just bricked a button on your OWN OS. Awful.
YouTube is unwatchable for me with all these ads. Even without ads, content creators mostly all follow the same generic bullshit format.
It used to be a great resource for visual aids and explanations, now it's filled with money making schemes and scams and every video has 14 minutes of bullshit and 1 minute of content.
My Roku is doing this and has been doing this for quite some time.
Of all the ad delivery schemes cooked up over the past ten years, this one is the least offensive to me.
Like I'll come back from the bathroom or whatever, and all that registers before I hit play is that some random graphic is covering the screen while on pause. I cannot name a single thing that's been in any of those ads.
In general, I do wonder how effective this constant onslaught of marketing is. At some point there have got to be diminishing returns, right?
To be fair, if they are like the example (static silent ads) they would be the least intrusive ads that YouTube ever had. To the point that I don't even mind them. All of YouTube ads should be like this, not annoying, silent, and easily ignored.
Sigh. Yeah it's not like I ever pause to look at a graph or something (/s). I already hate it on Chromecast because pausing brings up a big blur bar on a third of the screen.
They already do that on my TV. Except it's after I press play and when it's been paused for like a minute or more, or something.
But this is a whole new level of making it shittier. Like, I want to pause so I can hear something else, or something needs my attention, and there's an ad playing? This can't become a reality. Can't.
I mean I already rock the best ad blocker so it's whatever to me on desktop, but on my TV? I'm gonna have to get a pi-hole.
I tend to have videos playing on a secondary screen all day long, only to pause them when I get a phonecall or need to talk to someone on Discord or real life.
This is just one more perfectly valid reason to install adblockers.
Pause a video to answer a phone call or reply to a text or look up some information? Here's an ad at full volume! Seems legit. Sure. Do it. What could go wrong.
If somebody like Raymond Hill (Ublock Origin dev) were forced to run YouTube profitably, what might he do to try to run it so it sucks less but still makes a little bit of money? Or even breaks even?
Could also ask what if the Wikimedia Foundation had to run it, you know like under penalty of imprisonment - take somebody good/anti-corporate, force them to run the business w/o any other option - what’s the best option for The People w/o losing money?
Ah this is why they started showing screensavers now in the pause screen on the Apple TV app. They just needed this feature to bother people even more. Well, I won’t see it since I made the deal with the devil half a year ago and got Premium and I think it’s actually worth the money considering it’s my most watched streaming service by far.
I used their app on my TV the other day two adds before the video started/intro/ad/channels promo/bit of content/ad/ self promotion. Mad how much people will put up with.
They've already been doing very similar stuff on iOS for years. Like when I adjust the audio in the middle of a video, pause briefly and want to continue or literally just pick up my phone from the table, an ad break starts. Just when the app knows your attention is on the phone, they shove it into your face. Now they will just play ads before you tap continue, not after.
Its unbelivable that I have to use 4 addons just to experience YouTube properly, now because of this shit feature we'll probaly be getting another one. I try using YouTube alternatives like invidio.us or piped.video but half the time the content just doesn't load and its frustrating.
It’s impressive how still companies can do eatever they want with the content made by users. I mean YT is a massive human archive and it made billions not doing a single content and shitting on it as they please
iOS app is pure garbage. Before adding more ad functionality, how about fixing those annoying swipe gesture bugs first? After a double ad, it is impossible for me to exit full screen by swiping down. Also, auto zoom to fill screen works only with 85% of videos, why is that?
Tubi does this. It's probably the least I trusive way to handle ads. I'd be fine with it if it was a replacement for in-video ads, but I doubt they're doing that and just want to squeeze more views out of our eyeballs so fuck them
Out of all the advertising they could do, at least this is somewhat unobtrusive. If they had this instead of preroll ads, I'd actually be okay with it.