YouTube ad placement
I have the free YouTube service, and the ads are designed not only to promote whatever they’re promoting, but also to drive viewers to the point of such annoyance and frustration that they finally spring for the premium, ad-free version of YouTube.
Not me, not yet, although I find the ads incredibly annoying.
For some reason, for about a year I’ve been getting an ad for some sort of face makeup (I turn it off after the usual five seconds, so I don’t even know what it’s advertising, even after all this time), featuring a woman with the most droning grating annoying voice ever. But those ads are nowhere near as infuriating as what I’ve come to call the counter-message ads. At present, they seem to solely involve Israel and Jews – or rather, with countering the message of videos made by pro-Israel or pro-Jewish sources.
For example, if I happen to watch a video by some Jewish or Israeli organization which offers news of the Gaza War or the Iran War from Israel’s point of view, the ads invariably are pro-Gaza and pro-Hamas. If I happen to watch a video that has to do with Jewish thought or religion, invariably it is accompanied by ad after ad from proselytizing Christian organizations explicitly dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity.
These counter-ads are presently solely on Israeli or Jewish videos, but it hasn’t always been that way. I distinctly recall, during the 2024 election campaign, that nearly every pro-Trump video or podcast I would watch (or really anything on the right) would be paired with an ad for Kamala Harris. The opposite may have been true (pro-Kamala podcasts paired with Trump ads), but I wasn’t watching a whole lot of podcasts on the left, so I don’t know.
So, who makes these ad-placement decisions? It certainly doesn’t seem to be the people making the videos. Is it YouTube? Is it the advertisers? Do advertisers pay extra for counter-placement of their ads?
There is an app called Grayjay that works on Windows PCs and Android devices. It is a video player that allows you to subscribe to YouTube feeds and view them without commercials. It also allows you to download videos for offline viewing. It is open source so it is non-commercial and doesn’t require creating an account. On the other hand, there is a learning curve and it isn’t good for browsing—but it serves its purpose well.
I gave in a few months ago when I couldn’t tolerate the commercials that would intrude in the middle of a song anymore.
I watch Youtube on the Brave browser (on a Mac, but it runs on most platforms). It filters YT ads completely. Free, as in free beer.
I haven’t paid for YouTube premium and I don’t get YouTube ads either with the Brave browser on Windows 10 and 11.
Brave is pretty painless to install and use.
https://brave.com/download/
For some reason I keep “acquiring” browser tabs that I mean to get back to but I don’t. I now have about 100 of them. Previously I went through a set of about 160 tabs and saved them to bookmarks or deleted them. I have not gone back to recheck the bookmarked ones!
The YT ad insertions are bad enough, interrupting a video on news, science, history, or whatever. Sometimes there is only the 5 to 10 second period before the Skip button appears.
Other times the 15 and 30 second ads have to run to completion before my desired video is displayed.
Something odd has started to happen to me, though. I will be looking at a given tabbed web page, and then I hear some strange voice and ad speaking about something totally different from what I am viewing. And I cannot easily see or find which of my 20 or so YT tabs is the one I need to find and change or delete to remove that voice. Eventually it stops, but it is exceedingly annoying. I can’t imagine anyone promoting this approach can possibly claim such intrusions will be appreciated and a positive purchase will result.
I also use the ad blocker that comes with my Opera browser, so most links to WSJ, NYT, WP, et al. are blocked after an initial viewing unless I agree to allow ads. That might be tolerable if the ads were really unobtrusive, not excessive in number, and not animated, but of course they often are.
I started using the Opera browser because I heard it was a non-Google variety that would reduce my absorption into the Borg. Was I misinformed?
Or did I confuse the browser selection vs. using the Duck Duck Go search engine (which I think I saw is actually not that different from the Google search engine? at least anymore? )
Adblocker Ultimate will take care of those annoying ads.
I would third Brave. I haven’t seen an ad in years.
One more Brave endorsement.
Opera browser is owned by a Chinese company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)
@ Neo > “The opposite may have been true (pro-Kamala podcasts paired with Trump ads), but I wasn’t watching a whole lot of podcasts on the left, so I don’t know.”
IIRC, there were some revelations that YouTube and all its parent/affiliate platforms were deliberately not showing Republican or conservative ads at all (or very, very few) even if they were paid for.
As for the counter-ad programming: given Neo’s examples, and if my recollection is correct, YT could hardly do anything else.
Hoping for conversion, supposedly, but (speaking as one of those lumped into the basket of deplorables) the Democrats go about that objective in strange ways.
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Neo,
Jones Road?
If so, that annoying voice is Bobbi Brown, the founder of the makeup line that bears her name. It was bought quite a while ago by one of the major cosmetic companies and the day the non compete clause terminated she launched Jones Road.
Ask me how I know. LOL. I’m getting the same commercial feed. I passed the brick and mortar store several times last month as it is in my daughter’s neighborhood in NYC. I almost went in to sample as I once used a BB stick foundation that I loved – until the formulation changed. Never found the time as I was having too much fun with the new grandchild.
I did read a NY Times review of the product – apparently it’s a love it or hate it kinda thing and the love it percentage is about 15%. It didn’t sound like it was going to work for me so I am still on the search for the female Holy Grail – makeup that performs like makeup but doesn’t feel like makeup. Sigh.
Molly Brown:
That’s exactly it – Jones Road.
And I don’t even think that the women in the ads look good with the makeup on.
Grok, who chooses what ads run on a particular YouTube video?
https://x.com/i/grok/share/fcb698f130694dc482bfa468de45ca5e
I asked it a followup question, quoting from this post: “Someone observed the following: “For example, if I happen to watch a video by some Jewish or Israeli organization which offers news of the Gaza War or the Iran War from Israel’s point of view, the ads invariably are pro-Gaza and pro-Hamas. If I happen to watch a video that has to do with Jewish thought or religion, invariably it is accompanied by ad after ad from proselytizing Christian organizations explicitly dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity.”
Grok’s response is at the end of this updated link:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/75faa96ecc9149a895d961f5f380cba4
Neo,
Same.
Looks greasy. Maybe it works for really, really dry skin.
YT ads are annoying. However, somehow I’ve managed to keep the algorithm that directs advertising confused and uncertain.
My most repetitive encounter with YT ad algorithm is a short adverting questionnaire. Multiple choice.
I usually don’t answer and the interruption times out (30s?). My second move is answer D: none of the above. Only very very rarely do I answer more.
My Google Fi cell phone subscription gets me a free trial on YT for maybe two months, optional subscription. I never bite.
But, YEAH! Like Neo writes about Israel and Jew hate activism ads on YT, I do get DNC-type Leftist cause ads from time to time, despite not visiting likely sites.
Maybe, during advert heavy election periods, the algorithm seeks out bottom of the barrel targets to meet their quota of hits? Beyond that, I have no guesses to share.
From the Brave browser endorsers: Thanks for the feedback/ recommendation.
If I did convert from Opera to Brave, do any of you perceive a potential problem with importing my Opera bookmarks (about 1000?) into Brave? [although to be honest, I really only use a few dozen of them, mostly for financial or administrative sites (plus Neo), as most of my surfing is triggered via email alerts and the links in those messages.]
I get this from time to time on FB.
Every browser lets you import bookmarks as far as I know.
Changing to a new browser is not like changing operating systems.
You are not alone. The ads are annoying and increasingly poltical. There is a jerk named Micah Lasher who has an ad (paid by Mike Bloomberg and several other lefties) where he is running for Congress to replace the obnoxioous retiring Jerold Nadler that is 2 minutes of Trump bashing. I instinctively hit the mute button when it is on. Another leftie, a self hating Jew named Drew Warshaw who is running for New York State Comptroller mentions “Netanyahu’s Wars”. Totally sickening!