Same with Google's ads in general. For a long time they were whitelisted by default on just about every adblock list out there because they were so unobtrusive it didn't make sense to bother blocking them, especially when you compared them to the other ads that were common at the time. They were also generally relevant ads, so people actually did click on them and use them since it actually related to the thing they were searching for.

They're obviously more profitable now, but you have to wonder by how much and if they'd be a more trusted company today (and what's that worth monetarily) if they hadn't gone down this race to the bottom.

ETA: Part of what I mean is that now they create things like Stadia and most people didn't even bother trying it because they knew it'd hit the Google Graveyard in a few years. Had Google been a more trusted company, people may have been willing to give it a try and they could possibly have printed money since by all accounts the service was actually pretty good.

Youtube Ads used to be for pizza restaurants and lawnmowers.

Now they want me to join a fucking cult that worships alphabeta-blocking milkshakes.

I'm a software engineer at AWS and work on video content delivery for services like Netflix. The idea that one single ad could cover the cost of delivering a video that's been replicated in multiple servers, multiple regions, multiple countries throughout the world is pretty hilarious. No matter how much money you think YouTube is making I can almost guarantee it's not enough. There is a reason there is no significant competition in this space, it makes no money.

Capitalists don't care about making quality products/services.

They care about squeezing more profit out of you as time goes on.

I was fine with giving them 5 seconds of attention in exchange for a video. Then they added more and more, and moved the skip button SOMETIMES. It's straight up disrespectful.

I refused to use adblock for years. Not because I thought Youtube needed MORE money, but because I did realize that a business ultimately only continues operating as long as the business model is sustainable. I endured, through occasional ads, ads at the bottom, then through ads every time a video was watched, then ads in the middle of videos, and even two ads before every video.

But three unskippable ads was where I drew the fucking line. Now I use adblock for Youtube and Youtube only.

I'm not here to defend the soulless multi-million dollar corporation, but we don't actually know how much money it costs for youtube to stay up. The scale they are operating on is immense, I wouldn't be surprised, if they were still making a loss with 10 midroll ads.

I accidentally watched a YouTube video on a browser without blocking. It started with an ad. I thought I'd just endure it this time. Then another ad. OK, just this time then. Suddenly, another ad in the middle of the video. I gave up. Who'd have the patience to sit through this?

Then there's Google's habit of completely ignoring the browser's language settings so I have to sit though ads I don't even understand.

Was YouTube ever profitable?

That, and the absolute curbstomping of creativity through their copyright enforcement methods has gutted the core of a once great service. We are simply watching this thing shamble on to find a place to die: like a heart-shot elk bounding off into the bushes

Fuck YT, but bad meme. YouTube has never been profitable

Whoa

Becoming ever more obnoxious with ad placement because your ad-supported service is losing money and you don't know what else to do is a classic late-stage-enshittification step. It is usually the last one before the service becomes openly hostile to its users and partners and becomes a mostly-worthless relic. I did not think Youtube was at that stage or even close to it but maybe it is.

I can't really tell if Youtube is losing money or not, but it creates about $8 billion per quarter, and Google's overall operating expense is $55 billion per quarter, and I think it actually might be a safe assumption that Youtube is a pretty decent amount of that expense given its scale and its storage, bandwidth, and employee-resources requirements.

Ads never bothered me on YouTube.

They’re bothering me enough now that I’m going with an android phone after more than a decade on iPhones just so I can get back to YouTube the way it used to be with a decent ad blocker (better than it used to be actually).

I can’t fucking stand it, and again, it didn’t bother me before.

Want to show someone a short clip? Nah. Gotta skip two fucking ads first while you stand there looking stupid and waiting.

I’m fucking done.

The reason YouTube makes the ads so unbearably obnoxious is they want people to pay for premium. That's all they're doing is annoying people until they pay. I've been paying for premium since the beginning, I know it's awful, but at least I have never seen any ads.

Passively?? Video streaming is anything but passive income.

My father in law uses the built in YouTube app on the TV. There were 3 ads that played. The first one was 15 minutes. The second one was also around 15 minutes. The third one was an hour. One fucking hour for a 5 minutes video.

Objectively wrong.

YouTube could not be profitable showing one quick ad per video, especially if it's longer content.

Is there a blocker I can use on the android YouTube app? I put videos when I'm doing dishes, and in the last year the ads have gotten so long that if you don't skip em or can't (cause you're hands are wet) they go on for 10 minutes or more. The worst are the ads that end, but don't leave your screen until you physically press skip.

Mid to late 2000s adds were very easy to avoid

Didn't have to pay to see much of anything.

Just every now and then a virus.

Soon we will return to that, except smarter and more adept at not downloading viruses and traps songs labelled as Linkin park

As someone that has used ad blockers for just about as long as I have been able to, I would like to think that this is true. However, I'm not entirely sure that it is. I've heard that a surprising percentage of people just don't even know that ad blockers exist. If that's the case then they may be very well aware of what is happening. (Using made up numbers for the sake of argument since I don't have real numbers) Like if only 5% of users use ad blockers and doubling the number of ads they show only brings that to 10% then it is certainly worth it financially. I doubt that if you were to graph that curve it would be linear - there is certainly a point where you inundate users with so many ads that even non-technical people will start learning about ad blockers. Regardless of what the real numbers are, I would be very surprised if they are making decisions this big without at least being aware of what those numbers might be. And if they can make a small amount of money indefinitely but they have evidence to suggest that they can make even more money also indefinitely then the financial motivation is obvious. Not all infinities are the same size.

Who cares about a privately owned platform? It was never ours.

Spending time there was always going to be a waste of time. Every business wants to grow like a cancer to consume us all. The next service that you use will want the same if you use another private platform.

You should consider using something that is open source and self hosted. Peertube right? Anyone got other recommendations?