YouTube Tests Showing Ads When You Pause a Video, Calls it ''Pause Ads''

But usually I’m pausing a video to try to read text that appeared too briefly in the video!

Wait y'all still see ads on YouTube?

If I can't block ads on a device, I'm not using YouTube on that particular device.

Google says pause ads on YouTube are getting a very positive reaction from advertisers

Bc screw the users and their reactions 😄.

We really need a good YouTube competitor. This is beyond ridiculous at this point.

Shit like this is why they stopped making new Black Mirror episodes

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.

Do it. Go full enshitification.

I'm actually kind of excited for it.

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.

Damn. YouTube is just SO desperate to squeeze every bit of ad revenue they can, wherever they can.

Laughs in UBlock Origin

Lol Google is going to die by their own hands

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.

So they'll stop injecting ads in the middle of videos at the worst possible times right?

...

So they'll stop injecting ads... Right?

Tomorrow YouTube is introducing ads when you think about YouTube.

Enshitification

DRINK VERIFICATION CAN

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?

Please drink verification can

Oh noes, another ad I don't see because of ublock!

YouTube. Google. Alphabet.

“driving strong brand lift results”

FUCK. YOU.

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.

This is great, because I usually pause videos because I want to watch ads.

Can we have a YouTube competitor? Pretty please? 🥺

Soon testing new version that shows some of your video when you are allowed to pause your ad.

Ads are a way for corporations to steal your life from you, 60 seconds at a time.

Ah, taking inspiration from what porn sites have been doing for decades to trick you into clicking on ads. Nice work, Google.

So youtube is now basically an advertisement channel with some user content in between.

I'd sooner stop using the internet than be forced to imprint that carefully crafted poison into my psyche. They will not steal my life with ads.

Well to be fair this only affects users that are not blocking ads in the first place.

Use Youtube frontends. Like Freetube & NewPipe. All of Youtube's BS will disappear.

EDIT: Here is Privacy Guides' page about Youtube frontends.

An add-on that simply overlays a black box when you pause is easy enough.

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.

I vow never to buy anything advertised to me in such intrusive way....

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.

Ok this is actually a disgusting idea!

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.

You can play ads on my tombstone, quite literally over my dead body.

Enshittification 🎶

The last real executive at Google was forced out a few years ago. Google is firmly in the hands of advertising now.

Enshittification. Youtube is always going to get worse as long as it exists to make money.

I can’t imagine the ROI is gonna be great… people pause shit when they leave their phones or TV. How do this miss something so basic?!

My spouse wfh and he has to pause the TV for phone calls all the time.

Is this replacing annoying ads that interrupt your watching? If it's just more then fuck off my ad blocker still works.

Looks at pic in post..

...has some questions...

Man I hate this ad-fueled internet dystopia.

yes, please, just become worse

When are they going to put video ads in little boxes all around the primary video content that all play simultaneously?

I'm very mad that a big corporation has become greedy. Very mad.

Hypothetical

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?

(Donate buttons eervrywhere?)

Kind of like how shitty of brand video sites does it. Nice job cannibalizing yourself, youtube.

Soon enough Google will be injecting ads in your dreams.

It's amazing how Youtube has become a huge advertising platform and has done away with video features...

This seems like some Black Mirror shit.

Who are all these that these ads are working on?

Paramount+ has been doing this. I hate it.

non-interruptive

Bet

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.

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.

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.

If this is anything like their new Desktop UI, it is going to be awful…

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

Google. Putting the i in Ads.

Crying in YTPremium

Following in porn's footsteps I see. Can't pause a video without getting an ad shoved in front of your face.

May as well call it "Turn Off".

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?

LOL I already blocked YouTube and I forgot how to undo that on purpose!

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

So... like Pornhub has done for years now?

This causes more issues when you have to pause to let the video buffer a while before continuing.

Shoutout to a fellow Jimmy watcher lol

The very least this is less obstrucive

non-interuptive ad format

Yeah, I'll stick with Brave web browser

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.

FFS. /picardfacepalm

Edit: Based on the downvotes, I guess we're all supposed to like having commercials whenever we hit the pause button.

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