10/03/2024 - Advertisements Everywhere!

Heard recently that YouTube is going to be displaying ads on your screen whenever your video is paused. That got me thinking...

There are just... way too many fucking ads everywhere. I understand they serve a purpose, they're annoying, but theoretically necessary for the way our capitalist society is set up. My problem isn't really with the concept of advertisements, but just with the content and placement of them. In terms of content, they're just so bad!! Maybe it's rose-colored glasses, but when I recall ads from 10 years ago I remember them being more creative, more unique, more interesting... less corporate. One example I love is that iconic iPod commercial from a good while ago. You just don't see any ads like this anymore, it feels like all ads nowadays are meant to be annoying as fuck, and they all have such a lack of personality.

Oviously I just dislike ads in general, but the fact that they're getting less creative just makes them that much worse to me. It also feels like companies, specifically de facto monopolies like YouTube, can just keep pushing the advertising limits with no consequences. 2 years ago, YouTube would give you 5 seconds and then you could skip an ad. Sometimes you might get a 15 second or so unskippable ad. Now, you get TWO ads, or you get 40 second unskippable ads. I've even had 50-second ad breaks where they just throw like 5 ads at me and I can't skip until almost a minute has passed. And of course companies will keep doing this, because why wouldn't they? Who is their competition who will provide fewer ads? Nobody! So they can continue to increase the amount of ads on their service because there will be no repercussions, and users will continue to use their service because there are no decent alternatives.

I understand YouTube is a free service, and they need to make money somehow. Fine, that's fair. But shit like $500 game consoles giving you ads on the home screen is ABSURD. There are limits to where advertisements should be, and how frequently they appear, and we have gone way too far over the line.