Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.
Well, I’d rather see blankness than another ad.
it’s nuts that no one likes ads yet advertising wouldn’t be a billions of dollars industry if they didn’t work
well, as long as the companies buying the ads think they work, we have an industry
i am also immune to ads lol
Until they subtly inject them into other social media platforms, whereupon they’ll trickle into Lemmy like so much piss from an overflowing toilet. Mark my words, we’ll be up to our eyes in piss by 2026.
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My wife worked for a company that was heavily reliant on generating leads from ads. They had lots of real time monitoring of conversion rates to make sure they were actually making more money than they were spending on the ads. They would have to turn ad channels off all the time because the return on ad spend went negative.
So my conclusion is that ads can be somewhat effective for companies, but if they don’t actively monitor and control the performance of their ads, they’re probably just burning money. A lot of companies seem to advertise because they think that’s the only way to grow.
The sad thing is: ads dont need to be liked to work. Making enjoyable ads is expensive, making annoying ads that still work is cheaper
That’s because they are psychological warfare. They don’t need to be liked because the goal isn’t to create a positive association with the product, it’s to brainwash people into thinking they need the product
Or sometimes just remind you the product exists. They don’t have to make you like <insert snack here>, but when you see it you end up thinking “man it’s been a while since I’ve had <snack>”. Next then you know, you’re grabbing <snack> at the grocery store because you’ve been thinking about it lately.
People accepted unobtrusive ads, it’s once they started taking over the actual content that they became a big no-no. The ad companies and ad-reliant websites fucked themselves.
A lot of people don’t mind ads, they even say they don’t see them anymore, that their brain just tunes them out. Then you look at their spending habits and it’s quite clear they are seeing them.
A big part of the population doesn’t mind being constantly manipulated.
I’ve seen a few ads recently that are just random as hell, don’t say a product name and don’t even have a website or link to find out what it is even advertising. They always make me wonder how they’re working, if they’re working. They seem like just a waste of money and time for everyone involved, including the advertiser themselves.
I think you’re giving companies too much credit. Freakonomics did a series called “Does Advertising Actually Work?” and the tl;dr was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-1-tv-ep-440/
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/
What I’ve found is that advertising only works if I already wanted that product. That advertisement doesn’t have to be these huge ad campaigns that they currently do. It could be as simple as showing a still image of a twix bar, and saying “Hey! Go buy a twix!” Yeah, ok.
But if I wasn’t already planning on buying that product? Well that ad time may as well have been some archival footage showing the inside of a 1940s concentration camp in use.
That is to say, both are things that you find offensive to have to be watching, and neither are going to entice you to buy the product.
munches on a twix bar
…what?
i think human psychology is too nebulous and qualitative with way too many factors to definitively “measure” how effective ads are. all they really know is (most of the time) buy ads, revenue goes up.
but there’s a reason your personal data is so coveted by advertisers. if they can parse that you’re an avid hiker from the millions of data points they collect from you (websites visited, geolocation data, other purchases, etc), then they can sell ads for $400 hiking boots specifically for you, that people who never leave their couch and order delivery from hungry howies every day would just ignore
I suspect that’s why Facebook makes so much money, they have a lot of information on you like that.
In a weird way, this is actually quite handy, as you get ads for things that are actually relevant to you.
dude, ads are bullshit. you should never buy anything based on the seller’s ads. and i used to say a good way to research products was go to the niche subreddit, or even amazon reviews, but those are so full of bullshit shills anymore it’s hard to know.
Apparently there are some people that like ads, and a larger amount who may not like them but are willing to tolerate them.
Those of us who will make proactive choices to not engage with advertising are the minority.
I like to read a catalog when I’m interested in discovering something I may want. An advert on the internet is like a door-to-door salesperson staring through my window.
My mom (mid 70s) says “Oh I don’t mind the commercials. It gives me a break to go pee.”
And when I say “or you could just get a dvr, and pause for as long as you want, any time you want.”
Her response was “Yeah…but who wants to do all that???”
Um…boomers are weird.
Lemmy users typically vastly overestimate the amount of hassle people are willing to put up with to deal with technology.
It’s why we have so many Linux evangelicals.
Granted I agree with the overall spirit of your reply, I don’t agree with it in terms of hitting the pause button on a remote. She’s had VCRs before. And DVD players. She knows how this works. Hitting the pause button and hitting the play button has to be THE easiest form of technology I can think of.
But for Linux? Yeah. The platform has been around something like 30 years, and STILL only has 4% of the overall userbase, despite the fact that only the rich can afford a Mac, and Windows is so trouble ridden these days, that it’s actively like living in the book 1984. Yet, nobody is switching to Linux, because it’s Linux.
But if you try to point out the problems that average people have with Linux, you get told “Then YOU create your own fork. It’s open source!”
Like, c’mon. I don’t even know how to USE Linux. You think I know how to program???
Because overall, I think Linux COULD BE superior to windows…if it were easy to figure out what the hell I’m doing. I tried to unmute my speakers. On windows, down in the task bar is a speaker icon. Right click it and get some options, or double click it and get a slider bar.
Took me 3 days to figure out how to get audio. I should not need to go into terminal and mess around with 30 paragraphs of copy/paste/troubleshoot to figure out why my speakers aren’t getting audio. This is just one example, but I’m sure SOMEONE is going to chime in, and tell me that I’m wrong, and that Linux is the best, and I’m an idiot.
Ok, I’m an idiot. Sure. Guess what. So are 80% of the userbase. Linux has 4% of the userbase. The reason it’s so small is because Linux doesn’t cater to the idiot. You got people a month ago before Biden dropped out of the race who were undecided voters. Its not like either of the choices are some unknown. I would venture to guess that 1 month ago trump and Biden were two of the most well known people on earth. Their policies and what they stand for are and were well documented. There were still undecided voters.
Those are the people Linux needs to cater to. The people who forget how to tie their shoes. The people who don’t have a thought running through their heads, and then get distracted by a butterfly.
I’ve used an Android phone for 10+ years at this point. Android is written in Linux. Android doesn’t have this problem. Any idiot can use Android. I would venture to say that 100% of Android users have no idea what Terminal is. If you asked them to use terminal, they’d say “Terminal? Are you dying?”
So, I see Linux as this potentially great thing…that’s utterly useless because it’s developed by elitists who hold the mentality that if they had to suffer, so should all of you. Problem is, instead of advancing Linux, they’re just holding it back from what should be a much bigger userbase. Just so they can say “Ha ha, I know how to use it. It’s easy for me! Now YOU learn.”
Not taking into account that people like me will still keep using a Windows 7 PC that’s not been updated in about a decade. And I genuinely don’t know if the firewall is even on. Or even how I’d access that.
I can understand, I would feel better watching a black screen than an ad trying to psychologically manipulate you in a personalized way.
I find myself watching less and less youtube. Till is no longer part of my daily routine.
I backed up a few videos that I loved using tubearchivists and move on to other platforms.
I’m into small web and the fediverse now.
If I hqve to watch a black screen, so be it. Better a moment of peace than an ad.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad.
This wasn’t a joke.
Wait so there was a brief black screen, then the video? That sounds like the ad blocker is doing a great job…
That sounds like a feature, not a bug.
It’s honestly really weird that the journalist ever thought that would be a joke. Like how is it funny? Unless the whole thing is written by a bot that doesn’t understand emotions…
It’s indeed not a joke.
How about when the ad blockers insert a joke, when a blank screen is shown on YouTube?
I’d prefer a blank screen
No joke.
If that’s what it comes to then so be it. I’d rather stare at the void than an ad.
Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad.
This isn’t a joke. I would literally rather see a black screen than an ad.
Fully agree, I YouTube a lot for white noise as I fall asleep, and while I’ve had premium for a few years now the advertisements that I had before premium were much higher volume then anything else and I would much rather have no audio than a random advertisement blasting
Also before the better twitch adblock that let you bypass adtime with a lower quality video, people do literally use the plugin that replaced the ads with purple screen.
While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time
Time not having [corporation]'s advertisements shoved in my face is time well spent
How are they supposed to attract new customers when they are already a monopoly?
From the beginning of the article:
…in a bid to get users to switch to YouTube Premium
Which is still ludicrous of them, considering how much you pay for how little it offers
Yep on desktop it offers basically nothing if you have an adblock and on mobile you can get everything you want by patching
The day adblocks/yt-dlp finally loose to google forever is the day I kiss youtube bye-bye. No youtube premium, no 2 minute long unskippable commerical breaks. I am strong enough to break the addiction and go back to the before-fore times when we bashed rocks together and stacked CDs in towers.
Peertube, odysee, bittorrenting, IPTV. Ill throw my favorite content creators a buck or two on patreon to watch their stuff there if needed. We’ve got options, its a matter of how hot you need to boil the water before the lowest common denominator consumer finally has enough.
It isn’t fair to expect free hosting from platforms where creators are expecting revenue for original content.
Hoping for piracy means you expect someone else to pay.
Google should be pressured into changing their policies so user experience feels less disruptive and provide a healthy monetization
Video hosting is one of those things which can probably never be done profitably. But that’s okay, lots of things can’t be done profitably but still exist.
The internet used to be almost entirely run by passionate individuals with no thought towards how they’re going to make any money.
The long-term solution is probably something like inter-connected peertube instances provided by some of the big video creators with lots of patrons, and if someone gets big and starts making patreon money, they can make their own instance and start hosting their own videos.
I’ll take a black screen over an ad any day of the week. Screw ads.
I rather see a black screen than an ad. Pretty much what I do with twitch, those corpo fuck heads can fuck off with their shitty cringy ass ads that make you loose a braincell everything it plays.
I can’t wait for the day that saying “youtube” makes people say “what’s this? a peertube instance?”.
I’ve been seeing the black screen on Firefox. Still better than an ad, but it would be nice to be gone lol
Those that make peaceful ad-blocking impossible make violent rage quiting inevitable.
Ever since YouTube started this nonsense I moved to invidious and haven’t looked back
