YouTubes "first-party ad platform" is delivering some of the worst ads on the whole internet.
It's not only the big-boobed characters promoting mobile games, there are (video) ads for pyramid and other "get rich quick" schemes, conspiracy theories (government will force everyone to become transgender!) and whatnot.
They don't give just the tiniest bit of a shit for all of this, as long as they are earning money with it.
>…there are (video) ads for pyramid and other "get rich quick" schemes…
Oh my dog. Before I set up Invidious to ensure my experience on iPad and such could be ad free, the one that really shocked me is one of the two ads that would show up mid-roll for a creator I watched regularly was SIXTY SIX MINUTES in length. Yes, an hour and six minutes! I can’t imagine what that must cost, but clearly whatever they were selling must cover the costs of a 66-minute ad well enough!
I've been wondering what the purpose of those super-long ads is for some time, but now it suddenly occurred to me: they're for unattended youtube players.
Plenty of shops, waiting rooms, lounges, bars, etc have a TV which is simply tuned to a youtube playlist. Whoever is issuing those ads is counting on that the operators of those TV's for whatever reason (either because they don't care, don't notice, or don't have access to the controls) don't skip them.
Not entirely. I sat through a 12 minute ad once. We could have skipped it after 5 seconds. But it was a charming video of a lady cooking a hamburger and I rather enjoyed watching it. I wish more ads were like that
I do not! It was years ago. And unfortunately there is no tracking of ads, I wanted a link to that video too. You can't even back up and re-watch an ad!
I have heard of their “system”, they auction ad space out in real time with a bunch a descriptors for the ad buyers who then bid for the space. Google really doesn’t give a crap who wins it or if it matches your interests/needs. Advertisers are free to advertise to anyone as long as they win the bid.
I've seen it said that newsfeeds/ads/etc. feed you what they think you will engage with, so you may want to wonder why you're seeing that type of content. I've never seen anything of the sort on any large tech platform, and I'm probably in an appropriate demographic to be recommended that stuff.
Those algorithms tend to be "people who liked X also liked Y", which is very prone to false positives for people who don't fit conventional stereotypes.
For example, someone who watches the Forgotten Weapons channel on Youtube might get recommended far-right conspiracy videos, because people who like guns often like far-right politics. They might also get recommended Scott Manley and Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles because all three have deep dives into interesting historical technology.
Ideally, there would be more manual knobs for communicating one's preferences about such things to recommendation algorithms.
Relatedly, easily the highest item on my wishlist for YouTube features is algorithm customizability. Half the time I'm recommended the same 5 channels, while the other half I'm recommended amazing videos from fantastic smaller YouTube channels.
Being able to at least switch between some presets for the algorithm would be amazing.
I think it's more the lack of other analytics data, due to uBlock Origin and a PiHole in my network, that they fall back to those ads. Maybe I'd have some nice ads for cooking supplies if I were to allow tracking, not sure.
It's not only the big-boobed characters promoting mobile games, there are (video) ads for pyramid and other "get rich quick" schemes, conspiracy theories (government will force everyone to become transgender!) and whatnot.
They don't give just the tiniest bit of a shit for all of this, as long as they are earning money with it.