The Verge reports that YouTube is rolling out advertisements that show up when you pause videos, continuing experiments that the company started a year ago. A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”
The representative said that advertising on paused videos is designed to create a “less interruptive” experience. But as The Verge notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a drop in the increasing load of obnoxious and often unskippable advertising on YouTube. And since I’m seeing more and more creators pack their videos with sponsorships, I somehow doubt that the people making YouTube’s content are going to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.
“We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures,” said the fictional CEO (of a company that bears more than a passing resemblance to Google) in Ready Player One.
Apropos of nothing, it’s possible to block every single ad on YouTube — even the sponsorships that are baked into the videos themselves — on both desktop and mobile.
One way to fight back is to try to get the video ID of the advertisement from the debug info, go to the video directly and leave a dissatisfied comment. This will work until they hide that ID anyway. Or the advertiser turns off comments. At that point we’re left with sending our disapproval in other public forums, preferably the more public the better.
“Your ad was shown to me on a pause screen where I don’t want to see ads. As such I will ensure that I do not purchase your products for the foreseeable future and that I will recommend that friends and relatives do the same. Thank you for participating in YouTube customer feedback.”