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As a viewer I am getting extremely frustrated and irritated at the amount and length of the ads on YouTube. People have complained about the ads for some time, but the amount of complaints have gone up primarily for two reasons.

The first reason is from a viewer’s perspective. Lately I started keeping a log of the amount of ads popping up on the videos I watch. I did this out of curiosity and then as research for this video.

During my research I watched several videos of varying lengths. They were between 12 and 90 minutes and the genres fell under documentaries, podcasts, old tv shows, news, humor, DYI, and others.

Please note that my information is all approximate as I did not literally write the exact time stamp of when the ad popped up.

In one of the 14 minute videos, there were two 15 second ads before the video started (both could be skipped). At the 4 and 8 minute mark, there were two 5 second ads.  Then around the 12-minute mark there was a 30 second video that could not be skipped with two ads at the very end when the video was over.

That was about 110 seconds (2 minutes & 20 seconds) for a 14-minute video. That is around 13% of the video dedicated to ads which is a lot when the video is only 14 minutes long.

Most of the videos I watched that were under 15 minutes had at least 4 ad interruptions (about 8 ads of varying lengths). Usually there was an ad break at the very beginning and then two or three in the middle with another at the very end.

Here is something interesting. The longer I was online watching videos, the more the ads came up. For instance, I watched a series of videos and the longer I watched, the more frequent the ads appeared.

In one case I was watching a video that was an hour long and every four or five minutes an ad appeared. In another example, there was one ad at the beginning and two ads about five minutes in with no further ads until the very end. This was refreshing but not the norm.

Some of the ads are 5-seconds long and I’ve always felt that wasn’t a big deal but when there are two 5-second ad every few minutes, that’s a problem. Lately, however, there have been a couple 5-second ads and then several 15-second ads that you cannot skip and even 30-second ads that you cannot skip.

One of the hour long videos I watched contained numerous ads and at one point I tried to back out of the video to see if I would get a shorter ad after several 30-second ads came up. I back out of the video and went back to it and the system pushed me back to an earlier point in the video and I believe it was about 5 minutes back in time.

When I finally got to the point in the video where the 30-second ad came up previously, a new 30-second ad popped up and sure enough it was one I could not skip. Every time I tried this, it tossed me back in time and made me watch a new ad.

A few ads here and there is fine and understandable because that’s apparently how they make money but when I’m trying to watch a documentary or even a TV show and it keeps getting interrupted by ads, I get extremely irritated. The absolute worst is if you are watching or listening to a nice video with pretty music and pretty sights and up pops an ad completely destroying the mood you are trying to create.

The second reason complaints have increased over the ad content on YouTube is from the perspective of the video creator.

If you are a creator and post videos on YouTube, you already know about this problem especially if you have any videos over 100 views.

In order for a creator to be monetized on YouTube they must have at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 public watched hours. I am a very small YouTuber who has a handful of channels and none of them are anywhere close to 1000 subscribers.

Here is where someone like me gets upset. I have a phone gaming channel that has a handful of videos over 100 views and as soon as they hit that mark, YouTube started putting ads at the beginning of my videos. I have no say on the type, quality or quantity. The ads may be throughout the video, but I haven’t checked into that part of it. So far I do know they are at the beginning.

So here I am a small channel owner on YouTube who posts pretty consistently and doesn’t get a lot of people viewing but if any video is watched over 100 times, YouTube gets too take advantage of any revenue while I get nothing.

Their answer of course will be that the creator needs to market themselves and get the 1000 subscribers and the 4000 views, but I’ve heard from some creators that even when they hit those marks, some don’t get very much in return. You need to have tens of thousands of subscribers and views off the charts.  

Overall my primary complaint is from the POV of someone who watches videos on their platform. One or two ads here and there is no big deal but right now they actually have more frequent ads than if I were to watch regular television. When those ads pop up, they are intrusive and interrupt whatever I’m watching in the most inappropriate or frustrating times. Their ad breaks are not 5-minutes long like what you might find on television but they are more frequent and extremely annoying.

There have literally been some videos I simply stop watching which is highly frustrating to me because I’m watching it so that I can see and hear the message being conveyed.

It’s highly frustrating to the creator when they look at their analytics to find that people are leavening their videos and probably associate it with their content and not the ad frequency.

It’s as if YouTube are trying to remind us that they are still there in background hovering and don’t want us to just enjoy ourselves watching a video.

Thinking about it, I do not know how often people click on ads and then purchase a product. The frequency up-tick makes me think everyone is skipping them out of frustration and not buying anything through a video ad.

As a creator, I post my videos on three other platforms of which at least one of them monetizes me regardless of how many views or subscribers. It’s not a lot of money but it can build up over time. I’m not saying that YouTube should follow that exact model but they should reconsider their policy of putting ads on videos when a person cannot make any revenue from it.

As a viewer, I’m beginning to look at these other platforms to see if the creators has chosen to post in multiple places. In this way, I can support them on the other site and not be bombed by ad after ad after ad. Maybe with all of the competition and various monetization policies, YouTube will reconsider their policy. If they do, they may gain more loyalty from creators and more watch hours from people like me.

The other platforms I am currently on are Utreon, Odysee, and Rumble. For my type of videos, Utreon is the most favorable. Hopefully YouTube will reconsider their policy but I’m not very hopeful they actually will.

This is Phenix JiRa and I’m done with that thought.

See this video at the following locations

Playeur – preferred platform – easy to find videos, 5-second ad at start but no other ads interrupting the message. Customer service is outstanding and they are working to incorporate newer features. Hopefully, fingers crossed, they will not get so big that they become more like yt.

Odysee – hard to find videos; creators must promote them before they are seen through a coin system (lbc). It seems a good place for those already established and able to transfer from yt. None of my last 7 videos show any views at all. I will add my vids there but may leave the platform in the near future.

Rumble – not easy to find vids; seems more political than diverse in genres. They display other types of videos but the big players are those who have left yt due to being censored or other factors. I may or may not remain.

YouTube – easy to find vids but not creator-friendly and way too many ads. My hope is to leave this platform entirely however it is the main go-to for viewers and, if I want to be found, it’s a place to start.