YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it.
“In Q1, we saw strong traction from the introduction of a pause ads pilot on connected TVs, a new non-interruptive ad format that appears when users pause their organic content,” Schindler noted. He went on to share that YouTube’s pause ads are “driving strong brand lift results” and “are commanding premium pricing from advertisers.”
Schindler didn’t share any timelines for when pause ads will start appearing on YouTube, but we know they’ll first roll out on smart TVs. The nature of these ads, including their duration, skippability, and more is still unclear. We also don’t know if Google plans to introduce these ads on YouTube’s mobile apps.
It’s also a way to pay for providing a service. We hate it, but short of everyone paying for YouTube, it’s how they make their money.
Now double dipping is where things get questionable. If you pay for a video service AND they run ads. /Ripley flaming eggsacs
Yes, but that doesn't excuse trying to force an infinite number of ads on people.
Podcasts are supported through ads and you don't see people complaining about it, programs to block them, and Podcasts trying to subvert ad blockers. Why? Because they have a reasonable number of ads, with clear ad breaks, that are indistinguishable code wise from the rest of the podcast so you can fast forward through them. Oh, and when I turn it off it doesn't keep paying audio at me.
This is like a service charging 10x as much and you defending it saying "you have to pay for the service somehow." Yes, there's paying for the service, and then there's the service being greedy and milking every last bit of money they can out of it.
YouTube made $31.5 billion in ad revenue last year, and they're still demanding more. Will these "pause ads" reduce the number of other ads users see? Will it help find other improvements of the service? Or is this just an attempt to keep building infinite growth in a finite system?
At this point I would be thrilled if YouTube went out of business because too many people were using ad blockers.
Bandwidth is expensive.
Google does not make a lot of information available on their operating costs, but from what I was able to find it looks like people are estimating Google spent over $2 billion for servers and bandwidth in 2018 for its network services including YouTube.
YouTube generated $31.5 billion in ad revenue in 2023.
YouTube is covering it's costs just fine and doesn't need to force more ads on everyone in order to turn a profit.
Alphabet has a profit margin of 25% and most of it is adsense, so I can guarantee that YouTube does not have a 93% profit margin.
First, the revenue is split and more than half goes to the creator. Plus you have other costs than bandwidth and servers, which I listed above.
Mind linking a source for the 2B? Seems low, I'd love to see how much they pay per GB.