Okey doke.
Thanks for explaining that Youtube has costs for doing business. I guess everyone that has felt exploited by them should know they are a business with costs and not a charity. I bet that will blow their minds.
I mean, why would anyone be mad at Spotify’s profits? They throw pennies to artists. It’s a business. Why are people upset that Spotify gets rich while artists are impoverished? How dare they begrudge the profit.
Good talk.
As a data point, I do NOT pay for any streaming services that have ads. I do watch some FAST (Free Ad Supported Television) like shows on the Roku channel, plutoTV, or Tubi, but those are, like it says on the tin, free. Or at least, they don’t cost me monthly dollars, just data like every other online service.
The subs we have (Disney/Hulu, Netflix, and shudder) are all no ad tiers. Shudder is rumored to be adding an ad-supported tier. When they do, I’ll have to see what the No-ad price jumps to.
Ever try Freevee tv by Amazon? Links thru an acct but the entire streaming app/site is free to anyone as long as you are registered with Amazon. No shopping required.
We skim off a close family friend’s prime acct. so we get the freevee stuff. Note that a lot of that stuff is ALSO available at FAST channels like Tubi, etc.
The FAST channels’ strategy seems to make up in volume what they lack on curated quality. Which is fine. But it also means a lot of their content is under non-exclusive licensing agreements.
I tried to watch an 8 minute video about making potato bread (last night on youtube).
I took note of the ads and how long they were – one at the beginning was 60 seconds and one mid-roll ad for 90 seconds.
I kind of remember the final season of “The Big Bang Theory” a lot of people were complaining about the number and length of the ads during the show (some guy calculated it). At that time, they were running 12 minutes of ads and 18 minutes of show in the 30 minute time slot. The network said the increased advertising was to pay the HIGH salaries of the 3 main actors. I calculated that to be 40% advertising time. So to receive 18 minutes of entertainment the user was forced to watch 12 minutes of commercials.
I was forced to watch 150 seconds of commercials (I didn’t use the skip button) for 480 seconds of entertainment (on this youtube potato bread video) that worked out to 31.25%
Do I think that is a bit excessive… yes!! I do want this youtuber to be paid for his time and energy producing this video, but he is not top tier actor on a hit show. The advertising time should be adjusted to something a little closer to what you are actually receiving.
While I appreciate your suffering for the sake of scientific data gathering, utilizing the ‘skip’ button seems to cut your ad/content ratio considerably. When watching YouTube on my Roku (no ad blocking possible w/o network fiddling) I’m USUALLY presented with the skip option at 5-15 seconds. Sometimes up to 30.
Only VERY rarely do I have to sit through a full minute or more of ads in one go.
I wonder if the number/length/skip options you’re presented depend on one’s viewing method. I.e. do they try and serve you more if you’re in a PC? In a browser on a mobile device? In the app on a device? on a Roku?
And, of course, even if we DID have answers, YouTube could, and probably will, change those answers the next day and not say a damned word about it.
I don’t watch that many videos on my desktop, but I’ll see if it is similar to my ROKU experience last night.
As far as gathering data, after 35 years as an accountant; its hard to turn off the numbers part of my brain.
It just felt like I was watching more ads on youtube over network TV and my brain wouldn’t let it go until I ran the numbers. Of course, I would need a larger sample size to do a proper comparison, but for a “quick and dirty” calculation, this felt like my typical experience (I have on youtube – via Roku)
At the end of the day, ROKU is still better than the costly and frustrating dealings I used to have with my cable TV provider. Long story… short – They raised my rates after I supposedly “locked in” for a year and refused to honor what they said. I got so angry, I disconnected the box, took it down to the facility and cancelled my cable TV. I will never return to that ever again. (rant over)
It’s usually 22:00 of program per half hour, so that is too many ads.
Yes… I think the network was paying a very high salary for the three main characters and they were trying to re-coup some of that cost.
I stopped watching it and figured eventually I’ll watch the last couple of seasons on DVD (used on ebay).
That would work out to 26.6% for a generic network show and youtube’s rate was 31.25%, so higher than the network.
Interesting and food for thought. Thanks!!
Starting to understand why I so rarely watch anything on YouTube and have started to give up on streaming content and returning to books. The content isn’t that good and the money grubbing platforms are worse. Monetizing things has never made anything better.
I have found this thread quite informative! I am fairly sympathetic towards writers, photographers, filmmakers, “content creators” , etc and am trying to better understand how they can make an income using their time this way.
I think some of us older folk feel like this form of entertainment sort of crept up on us and don’t understand how some of this has evolved from things we were accustomed to paying for, or didn’t have access to.
You post kind of reminded me of a youtuber I watch from time to time (he does puzzles, reviews them, etc.)
Any who, apparently some puzzle manufacturers are using A.I. to create artwork for puzzles. It appears some of the puzzle manufacturers no longer want to pay artists or pay for the rights to the art, so they let A.I. create the picture (for the puzzle). From what I understand they give it some parameters and suggestions and it attempts to create what they asked for.
The few puzzles that Sunshine and I do together (from time to time) I purchase used, so I’m not really affecting the market, either way. But it does give one “food for thought”.
I have family members who make a living , or try to, in these fields.
My siblings thought I would be a writer, but instead I ended up practicing medicine. 
My daughter wanted to go to school for journalism, but instead compromised, got a "certificate " in journalism, and majored in English. She now works in digital marketing.
I think you mean: this absolutely free to me offering should run the amount of ads I personally want.
No, I’m OK with a short ad running on a short youtube video…
I do think it should be less than a network TV program, as (network television) has a lot more overhead than a youtuber.
As far as it being free, after my initial purchase of an outdoor antenna – the few TV stations I receive (via this antenna) are free. So why should youtube video have more ads (time and percentage) than a network television show.
What I wrote was accurate. 
Not based on the numbers…
If a generic network TV show runs 8 minutes of ads for 30 minutes that equates to 26.6%, whereas the Potato Bread video I watched on youtube had 31.25% ad time.
It is free and optional.
You are correct, but so are the TV shows I get from my antenna.
And yes, I have stopped watching some youtubers because they had way too many mid-roll ads for video.
