Ask HN: YouTube Only Showing Ads?

1•OhMeadhbh•1h ago

Just curious if other people are seeing this or if I'm part of an a/b test. When people embed a YouTube video on their page, you can (often? always?) click on the lower-left of the video to open the video on the YouTube page (instead of the page it was embedded in.)

But I noticed this morning that instead of taking me to the YouTube page for the embedded video, it takes me to the YouTube page for the first ad to run on the embedded video. And on top of that, it shows me an ad before showing me the ad.

Seems to work on all IP addresses and multiple browsers.

I should check to see if it does it when I'm logged out or logged into my work account. (Haven't done that yet.)

There's no way to give feedback directly to YouTube or Alphabet, so if anyone knows anyone over at Google, could you ask them to please stop doing this? -thx

Comments

OhMeadhbh•1h ago

Also... the YouTube client on my ChromeCast [*] still halts videos after the first ad. Pretty sure this isn't what they were trying to do...

[*] Yes, I know, ChromeCast hardware isn't supported anymore. I had hoped they would have a functional life for a little longer.

pwg•1h ago

> if anyone knows anyone over at Google, could you ask them to please stop doing this

It will do no good. "DoubleClick"'s (what Google is now, after the ad company it bought took it over) sole purpose is to push more ads into your view, so asking them not to push ads is like asking water to not be wet.

OhMeadhbh•1h ago

Yeah... I was hoping someone over at Alphabet understood that people click on videos to see content and tolerate ads. They don't click to see the ads and then might stick around for the content. But that might be asking for too much from Google management.

bigyabai•50m ago

If you're not running adblock, you should internalize the fact that you are subsidizing other people's flawless viewing experience by suffering through advertisements.

Sideload a proper YouTube client, otherwise you're like one of those human batteries from the Matrix except you're fuelling my yt-dlp hard drive.

PaulHoule•57m ago

What gets me is getting almost 100% scam ads on YouTube and not having a clear way to push back. Even when I see an ad for a product that might benefit me, seeing all those scam ads makes me think… it is a scam again.