I just uninstalled a game from my mobile phone this morning that had heavy ad usage. It was interesting to note the different ad display strategies. From least to most annoying:
- display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display an animated ad, have the "x" to close appear soon (3-10 seconds) - display a static ad, have the "x" to close appear after 20-30 seconds - display an animated ad, have the "x" to close appear after 20-30 seconds - display several ads in succession, each short, but it automatically proceeds to the next; the net time after which the "x" to close appears after 20-30 seconds - display several ads in succession, each lasts for 3-10 seconds but you have to click on an "x" to close each one before the next one appears
I live in the USA. The well-established consumer product brands (Clorox, McDonalds, etc.) almost all had short ads that were done in 3-5 seconds. The longest ads were for obscure games or websites, or for Temu, and they appeared over and over again, making me hate them with a flaming passion. The several-ads-in-succession were usually British newspaper websites (WHY???? I don't live there) or celebrity-interest websites (I have no interest in these).
It seems like the monkey's-paw curse for this kind of legislation is to show several ads in a row, each allowing you to skip them after 5 seconds.
I've often wondered whether the world would be better without ads. The incentive to create services (especially in social media) that strive to addict their users feels toxic to society. Often, it feels uncertain whether these services are providing actual value, and I suspect that whether a user would pay for a service in lieu of watching ads is incidentally a good barometer for whether real value is present.
Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware this is impractical. But it's fun to think about sometimes.
The world would definitely be better without ads. All ads are poisonous. All of them first convince you that you and your life as it is is not good enough, and that in order to be happy again you need to spend money to buy a $product.
As much as I hate ads, I don’t know that it’s so simple.
There are products that do solve legitimate problems people have. Maybe there is less of that now, but in this past this was very true, and advertising helped make people aware that solutions to their problems have been developed. The first washing machine, for example.
The problem comes when the advertisement manufacturers problems that didn’t previously exist.
And the worst part is, from a societal point of view - it doesnt matter if $companyA wins over $companyB, if the reason they won is that there was more Geico ads than Liberty ads etc.
We allow every space to be overrun with these things, wasting our time and infecting our brains and in the end its zero-sum for the companies and negative-sum for us. No value anywhere is created.
I think it would have been a better world without ads. There would be more competition which would improve products and thus outcome for customers.
Also most of the demand of goods is artificially created by ads, so there would be less production of crap and thus less resources wasted.
It would also mean a whole industry of people would do something else that is potentially not as detrimental to society.
The money spend on the digital marketing industry was estimated at 650 billion USD 2025. For comparison that is equivalent to the whole GDP of countries like Sweden or Israel.
While I agree that the world would be better without ads in their current form, we should think why are ads required and what are the benefits.
The main issue is how you discover a new product. The main benefit to society is/could be faster progress. The main downside to society could be unhappy people that consume crap.
I think smart people should think about alternative solutions, not just think "ads are the problem".
I personally have the exactly same issues as above when I look for example for open source libraries/programs for a task. There are popular ones, there are obscure ones, they are stable ones, etc. The search space is so big and complex that it is never easy.
My personal preference would be a network recommendation system. I would like to know what people I know (and in my extended network) are using and like - being it restaurants, clothes or open source software. I have 90% of friends (or friends of friends) satisfied with something - maybe I should try. Of course it is not a perfect system, but seems much better than what we currently have...
That's a great idea for a dystopian sci-fi story: you can opt out of ads, but your product choices are publicly broadcast instead.
I pay for YouTube Premium, which would in theory pull me out of the perverse incentive structure around an ad-based model. Yet I feel like I still get pushed toward all the same “features” of ad-funded accounts. I find it incredibly frustrating and keep sending feature requests and reporting site issues as a result.
I've often wondered what would happen if we _taxed_ advertising [0]. The same rationale applies: it'll never work, and it'll never even be tested, but I agree, it was fun to think about.
[0]: https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-adver...
Maybe, but on the otherside, ads make available a huge amount of media and services to people who would otherwise be unable to afford it. Like, I suspect a non-trivial percentage of people wouldn't have email if it weren't for gmail and other free w/ads services.
Most internet services are very low cost to offer for any company that has some infrastructure setup already. So for instance 'back in the day', before Google hoovered up everybody's email, what would typically happen is you would get an email address with your ISP.
I don't think that's impractical - isn't it exactly what YouTube Premium offers, ad free viewing for £12.99 a month.
I watch quite a lot of content on YouTube and really should sign up for Premium but I feel that the shockingly irrelevant ads I get presented with on YouTube are trying to drive me to sign for it - they're certainly not going to get me to buy anything!
YouTube has been increasing both the amount, frequency and length of ads in their video's for a long time now. They know people will keep using them anyway because of the network effect, and people who are really fed up with these ads will buy premium anyway. For them it's a win/win.
It's a decent deal.
Comes with YouTube Music for 15$.
I probably use YouTube more than any other website, for about 10 minutes my premium subscription had expired and u rushed to throw money at Google to turn it back on.
Musicians complain about low streaming payouts, but 30 years ago I'd pay $40 ( inflation adjusted) for 15 songs and only like 3 of them.
Now I can listen to 500 or 600 unique songs a month + music that would of had to be imported for that 15$.
If I actually like an artist I'll buy an album as a keepsake.
Yet, most content on YouTube these days are sponsored by the companies trying to sell you a crap.
And with 'Native ads' it's nearly impossible to have ad-free experience nowadays.
The problem isn't fundamentally advertising - it's stuff like toxic and anti-user advertisements, and the ad industry not knowing what the word "privacy" means.
People won't pay a few bucks a month for YouTube. They won't pay to keep their favorite sites online. They won't pay for their news. Without ads, a lot of things wouldn't exist.
It’s a well-established fact that my world would be much better without ads.
Not a great regulatory move, in my opinion. But I really wish ad companies would implement this rule across the board. If you can't sell me on your ad in 5 seconds, it's unlikely you can sell me on your product in 15 or 30 seconds. And if your product is of any interest to me whatsoever, I'm happy to continue watching the ad. I sit through movie trailers and tech ads all the time, even with an option to skip. But I have no use for seeing the entire Dawn dish soap's aw-shucks, faux-folksy ad play out. In five seconds, you can remind me that dawn exists, fulfilling the main purpose of the ad, and I can get on with the content I'm actually interested in.
> Not a great regulatory move, in my opinion.
> But I really wish ad companies would implement this rule across the board.
I genuinely don’t know how you could get your wish without regulation. You can’t expect all players in the ad game to follow self enforced rules if there’s any possibility that not following a self-imposed rule (“all ads must have a skip button”) will bring a competitive advantage. As soon as one player decides to take that advantage, all will. Back to square one.
> Not a great regulatory move, in my opinion.
Why?
Think the best argument against it is that it makes advertising less valuable, which in turn limits the how many "paid for with advertising" services will be available and how good those services will be.
Especially in a developing country where consumers ability to pay for such things is going to be limited, that will presumably deprive some margin of the population of media/services that are currently ad supported.
Just a hip-shot, not a considered position. When I hear "regulation", I think "threat". Either of violence (any physical touch), or financial garnishment. So, to me, ads that last longer than five seconds do not rise to the level of threatening anyone.
But assuming that they did, the situation seems like one where there could be any number or ways of following the letter or the law, while flouting the spirit of it. I don't dare imagine the creative ways these people will come up with to make entertainment even worse than it already is. So for areas that seem to require miles and miles of caveats and very specific rule-making, my gut reaction is that the regulatory path isn't the right one until we can break down the scope into something that simple regulations can accommodate without loophole. Put more simply: if it seems like people will just find ways around the problem, my assumption is just that we're not targeting the right problem yet and we need to break it down further, if regulation is the right solution at all.
But that is pretty assumptive, so - again - it's just a first feeling. Doesn't pass my vibe check.
I personally like descriptive regulation over prescriptive regulation.
Instead of prescribing exactly what you should do, describe the outcomes you want, and let case law fill in the rest of the owl. That's the only way to prevent violations like this.
To be fair, the main disadvantage of this approach is that law is much harder to understand. You can't just read the law as it is written, you also have to familiarize yourself with all the rulings that tell you how that law should actually be interpreted.
Second order effects.
Many advertisers may avoid advertising or lower their ad budgets. This means the tech platform makes less revenue. This means the platform and the video creator both make less revenue. This means less videos get created.
All of these happen at the population level.
I hate ads, but regulations that are for things that aren't public health (including mental health), anti-monopolization, etc. are probably bad for innovation and growth.
You have to balance regulation and over-regulation.
Too many people think removing ads means they'll still continue to get content for free, they just won't have to watch ads.
At best, it's as you said, the platform and creator make less money (Youtube gives 55% of ad revenue to the creator). This would naturally lead to less content eventually.
At worst, video content becomes unsustainable without a subscription.
> This would naturally lead to less content eventually
I, personally, am drowning in "content".
I would argue that limiting the amount of unrequested product evangelism shoved into users' eyeballs is a valuable public and mental health initiative. I wish we could have seen the alternate reality where ad-revenue was not the most lucrative business model for the internet.
I don't see how less video time for people would harm innovation.
If you, like me and most people I know, hate ads, why would it be a bad thing to limit it?
What are we expecting to actually accomplish with all this platform growth thing?
Its market distortionary and makes global advertisers have to customize for the local audience, some might not bother
> market distortionary
I am unsure what you are trying to say here. But if you mean to refer to "market distortion", I cannot see how that can be happening.
The reason is that these rules are supposed to be applicable universally to every company in the same way. And as such, they do not create any market distortion in one way or the other. Because everyone has to play by the same rules. Those are as fair market conditions as one can get, in my opinion.
> some might not bother
Why should that be a problem? If someone does not like the regulation in a particular jurisdiction, it is fine. No one is forcing them to operate there.
The main point is the following: If they want to operate, they have to play by the local rules. Just like everyone else.
Ad skipping should be handled at the platform level and not left to individual advertisers to control. Regulations like this make such an outcome more likely.
Mobile ads in the US are heinous. Each one has a different mechanism for skipping, the skip buttons are micro sized and impossible to tap, some of them don't even work.
Standardization should have been up to the platforms selling ads, but they haven't done it. It's past time for local authorities to step in and protect consumers from predatory behavior.
> market distortionary
So what if it is?
> makes global advertisers have to customize for the local audience
My understanding of advertising is that there is already substantial customization for local audiences.
Good?
The incentives are better aligned though, so long as they are not undermined (by moving the target) Ala cable tv.
I would assume that the global advertisers are already having to customize for the local audience since the spoken language is Vietnamese.
Can you spell out more what’s wrong with distorting a market or customizing for local audiences?
Markets are not a natural phenomenon and are themselves the result of complex social arrangements, involving coercion. So, the market is the result of "distortions" before and after various regulatory measures.
why is it a bad thing if global advertisers have to customize? If they're global, they should have the resources. Anyhow none of our concerns
Simply put, fuck the "market" (aka: uber-rich people). The market should serve us humans, not the other way around.
Ive heard this garbage excuse since Reagan took a wrecking ball to regulations. Not making effective regulations is ALSO a market distorting thing, that encourages the absolute worst behaviors. And now with Citizens United, its $1 = 1 vote.
But no, "marrrrrkeeeeetttttt"
Isn’t that presumably the point of the Vietnamese government whenever they set new requirements?
To make it harder for people who dont care about Vietnam to do business.
> But I really wish ad companies would implement this rule across the board. If you can't sell me on your ad in 5 seconds, it's unlikely you can sell me on your product in 15 or 30 seconds.
When talking about how ads "don't work on you"; it's very important to remember that just like every single other human you're not immune to propaganda.
I'm much less concerned about being sold in 15-30 secs as much as the "ads" that are paid promotional programming that runs >30 minutes in the middle of a video that is <30 minutes.
Nothing makes me quite as irrationally angry as a 30 second ad on a one minute video
I don't know why you feel it is irrational at all. That a perfectly rational reason to be angry about the state of ad injection
That stuff is so bizarre! I can understand how an advertiser might try to sneak an infomercial onto an ad campaign, and I can understand how it might be attempted on accident. But I can't understand why an ostensible ad platform would ever allow you to upload a 30 min. ad without lots of flags going up and needing some approval.
Requiring skip is good, but the part about focusing on illegal ads is better. If all ads were for soda, cars, and other legitimate products, that would be one thing, but so many ads are for straight up scams these days.
Considering how unhealthy soda is to consume, I'd ban those ads in a heartbeat right along side tobacco and alchohol. The UK just banned all TV and online junk food ads and I'm alright with that.
I'm just wondering why governments think it's a good idea to regulate ads. IMO that is something the market (e.g. the users) should take care of.
So instead of one minute-long ad, I'm going to get 12 I have to manually skip? Thanks, Vietnam.
Interesting, I wonder if this will spike VPN traffic into Vietnam.
They shouldn't be surprised if ads are shown more often.
Yeah - it seems like this will cause a series of 5 second skippable ads that still sums up to >many seconds of unskippable ads (unless that's banned, in which case they will just see ads more often, as you say)
I expect it will make the experience worse rather than better because the publishers will try to maintain their inventory (how many seconds of ads they show per minute watched)
You mean a regulation will cause unintended consequence? Color me shocked
Basically banning brand advertising ads. Interesting. This will be a pain for a bunch of developers to adhere to lol.
> Basically banning brand advertising ads.
I don't get it. Could you please elaborate? Thanks in advance!
In marketing their is a distinction between direct response ads (get people to take action) vs brand ads (force people to just watch, no immediate action needed).
Unskippable ads are almost always brand ads focusing on total view time.
[dead]
Higher volume of skippable ads incoming
This will push CPMs down, and therefore companies will make up for the lower earnings-per-ad by showing more ads.
You can rearrange the deck chairs, sure, but more ads might be more annoying than fewer longer ones.
Was this posted automatically or why it reads Vienam? Without the T! And the title also reads so?
In case you wanted a more reputable source: https://theinvestor.vn/online-video-advertisements-in-vietna...
Poorly thought out and family subscription to YouTube premium in Vietnam is $6/month USD. Google is just going to pull a different lever to compensate, like just displaying more shorter ads per session.
I don't think Google's gonna be hurting for this one given the fact that hitting the skip button gives Google a strong signal that a real human just watched the ad and it didn't just play to an empty room.
Yep. Ad viewability standards simply require that a video ad was 50% onscreen for a continuous 2 seconds in order for it to count as an impression. Google probably usually gets that even for skippable ads.
> Picture this: an advertiser pays premium rates for space on your site, but their carefully crafted creative sits unseen at the bottom of a page your readers never scroll to. Despite technically delivering the impression you promised, you've essentially sold empty air. This disconnect between ads served and ads seen is why viewability has emerged as the cornerstone metric in digital advertising's maturity.
> Video ads require at least two seconds of continuous play while 50% visible ... These seemingly arbitrary thresholds represent extensive research into human attention patterns.
Then there can be regulation of that too.
Indeed, just keep pulling the policy ratchet if tech tries to subvert.
It likely wouldn't take much to get YouTube to just shut out Vietnam; ads there are very cheap, so they probably weren't making much money anyway.
Minimal loss, the content can still be ripped and shared through other systems. Youtube is adversarial S3 imho. We can collectively live without Google and Youtube, without getting into the slop argument. I would take a different perspective about social contract if Google did not do Google things, and try to squeeze its users as hard as possible.
How does television work in Vietnam? Is it all adfree?
And then I thought the poster skipped a t
missing a T
Unyielding fidelity to the original article title.
Faithful "to a t"
What is unyielding fidelity? noun. A steadfastness in loyalty and support, characterized by a firm and unwavering devotion to a cause, principle, or person, demonstrating exceptional persistence and reliability despite obstacles or challenges.
Without a t, it may as well be a streaming service.
It doesn't bode well for the quality of the source, if it can't even spell a country's name right!
viet fucking nam man - the dude
The T really ties the word together man
I not too long ago received an ad on YouTube that was an entire episode of the UK reality TV program 'Made In Chelsea'. I think it was skippable but I couldn't believe that a) someone set up an ad campaign to do this, and b) YouTube didn't detect it.
That’s not bad but better would be to require a default of chronological order for showing content with an option for “discover” other content but only on demand.
Title should be "Vietnam", not "Vienam". I would downvote the submitter just for the reason that he posted this without correting it first.
Both here and on the source post there is a typo in the title (Vietnam instead of Vienam).
I always wondered about traditional television. People like my dad still have it. It still has a shitload of ads. They're unskippable. People don't really seam to care about those for some reason though.
A television commercial hasn't been unskippable since the advent of the DVR in 1999. If you do care about avoiding commercials, that's where you have the most power to avoid it. It's streaming where the service has full power to restrict control of navigation through the video stream.
- Google just needs to tell DJT
- Vietnam get 50 % tariffs
- Change the ban
- Easy peasy for Tech bros.
My favorite most annoying ad tactic is the trick slowing down progress bar. It starts off fast making it seem like it’s going to be, say, a ten-second ad so you decide to suffer through it… but progressively slows so you notice at like the 20 second mark you’re only 2/3 of the way through the progress bar, so probably less than halfway done. Murderous rage.
There's also the tactic of having different ad behaviours during the same video. The first will be a 30s unskippable ad, the second will be a single skippable one, the third will be 3 ads, one of which you can skip, etc. It's ok on a mobile or if you're at your desk, but if you're watching from a distance it gets really annoying...
Mr. Beast on youtube is guilty of that. Matt Parker of Standup Maths fame did an in-depth look at how that works. Whoever came up with that type of progress bar must hate people in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc0OU1yJD-c
Some "news" sites are so annoying about their ads, I just close the tab and google for someone else's version of the story. I block sites that show up in my news feed often but display more nag than content.
I'm sure in their mind, they don't care about me leaving. Apparently more than enough people put up with it to keep the site viable.
I can tell you how the ad companies will implement this. For Rewarded ads (the longest ones, that are at least 30 seconds, and sometimes as high as 60 seconds), they'll move to that succession model, but the succession will take you at least 30 seconds. Oh you skipped an ad after 5 seconds? No worries, here's another ad. You watched the first ad for the full 30 seconds? No more ads for you.
It'll probably be a win for them.
I have fallen asleep watching youtube many times. I swear i have woken up in the middle of 20+ minute ads. I thought it was a news article about china when it was an ad. Who knows when the skip button appeared. The few times i have seen these, it has always been a literal fake news show about china.
I've seen these advertisements too, also only when my phone had been playing unattended for some time.
I have a (unsupported, unsubstantiated) theory that YT detects phones of "sleepers" and pushes more profitable content with the understanding it won't be skipped.
I've got a few spare phones, maybe I'll run an experiment.