Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.

Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
108 points

it’s nuts that no one likes ads yet advertising wouldn’t be a billions of dollars industry if they didn’t work

permalink
report
parent
reply
155 points

well, as long as the companies buying the ads think they work, we have an industry

permalink
report
parent
reply
-21 points

i am also immune to ads lol

permalink
report
parent
reply

Until they subtly inject them into other social media platforms, whereupon they’ll trickle into Lemmy like so much piss from an overflowing toilet. Mark my words, we’ll be up to our eyes in piss by 2026.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Can you think of something you may have bought which you saw an advert for it years ago? Does or doesn’t have to be the first time you became aware of it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
67 points
*

I think you’re giving companies too much credit. Freakonomics did a series called “Does Advertising Actually Work?” and the tl;dr was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-1-tv-ep-440/

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/

permalink
report
parent
reply
21 points

What I’ve found is that advertising only works if I already wanted that product. That advertisement doesn’t have to be these huge ad campaigns that they currently do. It could be as simple as showing a still image of a twix bar, and saying “Hey! Go buy a twix!” Yeah, ok.

But if I wasn’t already planning on buying that product? Well that ad time may as well have been some archival footage showing the inside of a 1940s concentration camp in use.

That is to say, both are things that you find offensive to have to be watching, and neither are going to entice you to buy the product.

munches on a twix bar

…what?

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

The main purpose of ads isn’t to sell you a specific product immediately, their real purpose is to expose you to their brand to make the brand more familiar (and therefore more trustworthy) to you.

For example, recently, I needed a new insurance. So of course I went to the websites of the 5 insurance companies that I knew from advertising and compared their offers. Then I went to a comparison portal, which again I knew from the ads. The best offer was from a brand I didn’t know so I went with the second one which was from a well known brand. I trusted the second offer more, simply because the brand felt more familiar to me.

Here’s another story: there is this big online clothing store. I always hated their ads, they were really annoying, and at that time I didn’t understand why anyone would buy clothes online. So guess where I went, 5 years later, after a disappointing offline shopping tour, in desparate need for new clothes?

permalink
report
parent
reply
20 points

Beat me to this.

Advertisers tend to be strongly opposed to measuring advertising effectiveness, because if they’re not effective, then they’re out of a job.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

Costco further supports this

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

i think human psychology is too nebulous and qualitative with way too many factors to definitively “measure” how effective ads are. all they really know is (most of the time) buy ads, revenue goes up.

but there’s a reason your personal data is so coveted by advertisers. if they can parse that you’re an avid hiker from the millions of data points they collect from you (websites visited, geolocation data, other purchases, etc), then they can sell ads for $400 hiking boots specifically for you, that people who never leave their couch and order delivery from hungry howies every day would just ignore

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I suspect that’s why Facebook makes so much money, they have a lot of information on you like that.

In a weird way, this is actually quite handy, as you get ads for things that are actually relevant to you.

permalink
report
parent
reply
23 points

A lot of people don’t mind ads, they even say they don’t see them anymore, that their brain just tunes them out. Then you look at their spending habits and it’s quite clear they are seeing them.

A big part of the population doesn’t mind being constantly manipulated.

permalink
report
parent
reply
21 points

The sad thing is: ads dont need to be liked to work. Making enjoyable ads is expensive, making annoying ads that still work is cheaper

permalink
report
parent
reply
26 points

That’s because they are psychological warfare. They don’t need to be liked because the goal isn’t to create a positive association with the product, it’s to brainwash people into thinking they need the product

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Or sometimes just remind you the product exists. They don’t have to make you like <insert snack here>, but when you see it you end up thinking “man it’s been a while since I’ve had <snack>”. Next then you know, you’re grabbing <snack> at the grocery store because you’ve been thinking about it lately.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
7 points

That was certainly memorable but also I did not buy any.

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

My wife worked for a company that was heavily reliant on generating leads from ads. They had lots of real time monitoring of conversion rates to make sure they were actually making more money than they were spending on the ads. They would have to turn ad channels off all the time because the return on ad spend went negative.

So my conclusion is that ads can be somewhat effective for companies, but if they don’t actively monitor and control the performance of their ads, they’re probably just burning money. A lot of companies seem to advertise because they think that’s the only way to grow.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Was it a niche company/product?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

No, the company is publically listed with around 1 Bil market cap.

permalink
report
parent
reply

I’ve seen a few ads recently that are just random as hell, don’t say a product name and don’t even have a website or link to find out what it is even advertising. They always make me wonder how they’re working, if they’re working. They seem like just a waste of money and time for everyone involved, including the advertiser themselves.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

The people that do spend the time trying to find out what it is for will remember the eNgAgEmEnT from needing to find out what it is and that correlates with future sales. Just like “rewards” programs that are designed to mentally lock someone into the store/product while harvesting their data.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I use adblockers but my parents don’t. Visiting my folks and seeing the ads they get served is just bizarre. They get served ads in Spanish even though there’s nothing about the account, device or geolocation that would indicate the audience is Spanish speaking, they get very long ads for medicines, which…you know how they always list an increasingly long and concerning bunch of side effects? Well the last one I saw ended with a full reading of the drug’s MSDS. They get ads from car dealers half a continent away, campaign ads for a different state’s legislature…Why was there ever a television advertisement even made for General Electric power plant turbines? Who’s watching Zeltik, gets a mid-roll ad for gigawatt generator components and makes any kind of decision based on what they saw?

permalink
report
parent
reply

I also get ads in Spanish often when watching on my TV (no adblocker)… Dunno if that’s just because I am in California or if my phone or other devices picked up my Spanish speaking neighbors and assumes I also speak Spanish. I mean, I do, but not well or often.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

People accepted unobtrusive ads, it’s once they started taking over the actual content that they became a big no-no. The ad companies and ad-reliant websites fucked themselves.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

No one likes being manipulated. I like ads that promote healthy living for example, if they don’t secretly promote any brand or product. They are pretty rare though, almost only in some public health care facilities.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Apparently there are some people that like ads, and a larger amount who may not like them but are willing to tolerate them.

Those of us who will make proactive choices to not engage with advertising are the minority.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

My mom (mid 70s) says “Oh I don’t mind the commercials. It gives me a break to go pee.”

And when I say “or you could just get a dvr, and pause for as long as you want, any time you want.”

Her response was “Yeah…but who wants to do all that???”

Um…boomers are weird.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

Lemmy users typically vastly overestimate the amount of hassle people are willing to put up with to deal with technology.

It’s why we have so many Linux evangelicals.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
*

I like to read a catalog when I’m interested in discovering something I may want. An advert on the internet is like a door-to-door salesperson staring through my window.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

This is my impression.

My partner doesn’t care about ads at all. I installed newpipe on her phone but she prefers the yt app, with ads.

Usually in these threads someone starts espousing the virtues of “responsible” or “appropriate” ads.

A common argument is that its the most efficient way to pay for online content. I strongly disagree.

Suffice to say, I think ads are so normalised that most people don’t see them as intrusive.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I legit strongly suspect they don’t work, at least not as well as it’s implied. Like, everyone thinks they work because they used to work really well or something.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

The problem started when they went from a basic preroll ad, to unskippable and then the large amount of mid-roll ads to push people into buying premium just as they increased the price.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

the real problem is that people will complain about it for a minute, then buy it anyway

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

Or they work somewhat, resp. in some cases and the rest is make believe in execeutives, a waste of money. Let’s say 50/50?

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


Community stats

  • 17K

    Monthly active users

  • 12K

    Posts

  • 543K

    Comments