Sales pitch - YouTube Red
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YouTube has decided to get serious about YouTube Red, their "ad free" experience. (Ad-free now, maybe, but bet it doesn't stay that way.)
To make sure you get the value point, They've decided to present giveaway and twerking ads over videos, with "close X" positioned in the control areas (circles) so the ad can't be closed. Three at a time:
Oh, maybe they didn't decide that per se, but they sure did nothing to prevent it.
I thought about complaining, but they'd just tell me, "Buy YouTube Red and the problem will be solved." Hint, hint.
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@CoyneTheDup It wouldn't help with that problem anyway, since spammy annotations on clickbait-titled videos are not part of Youtube's advertising platform.
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@hungrier It's presented via their software API.
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@CoyneTheDup Sure, like any other annotation. But Youtube Red only removes Youtube's advertisements. It won't prevent someone from adding annotations like that to their video any more than it'll stop them from reading some ad copy for Audible as part of their video.
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I don't see the connection to YouTube Red here. This just looks like some random channel using annotations in an annoying way. The only thing YouTube did wrong was add the video title overlay at the top of the video - that never used to be there - and forget to adjust the code that moves the X to a clickable place.
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@CoyneTheDup Those are annotations, placed there by the video's author, not YouTube. Red will not help you there.
You should be able to get rid of those if you dig under that gear icon in the bottom.
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It would be nice if a subscription detected and disabled annotations like these
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@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
It would be nice if a subscription detected and disabled annotations like these
you don't need red to disable annotations.... just click the gear and toggle annotations off. works for anyone, even people who don't sign in to you tube.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
you don't need red to disable annotations.... just click the gear and toggle annotations off. works for anyone, even people who don't sign in to you tube.
YouTube Center used to disable annotations automatically if you checked the option to do that, but YT seems to have changed that part of their API, or something, and the YT Center author is too busy with RL to maintain it.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
just click the gear and toggle annotations off
Wasn't there a separate button for that at some point?
Fuck you, YouTube, for changing your interface all the time.
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@asdf said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Fuck you, YouTube, for changing your interface all the time.
I understand they've been listening to user complaints and are starting a new development campaign to focus on animations, simplicity, and consistency.
Filed Under: Project Argon
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@accalia nah, I mean like an ad blocker for annotations where it would automatically hide shitty ones and show normal ones
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@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia nah, I mean like an ad blocker for annotations where it would automatically hide shitty ones and show normal ones
but they're the same annotations.... same API......
just.... you know..... maybe watch someone else if they pull the shitty annotations on you?
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia nah, I mean like an ad blocker for annotations where it would automatically hide shitty ones and show normal ones
but they're the same annotations.... same API......
just.... you know..... maybe watch someone else if they pull the shitty annotations on you?
But I like watching vine compilations!
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@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia nah, I mean like an ad blocker for annotations where it would automatically hide shitty ones and show normal ones
but they're the same annotations.... same API......
just.... you know..... maybe watch someone else if they pull the shitty annotations on you?
But I like watching vine compilations!
then turn off annotations?
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@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
But I like watching vine compilations!
So you like watching videos of stolen footage-- that are themselves stolen and stitched together into one big stolen-footage video.
And then you reward those people with your views and ad dollars.
And you wonder why the system is the way it is.
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@Lorne-Kates listen, someone has to click on those booby thumbnails
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@bb36e said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
someone has to click on those booby thumbnails
Which makes you the booby.
Edit: Or, as my son just said, the thumbnails are ...
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Okay, TIL:
- About annotations, and that they can be turned off for the video.
- That the annotation API is idiotic, since it would be elementary to block extension of the rectangles into the "controls" area. Which does establish that YouTube doesn't care if ads like these do that.
- That this is probably not about YouTube Red, despite my suspicions of being arm-twisted...and the stupidity of the annotations API. Or...wait....not quite right...I'm still being arm-twisted into Red, but this nuisance isn't part of the arm-twist?
- That when YouTube promises ad-free with Red, they are BS'ing, since...annotations. Can't apparently turn them off globally, so stuck with ads. Well, until you turn them off each and every time.
About par.
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@CoyneTheDup If you turn off annotations on one video, the setting is remembered for all future videos you watch. Also, annotations are configured by the same person that writes the video description and title, so complain to them?
Though I do agree YouTube should fix the bug with not being able to click the X. Normally it repositions the X to a place you can actually click it, but with the recent UI change it seems they forgot to update that code.
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@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Can't apparently turn them off globally, so stuck with ads
doooooooooooownlooooooooooooooooooooad
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@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Can't apparently turn them off globally, so stuck with ads.
I found a setting that seems to work, if you're signed in at least.
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@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Okay, TIL:
- That when YouTube promises ad-free with Red, they are BS'ing, since...annotations. Can't apparently turn them off globally, so stuck with ads. Well, until you turn them off each and every time.
Did you also think that Youtube Red would censor the videos to remove everything that might be considered an ad?
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I tend to send youtube videos to my Kodi system to watch on my telly. Annotations are lost in that process. I rarely miss them. On the rare occasion I do, I can pull it up on my PC and click on it; it's always when they have a link to another of their videos I want to watch as an annotation, so I can also just go to their channel to find it.
Closed captions, those I miss...
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@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Okay, TIL:
- About annotations, and that they can be turned off for the video.
- That the annotation API is idiotic, since it would be elementary to block extension of the rectangles into the "controls" area. Which does establish that YouTube doesn't care if ads like these do that.
The Annotation API is redonkulous, because it also ONLY works on the youtube website. watch youtube in the youtube app on android and IOs? no annotations for you. Cast via cromecast? no annotations. use a third party app such as Plex or Kodi to watch youtube? no annotations.
@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
- That this is probably not about YouTube Red, despite my suspicions of being arm-twisted...and the stupidity of the annotations API. Or...wait....not quite right...I'm still being arm-twisted into Red, but this nuisance isn't part of the arm-twist?
How are you being arm twisted into Red again? Your experience with youtube hasn't changed in the slightest since before red was a thing. annoying annotations were still a thing, and baked in ads too.
@CoyneTheDup said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
- That when YouTube promises ad-free with Red, they are BS'ing, since...annotations. Can't apparently turn them off globally, so stuck with ads. Well, until you turn them off each and every time.
patently BS, and you know it. :-P
Youtube does not promise an ad free experience with Red. They promise that they will not serve you ads with Red. sponsored spots that the creator ads to their video manually and annotations that have been misapropriated as ads are not covered by Red.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
watch youtube in the youtube app on android and IOs? no annotations for you. Cast via cromecast? no annotations. use a third party app such as Plex or Kodi to watch youtube? no annotations.
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
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@Jaloopa said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
watch youtube in the youtube app on android and IOs? no annotations for you. Cast via cromecast? no annotations. use a third party app such as Plex or Kodi to watch youtube? no annotations.
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
no, it isn't.
why do you think i disabled annotations years ago?
if they are annotations i want they're links in the doobly-doo anyway.
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Add to that list this:
Annotations aren't really ads. They are just an overlay that the video's author can dynamically change after they publish video. They can hold ads, but much more often (IMO), they are used for errata, corrections, links to related content, additional explanations etc. I generally leave them on, as they are pretty much the only way the author can communicate (effectively) with their audience after the video is published (changing the video itself is not allowed).
If annotations bother you, that's the fault of the authors you watch who are using them irresponsibly, not YouTube.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
The Annotation API is redonkulous, because it also ONLY works on the youtube website
I consider that a feature.
doooooooooooooooooooownloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooad!
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@Lorne-Kates said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
doooooooooooooooooooownloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooad!
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
(she says while downloading yet another "podcast" video to rip the audio from and listen to at work.)
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@accalia I always loved that notion. If I watched it, I already downloaded it anyway. The only thing you're saying is that I'm not allowed to watch it again on anything else than your site.
In the olden days I used to "download" videos by letting the whole video preload, opening
opera:cache
in my browser and then just copying the file from the cache folder after finding the gibberish filename using the filters on the above mentioned "site" (what do you even call all these settings and shit in browsers that are just pure HTML+JS anyway)? I'm almost willing to bet that a part of the reason that cache folders aren't just a bunch of files these days is to stop this...
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@Yamikuronue said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Closed captions, those I miss...
In my experience, Chromecast supports closed captions. But in your case that's $35 for closed captions.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
I hope so. Being evil makes me tingly in my feel-good bits.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
makes me tingly in my feel-good bits.
you know if your hands feel tingly like that you really should get that checked out. you might have an issue with your circulitory system and it's best to catch those sort of things early before they cause a heart attack.
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@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
Not to mention broken; at least my preferred downloader is. I get 403 Forbidden when I try.
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@HardwareGeek fuck it, time to make this NodeJS shit useful, just going to make one that pretends it's a browser actually playing the thing. It'll take a while but meh, so did copying VHS tapes!
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@HardwareGeek said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
Not to mention broken; at least my preferred downloader is. I get 403 Forbidden when I try.
Try refreshing the page. The videos are served with a short-lived token / cookie.
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Or just use youtube-dl instead of relying on someone else to host the service. It has a self-contained executable for Windows, a self-updater, and a fuckload of features.
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@HardwareGeek said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
isn't that against the YouTube TOS?
Not to mention broken; at least my preferred downloader is. I get 403 Forbidden when I try.
i use this one: it updates quickly when youtube changes their API
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It's also possible to use VLC to get the URL to the actual video file which you can then open in your browser and download as a normal file. But using a tool like youtube-dl is less effort.
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I use a browser plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And yes it dls the whole video not just audio.
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@LB_ said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Though I do agree YouTube should fix the bug with not being able to click the X. Normally it repositions the X to a place you can actually click it, but with the recent UI change it seems they forgot to update that code.
I was pretty sure it did something like that. Of course anyone can break a feature by accident, but I'm always suspicious of breakage "by accident" when there's a financial motive involved.
@julmu said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Did you also think that Youtube Red would censor the videos to remove everything that might be considered an ad?
Of course I was completely insane to think the promise they were making meant "all" ads.
@accalia said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
How are you being arm twisted into Red again? Your experience with youtube hasn't changed in the slightest since before red was a thing. annoying annotations were still a thing, and baked in ads too.
I'm sensitive to companies that have a financial motive for making my experience worse as "encouragement." Perhaps that was misplaced in this case...but I'm not imagining the sudden profusion of ads coincident with the first Red announcement, nor the sudden explosion in junk-quality ads. There is a definite flavor of, "Sign up or we will crank up the misery until you do." All with only my best consumer interests in mind, I'm sure.
@cartman82 said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
Annotations aren't really ads.
Usually used that way, though. Even if only advertising "self."
@cartman82 said in Sales pitch - YouTube Red:
If annotations bother you, that's the fault of the authors you watch who are using them irresponsibly, not YouTube.
Annotations popping up are annoying. Annotations that can't be dismissed (these) are functionally abusive. The API is YouTube's...why would they permit functional abuse? Content is one thing, function is something else...and if they don't set good rules of the functional road...then they consented.