The Verge reports that YouTube is rolling out advertisements that show up when you pause videos, continuing experiments that the company started a year ago. A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”

The representative said that advertising on paused videos is designed to create a “less interruptive” experience. But as The Verge notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a drop in the increasing load of obnoxious and often unskippable advertising on YouTube. And since I’m seeing more and more creators pack their videos with sponsorships, I somehow doubt that the people making YouTube’s content are going to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.

“We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures,” said the fictional CEO (of a company that bears more than a passing resemblance to Google) in Ready Player One.

Apropos of nothing, it’s possible to block every single ad on YouTube — even the sponsorships that are baked into the videos themselves — on both desktop and mobile.

    • Daemon Silverstein
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      52 hours ago

      Or just… ditch Youtube and de-google the digital life.

      I ditched Youtube many months ago. I really try to avoid, at all costs, to access Youtube videos, preferring Odysee, for example.

      • @sugar_in_your_tea
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        31 hour ago

        Yeah, I’ve been moving away gradually. I have a few subs on Odysee, one on Rumble, and I’ve signed up for Nebula which handles a few more. If I had to, I could drop YT and get enough content from those other sources.