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I just became a regular user of YouTube relatively recently.
The video platform, which was first launched in 2005, was not something I spent a lot of time on during its first decade of existence. I heard how it was bought Googleand how it was something that was popular with children.
I’ve seen parents stick a tablet in their kids’ hands at the mall or the airport and let them watch what the kids are watching on YouTube (another discussion for another time), and I’ve heard of the first YouTube influencers who started making real money on the site. platform But, it was the aughts and early 2010s, and there was a lot of it going around, so it was just background noise for the most part.
It wasn’t until my first computer courses in 2015 that I started using the platform with any kind of regularity, almost entirely for programming tutorials to help navigate C++ memory allocation, or how to program a game in Unreal Engine.
Back then, I was a free user, and I knew the adage: if you don’t pay for a product, i am the product. The ads weren’t too bad at first, but once YouTube got a sense of who I was (a thirty-year-old male living in the United States with an interest in computers), that changed quickly.
The YouTube ads are one of the worst I’ve ever seen
If you know, you know. The types of targeted ads my demographic receives can be ridiculously bad at best, and downright offensive and maddening at worst (I’m looking at you Evony: The Return of the King).
For nearly a decade as a casual YouTube user, it never occurred to me to pay for a premium subscription. After all, ads are the price you pay for free media and always have been. They are annoying, sure, but without ads, the media you consume cannot exist without you paying for it.
But, dear, there are only so many misogynistic mobile game ads you can watch on repeat before you break. At the beginning of 2024, I started watching various DIY videos much more regularly than even my computer and programming content.
Initially, this was just a form of white noise that I used when working or testing computer hardware on a testbench in our New York office, but soon, I found that there was a certain meditative quality to watching someone make a Damascus kitchen knife. no comments, or using shop tools and a lathe to carve a stunning wooden vase.
As you can imagine, my algorithm was now really, really messed up, and the targeted ads I was getting weren’t for normal things like, I don’t know, woodworking tools or maybe the equipment of the shop Hell, try selling me some Carhart clothes, and I might buy them.
No, my demo as a fully-identified middle-aged man, my meditative backgrounds watching a bunch of dudes calmly build a bridge in their backyard was interrupted every few minutes by ads for mobile games that looked like ‘and they were brought together by the absolute. the worst people on 4chan.
I’m not going to detail what exactly was so bad about these ads (leaving aside the fact that none of the gameplay shown is ever what you’d get if you were playing these cash-grab, social city builders that are microtransactions at the hilt ). But for many of you here, you know exactly the kind of gross, juvenile BS I’m talking about. If you haven’t, count yourself lucky.
YouTube Premium saved my sanity
I don’t know exactly how I found YouTube Premium, but I remember the only thing I saw was that it meant ad-free viewing of all YouTube content.
I registered for YouTube Premium on the spot, and I haven’t been back since. I don’t even know what other features come with the subscription. I don’t really care.
Before I get bombarded with emails, yes, I know there are ad blockers out there, but I won’t be using them. Monetization for YouTube creators is complicated, but blocking ads doesn’t help them keep doing what they’re doing, and an ad blocker can always be disabled, or introduce security vulnerabilities into the your browser, and on, and on.
Here’s the thing. We all probably have more streaming subscriptions than we ever actually use. So, if you’re like me and spend a lot of time on YouTube, consider changing one of those to YouTube Premium. Save yourself a lot of hassle, headaches and sanity in the process.
