I’ve only become a regular user of YouTube relatively recently.
The video platform, which first launched in 2005, wasn’t something I spent much time with for its first decade of existence. I’d heard how it got bought by Google, and how it was something that was popular with kids.
I watched parents stick a tablet in their kids hands at the mall or at the airport and let them watch whatever kids watch on YouTube (a whole other discussion for another time), and heard about the first YouTube influencers who started making real money on the platform. But, it was the aughts and early 2010s, and there was a lot of that going around, so it was just background noise for the most part.
It wasn’t until my first computer science courses in 2015 that I first started using the platform with any kind of regularity, almost entirely for programming tutorials to help me navigate C++ memory allocation, or how to program a game in Unreal Engine.
Back then, I was a free user, and you know the adage: if you aren’t paying for a product, you are the product. The ads weren’t too bad at first, but once YouTube got a sense of who I was (a thirty-something male living in the US with an interest in computers), that quickly changed.
YouTube ads are some of the worst I’ve ever seen
(Image credit: Future/YouTube)
If you know, you know. The kinds of targeted ads my demographic gets can be laughably bad at best, and downright offensive and maddening at worse (I’m looking at you Evony: The King’s Return).
For close to a decade as a casual YouTube user, it never occured to me to pay for a premium subscription. After all, ads are the price you pay for free media and always has been. They’re annoying, sure, but without ads, that media you’re consuming can’t exist without you paying for it.
But, boy howdy, there’s only so many misogynistic mobile game ads you can watch on repeat before you break. At the start of 2024, I started watching various artisan crafting videos far more regularly than even my computer science and programming content.
Initially, this was just a form of white noise that I used when I was working or testing out computer hardware on a testbench in our NYC office, but soon, I found there was a certain meditative quality to watching someone make a Damascus steel kitchen knife without commentary, or using shop tools and a lathe to carve out a stunning wooden vase.
As you can imagine, my algorithm was now truly, properly wrecked, and the targeted ads I got weren’t for normal things like, I don’t know, woodworking tools or maybe shop equipment. Hell, try and sell me some Carhart outerwear, and I just might buy it.
No, my demo as a middle-aged man fully identified, my meditative background watches of a bunch of dudes quietly putting together a deck in their backyard was interrupted every few minutes by ads for mobile games that look like it was put together by the absolute worst people on 4chan.
I won’t 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 played these cash-grab, social city builders that are microtransactioned to the hilt). But for a lot of you out there, you know exactly the kind of gross, juvenile BS I’m talking about. If you don’t, count yourself lucky.
YouTube Premium saved my sanity
I don’t know how exactly I came across YouTube Premium, but I do remember the only thing I saw was that it meant ad-free viewing of all YouTube content.
I signed up for YouTube Premium on the spot, and I haven’t looked back ever 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 use them. Monetization for YouTube creators is a complicated thing, but blocking ads doesn’t help them keep doing what they do, and an ad blocker can always be disabled, or introduce security vulnerabilities into your browser, and on, and on.
Here’s the thing. We’ve all probably got more streaming subscriptions than we ever really use. So, if you’re like me and you spend a lot of time on YouTube, consider switching one of those out for YouTube Premium. You’ll save yourself a lot of hassle, headache, and sanity in the process.
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