YouTube Ads to Become Even More Annoying and Intrusive

Has this ever happened to you? You're totally invested in a video-- maybe the
punchline to a great joke is about to hit, or you're finally about to learn
the answer to some big mystery-- and right as it's getting good, bam: an
annoying ad grinds everything to a disappointing halt.

Ads are a necessary element of the free internet, but that doesn't excuse how
irritating they can be. Nobody wants an ad to cut them off from a video right
as the interest levels are peaking-- though that's exactly what's going to
happen on all of your YouTube videos.

As reported by Mashable, it's all part of a new feature called Peak Points,
which YouTube announced during its Upfront presentation on Wednesday. Peak
Points employs Google's AI model Gemini to find "the most meaningful, or
'peak,' moments" to interrupt a video with ads. It's not clear what data
Gemini will use to make its determinations, but assume your behaviors are
being watched by Google's AI whenever you tune into a YouTube video.

YouTube knows that viewers are going to be most invested in the video during
these points, and by strategically placing ads there, the chances are higher
that a viewer will engage with that ad-- making more money for both YouTube
and the creator. And there's some logic there. But it also means that ad
placement on YouTube videos is about to get really annoying. Every
interesting, funny, frustrating, or otherwise emotional video on the site is
going to have ads placed at their "peak." I wouldn't be surprised if, after a
while, you could simply sense these ad breaks coming.

There are a couple of workarounds to this. YouTube's solution, of course, is
to subscribe to YouTube Premium. For $13.99 per month, you can watch videos
largely ad-free, among other subscriber-only perks. On the other hand, you
could use an ad blocker to, well, block these ads. YouTube can employ any AI
model it wants to place ads in the most strategic moments possible, but it'll
be in vain if you simply block those ads from appearing.

The situation, however, is not quite as simple as it once was. YouTube and
Google have gone to war against ad blockers, neutering popular options like
uBlock Origin on Chrome, and finding new ways to stop users who are using ad
blockers from watching YouTube. Even still, there are always ways around
YouTube's tactics.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/youtube-ads-peak-points