I promise, and I can prove it

Does YouTube feel different lately? Are you getting slammed with ads on the content you watch? Maybe even this video? Are you irritated by ads and maybe even frustrated with YouTube’s monetization system?

Well, you are not alone, and I have the answer and explanation to all of these concerns and questions. I'm dead serious. There's an explainable answer to all these issues, so let's get started.

Here are the chapters for this video. Feel free to jump around accordingly:

0:00 Introduction
1:05 Ad Issue 1
1:48 Ad Issue 2
2:03 The Major Issue With YouTube Ads (The Facts)
4:22 How Creators Fit Into This
5:38 Creator Example
6:50 How This Is Harming Small Creators
8:14 What YouTube Needs To Do

Note:
I deliberately leave the channel icons and video titles on each video for reference in case anyone wants to see the full videos featured in these documentaries. If anything is unclear, or for additional references, please reach out, and I will happily provide a link to any of the following content discussed, featured, or used as a b-roll in the video.

Copyright Note:
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

Music:
In this video, in particular, I was in a RuneScape vibe, so I used some of Ian Taylor's incredible music. Please check out his music on Spotify if you are into that style. I cannot emphasize enough how good the music is.

Music:
All songs featured in the video are from:
- YouTube's copyright free music library.
- Or some of Ian Taylor's incredible music. Please check out his music on Spotify if you are into that style. I cannot emphasize enough how good the music is.

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Creators note:
Hello, my name is Zackary Smigel. I've been creating YouTube videos since I was a kid. I started YouTube full-time about five years ago. You might have seen me from Real Estate License Wizard, where I obtained 60,000 subscribers and over 5 million channel views. I have since left that channel for creative pursuits, and this is my first crack at starting something new. I'd appreciate a like and subscribe if this content interests you and I captured your attention for even just a few moments.

On a secondary note, this video is a follow-up to my last, although it can stand on its own. This is my 11th video essay using this style and format. Last week, I was happy to have 1,000 subscribers. Now, I have over 50,000. This is still unbelievable to me. I am so grateful for the support. Technical-wise, I figured out the sound effect issue, which is great. I'm happy with how this one came out. I hope all enjoy!

Thanks so much for watching,

Zackary Smigel

#youtube #videoessay #zackarysmigel

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Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more engaging video commentary!

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[ZackarySmigel]

For the sake of science and the fact I don't have a sponsor on this video. I'm going to put one midroll on this video JUST ONE for the whole video. And please let me know in the comments if you got an ad or not. I'm generally curious what percentage of you do. If I had to guess, I'd say 70% but again. I don't have that data and no one except YouTube does.

[BenHeckHacks]

I love how YouTube puts their "warning context" labels on videos they deem misinformation, then shows you an ad for a "miracle cream that can regrow teeth"

[niccalee]

I think it's ridiculous that YouTube lets scam and raunchy ads onto their platform but gets mad at a creator over the strangest things.

[PuppetNerd]

If you don't post for 6 months, 100% of your ad revenue starts going to YouTube. You should make a video on that too. This terribly effects people who become ill, disabled, or even pass away hoping to leave the revenue generated by their library of content to their families.

[Ertplays]

The biggest thing wrong with YouTube… medical videos (like how to do CPR) also have ads! Don’t know how to do CPR? Well, ad time! You don’t get to save someone’s life!

[anonymouspig]

I hate the fact that if you miss the skip ads button you have to suffer through the second ad until you can skip that one

[bluepheonixsoul]

The most surprising part of this video was learning that nearly 10% of users have premium, that's honestly an order of magnitude more than I expected.

[DFOwl]

It is extremely frustrating how YouTubers get demonitized for the smallest infraction (even if it's nothing really) while advertisers can upload scams, cult recruitment ads, etc.

[mozzapple]

Youtube just added more ads. Every time I pause the video. EVERY TIME. It will take me out of fullscreen to show me a popup ad on the area where the comment section popup is

[Chaso-]

The worst kind of ads are those on the app where the video will take over 75% of the screen and the other 25% is an ad banner wanting you to click on their link to buy their stuff. It is so jarring and frustrating when you are in the middle of the video and decide to go scrolling through the comments but immediately get interupted and can't look at anything until this unskippable ad finishes all the way through. It completely removes you from the video, comments, and the experience

[theCodyReeder]

What I find infuriating is if I don't want to show ads and so turn off monetization YouTube starts showing ads anyway without paying me. So I have to enable monetization and set it to the bare minimum ads. This of course doesn't remove them entirely only reduces them.

[mikond]

not only that, increasing the number of ads actually hurts the creators because more people are downloading adblocks.

[wkt]

Also the ads are in the middle of the video and intrusively interrupting the actual content is hard to comprehend.
I go to YouTube to relax but now it feels stressful!

[sativaburns]

As a former premium subscriber, I found a other issue is youtube aggressively demonetizing many of my favorite creators over content like video game violence, or erroneously calling them a clip repost channel...

[MrxD-cgxs]

YouTube should be held responsible for what is shown in their ads.
There is really no excuse for them not to monitor what they themselves are advertising on their platform- they collect money from the advertisers to show their stuff after all.
It can not be that there are blatant scams being advertised or that there is literal pornography being shown on YouTube Kids like we had a few years ago.

[MyThirdUserAccount]

Really miss the days when you could create a music playlist and just listen to it uninterrupted. Same playlist now has innumerable ads between songs, some 5x longer than the videos they're playing on

[m.a.]

*An advertisement at the start and end of a video is reasonable.*

But they are spamming it too often now. A complete deterrence.

Even more annoying is its usually the same ad constantly repeated over and over at a louder volume.

Not to mention the intrusive ‘next video’ popup at the end of videos that blocks the screen so you can’t see.

The ‘recommended’ non-video ads and shorts can also be offensive and inappropriate, and you can not block them.

And there should be a filter to block out all videos without audio or ‘captions subtitles’ translations in your own language.

Its choresome scrolling through so many foreign language videos just to find something you can understand.

[rhettorical]

The first time I heard that YouTube will run ads on non-monetized videos, I was disgusted. I still am. I get why they do it, but it's still disgusting. I flat refuse to ever disable my adblocker. If I want to support someone, I will do it directly.

[emmalee]

If I see another Hello Fresh ad, I'll sign up with a competitor out of spite.

Having said that, advertisers need to be made aware of this problem. They could potentially be losing customers.

[trevorslinkard]

YouTube did Armchair Historian dirty by demonetizing his educational, unbiased history videos claiming they weren’t ad friendly, then still rolls ads on them. It’s borderline criminal.