Comment by arethuza
7 months ago
I've long since concluded that YouTube's ads are merely a way of persuading me to upgrade to Premium. Given that they actually seem to be pretty good at recommending content to me I am mystified by why the ad selection is so awful.
1. If the ad selection is too good, people will fall into the uncanny valley. They have to make it terrible enough to maintain user confidence.
2, They may not have anything better to select from. Quickly start/stop the ads a few times and it will usually (but not always) give up on showing any ad at all, which suggests to me that the available ad pool at that point in time is being exhausted.
I got a f'n Trump asking for money ad on YT last night. The algorithm should know better than to serve me something like that.
But doesn't it make sense to pay for targeted political ads towards people opposed to you? The algorithm allows advertisers to do targeted advertising, and you were targeted, the subtle implication that targeted advertising would only show you "what you want to see" was intentional and misleading to get people on board with their attention being sold to the highest bidder.
If the ads are indeed just a way to push for subscriptions and you are upset or annoyed by a particular add, the algorithm is perfectly doing its job.
Because you are already a donor?
The ad placements aren't tailored to you. They're tailored to the advertiser's wishes.