> Edit: I've realised that many of you are using some sort of ad-blocker, so you might not felt the changes when it was (silently) rolled out years ago, but this is from my experience using YouTube on devices which I cannot install an ad-blocker (like in some instructional videos for certain robots which some companies decided to use YouTube for).
I do not have definite proof for this, as I said on the top comment it is rather occasional, but I'm pretty sure that this happened to me on these videos (will update as I remember them):
- Tom Scott (which is definitely in YPP in 2018) has a video titled Stories I Can't Tell [1]. At the time I've watched it for the first time, it has a in-video ad at the tail of the video even though he explicitly said that the video is not monetised (and therefore it might be Google getting the money). Notably, he prepares his videos days or weeks in advance so I'm confident he indeed turn off monetisation on this.
- From time-to-time, I have accessed channels for work purposes. One of them is Fisher Scientific [2], which does have ads occasionally despite the fact that it shouldn't have (and obviously they wouldn't have bothered to submit YPP).
- Similarly, YouTube channels using Google Workspace accounts do serve an ad from time-to-time. Again, it is occasional, but from what my child has experienced, it does happen even with educational accounts (they have since moved to using Google Drive, although it is cumbersome since there are no features such as playlists).
For longer videos, YouTube tends to put not just an ad or two at the beginning, but also in the middle of the video. It can be pretty jarring to be listening to a quiet video, and then 10 minutes in, an obnoxiously loud ad starts playing.
No idea if the creators opt in to this “feature” (I bet they don’t; it’s probably either all or nothing with ads), but it definitely exists.
> No idea if the creators opt in to this “feature” (I bet they don’t; it’s probably either all or nothing with ads), but it definitely exists.
You used to be able to opt-in to mid-roll ads. A few months ago, YouTube switched it to an opt-out system, helpfully enabling them for all then-existing videos that hadn't opted in:
> Starting in late July, videos that are longer than eight minutes will be eligible for mid-roll ads. As part of this change, mid-roll ads will be turned on for all eligible existing videos and future video uploads, including those videos where you may have previously opted out of mid-roll ads. Videos that already have mid-roll ads turned on will not be impacted.
(As I understand it, there is no way to disable the mid-roll ad on all videos, so you'd have to manually flip it for every single video. How kind of YouTube.)
Had this yesterday - watching a "Tangerine Dream LIVE" video and about 3 minutes into the first track got some advert for what I think was some kind of UK grime / street band. The contrast was jarring enough that YouTube got closed.
Worse though that on June (or was it July? Regardless, this year) most YPP members' videos were explicitly opted-in again on mid-roll ads despite some of them explicitly turning it off already.