YouTube ads in comment section

Ads are disruptive. Whether completing your Duolingo lesson or trying to watch a video on YouTube, ads find a way to interrupt your flow. It’s annoying (and avoidable if you get YouTube premium, but I’m too cheap).

I assume YouTube has become more aggressive with ads lately because they’re trying to maximize revenue generated from customers who don’t subscribe. This got me thinking about other ways they could increase revenue while reducing their reliance on prominent, expensive ads.

One opinion would be to design a new ad format. The comment section is a heavily used part of the app, but there are no ads there… right now. What if YouTube introduced ads between comments? You could imagine ads rendering contextually based on the contents of a comment (someone mentions guitars, they see a guitar ad, etc).

This is an interesting concept because it’s an extremely disruptive experience for the user but it could be a smart way to render ads at a lower price. I’d venture to guess advertisers and Google shareholders would love this, but viewers might riot.

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