"With Ads" plans - how intrusive/unnoticeable are they?
Discussion
So between Netflix, Paramount, Apple TV, Disney, YouTube Premium there is now HBO Max.
I don't watch enough to necessarily justify all of them all the time but having binned Sky off who were costing me £130/month I'm still quids in.
How intrusive are the "with ads" plans these platforms offer please?
Are we talking YouTube level or just a couple of 2 minute ads in the average 2 hour movie?
I have Prime for delivery but watch the odd movie and I can't say I've noticed ads creeping in even though they're meant to.
I know the obvious answer is "just try it"
I don't watch enough to necessarily justify all of them all the time but having binned Sky off who were costing me £130/month I'm still quids in.
How intrusive are the "with ads" plans these platforms offer please?
Are we talking YouTube level or just a couple of 2 minute ads in the average 2 hour movie?
I have Prime for delivery but watch the odd movie and I can't say I've noticed ads creeping in even though they're meant to.
I know the obvious answer is "just try it"
If you haven't noticed the Prime ads then you've been lucky.
Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
That's essentially what YouTube did. More and more devious in ways to "encourage" you to upgrade if you didn't want tons of ads or weird behaviour if you used an ad-blocker like most people do.
I actually am finding it worth it to be fair but I didn't know what approach the other services were taking between targeted subtle ads or annoying irrelevant ads that are there just to try to encourage you to pay for the ad-free tier etc.
I actually am finding it worth it to be fair but I didn't know what approach the other services were taking between targeted subtle ads or annoying irrelevant ads that are there just to try to encourage you to pay for the ad-free tier etc.
On youtube the ads are very intrusive, very frequent and incredibly annoying.
The ads on Amazon prime annoyed me into upgrading.
Netflix ads aren't too bad, I haven't felt compelled to pay to remove them.
Disney wasn't to bad either although, I'm not currently subscribed.
Don't know about paramount as I have an ad free plan.
Also can't comment on HBO as I went with the premium for Dolby Atmos.
The ads on Amazon prime annoyed me into upgrading.
Netflix ads aren't too bad, I haven't felt compelled to pay to remove them.
Disney wasn't to bad either although, I'm not currently subscribed.
Don't know about paramount as I have an ad free plan.
Also can't comment on HBO as I went with the premium for Dolby Atmos.
JoshSm said:
If you haven't noticed the Prime ads then you've been lucky.
Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
Agreed, Prime ads are the worst. We regularly get trials or pay for a month, but between the ads and a dearth of anything I want to watch means I would never pay for Prime for video on a regular basis.Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
M
Speckle said:
On youtube the ads are very intrusive, very frequent and incredibly annoying.
The ads on Amazon prime annoyed me into upgrading.
Netflix ads aren't too bad, I haven't felt compelled to pay to remove them.
Disney wasn't to bad either although, I'm not currently subscribed.
Don't know about paramount as I have an ad free plan.
Also can't comment on HBO as I went with the premium for Dolby Atmos.
Thank you that's all useful.The ads on Amazon prime annoyed me into upgrading.
Netflix ads aren't too bad, I haven't felt compelled to pay to remove them.
Disney wasn't to bad either although, I'm not currently subscribed.
Don't know about paramount as I have an ad free plan.
Also can't comment on HBO as I went with the premium for Dolby Atmos.
I think being honest without wanting to sound like I don't care about the cost when you stop and think about it all these streaming platforms are actually a bit of a bargain IMO.
I just had a look out of curiosity and £3 in 1990 is around £7.50 now.
So for the cost of renting one video from the local video library for one night you can now watch pretty much whatever a particular streaming platform has to offer 24/7/365.
Totally get that it ads up if you want to have access to most of them but to me that's absolutely insane value.
JoshSm said:
If you haven't noticed the Prime ads then you've been lucky.
Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
Or another way to look at it...adverts are there to 'justify' people setting up arr stacks to just download everything they could ever want, in the highest quality and very easily for free.Mostly the ads aren't there to make up the shortfall in income, they're there (and engineered) to annoy you to the point where you'll pay extra to be rid of them.
So they're deliberately intrusive in a way commercial TV ones (at least in the UK) aren't.
At least...that's what the bloke down the pub said. I dunno.I found Prime Ads the worst and now don't have it. On Netflix for some reason the ads are hit/miss for me. Watching some episodes of a series I'll see the yellow marker on the time bar to say that they will be several ads but then don't get any on some episodes other than the (usually annoying RR Sport) intro ad 
At least for YT I can load Smart Tube on the Firestick which auto blocks/skips adverts with a subtitle to tell you it's doing it. It can be a little disjointed for a fraction of a second but i can live with that rather than be interupted by an advert.
At least for YT I can load Smart Tube on the Firestick which auto blocks/skips adverts with a subtitle to tell you it's doing it. It can be a little disjointed for a fraction of a second but i can live with that rather than be interupted by an advert.
I feel like this is true but might not be - maybe someone can corroborate - but on Prime when watching series (I noticed this on Clarksons Farm) the ads weren't bad for the first episode or two, but then they ramped up the further you got in.
The other thing I hate that Amazon do - they have almost completely shoppable ads trying to get you to add the product in the advert to basket using a mob or voice command.
The other thing I hate that Amazon do - they have almost completely shoppable ads trying to get you to add the product in the advert to basket using a mob or voice command.
The only service I don't pay for no ads is Prime (because I just get it with Amazon anyway) and it's aggressive. I think it's a piss take charging more for no ads after all this time and am really reluctant to do it but Prime is seriously annoying. Some shows they seem to stack them towards the end as well.
YouTube is the worst for ads by a country mile. Adverts, Adverts, adverts, and a bit of content in between the adverts occasionally. And I’ve noticed that now, after a bunch of adverts they will overlay another advert on top of the main content asking if I’d like to sub to remove adverts! Awful, and expensive to remove them.
Netflix doesn’t seem too bad, I’ve not had the desire to pay to remove them yet, but I’ve noticed they are subtly increasing. Daughter says that she’s never had ads on her kids account, so worth setting one up and watch any family movies on that account to dodge the ads.
Disney and Paramount seem to be about the same as each other, but not as good as Netflix when it comes to frequency. I’d say they are not too bad for occasional viewing, but if you go deep into a binge watch they might get a bit annoying. I’ve gone for no-ads on both of these as wife and daughter use these the most.
And on a side note… I’ve just subbed to Apple to watch George and Mandies first wedding, only to find that it’s not included in Apple TV, they only sell it per episode! I’ve got to sub to Discovery+ on top to actually watch it. FFS!
I can see why piracy is back on the rise with all these shenanigans going on.
Netflix doesn’t seem too bad, I’ve not had the desire to pay to remove them yet, but I’ve noticed they are subtly increasing. Daughter says that she’s never had ads on her kids account, so worth setting one up and watch any family movies on that account to dodge the ads.
Disney and Paramount seem to be about the same as each other, but not as good as Netflix when it comes to frequency. I’d say they are not too bad for occasional viewing, but if you go deep into a binge watch they might get a bit annoying. I’ve gone for no-ads on both of these as wife and daughter use these the most.
And on a side note… I’ve just subbed to Apple to watch George and Mandies first wedding, only to find that it’s not included in Apple TV, they only sell it per episode! I’ve got to sub to Discovery+ on top to actually watch it. FFS!
I can see why piracy is back on the rise with all these shenanigans going on.
Cloudy147 said:
YouTube is the worst for ads by a country mile. Adverts, Adverts, adverts, and a bit of content in between the adverts occasionally. And I ve noticed that now, after a bunch of adverts they will overlay another advert on top of the main content asking if I d like to sub to remove adverts! Awful, and expensive to remove them.
YouTube is probably the best value I've found as it comes with YouTube Music so replaces another subscription at the same time as removing ads/allowing downloads. Occasionally I'll have to use YouTube through the work laptop and it's so annoying. I don’t think they are that bad, prime is the longest, usually 3 minute ad at the start but press play and grab a drink or snacks etc while waiting, Netflix is fine and NOW tv being the other one I have are sometimes pointless like literally 3 second long adverts! YouTube can be quite annoying with their ads though as seem very often!
Cloudy147 said:
YouTube is the worst for ads by a country mile. Adverts, Adverts, adverts, and a bit of content in between the adverts occasionally. And I ve noticed that now, after a bunch of adverts they will overlay another advert on top of the main content asking if I d like to sub to remove adverts! Awful, and expensive to remove them.
Just use and ad-blocker that skips them, or if you really want allows you to rewind or FF to the highlighted ad sections and watch themArmitage.Shanks said:
Just use and ad-blocker that skips them, or if you really want allows you to rewind or FF to the highlighted ad sections and watch them
They got increasingly worse and started doing a lot of other weird stuff like starting videos muted if they detected an ad-blocker.Sky Sports app is the worst for me... you'll get subjected to a 30 second advert in order to watch a 15 second clip.
I find the most annoying thing about Prime is every advert seems to be for some sort of laundry or cleaning product... makes me wonder if they're trying to tell me something...
I find the most annoying thing about Prime is every advert seems to be for some sort of laundry or cleaning product... makes me wonder if they're trying to tell me something...
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