The Verge reports that YouTube is rolling out advertisements that show up when you pause videos, continuing experiments that the company started a year ago. A YouTube representative confirmed that the practice will now become commonplace “as we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response.”

The representative said that advertising on paused videos is designed to create a “less interruptive” experience. But as The Verge notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a drop in the increasing load of obnoxious and often unskippable advertising on YouTube. And since I’m seeing more and more creators pack their videos with sponsorships, I somehow doubt that the people making YouTube’s content are going to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.

“We estimate we can sell up to 80 percent of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures,” said the fictional CEO (of a company that bears more than a passing resemblance to Google) in Ready Player One.

Apropos of nothing, it’s possible to block every single ad on YouTube — even the sponsorships that are baked into the videos themselves — on both desktop and mobile.

  • r00ty
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    1116 hours ago

    Yes, the tech exists already on phones. Not sure how they’d enforce it on pc.

    “Sorry, YouTube is not available to systems without a functioning camera.”? Perhaps with a link to premium :p

    • Daemon Silverstein
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      214 hours ago

      Sorry, YouTube is not available to systems without a functioning camera

      Actually, a fixed camera (on a laptop, for example). Because any webcam connected by cable can be moved, which means the algorithm cannot detect whether you are actually looking at the screen.

      • r00ty
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        314 hours ago

        If they cannot see a verified human gaze they won’t let you even load the site!