Yes, yes it is. I’m astounded your conflate broadcaster cable TV ads with the stuff we see on, say, YouTube. They seem very different to me

Probably depends on your usage pattern. When you see Youtube ads on a newly setup machine (pre ad-block install...) or something else which won't have a good tracking profile, it seems a lot like TV ads: soda, cat food, body lotion or deodorants or something of that nature, video games.

YouTube ads don’t tell you what to buy? Or, they aren’t displayed on something box shaped?

If you mean the ads are better quality, then that’s even worse. Better ads mean you’re being told what to buy... more effectively.

> If you mean the ads are better quality, then that’s even worse. Better ads mean you’re being told what to buy... more effectively.

I suppose it depends what you mean by "better quality".

I have seen ads which were effective in making me think something was a good product only to discover that it's not upon further research.

On the other hand, I have seen ads which were really good in the sense that they showed me something that I would not have otherwise found and that I genuinely like.

If it matters to anyone I work for Google (Cloud) so maybe I'm biased in my stance on ads. That being said, I am guilty of using ublock origin so I like to think I hate annoying ads as much as anyone else.

Out of curiosity, how many of your co-workers use adblocking plugins/extensions? Also do you use it at work and do you whitelist Google?

More that there's approximately 5 seconds of ad per hour of video, and they're fairly simple to filter out.