# WTF YouTube? (early A.M. commercials)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 26, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107 "2014-07-26T16:59:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/1 "2014-07-26T16:59:16Z")
YouTube has a variety of sleep sounds audiovisuals- white noise, rainfall, waterfall, surf, fans running, etc.- of varying lengths from two to twelve hours. I presume they exist so that people can actually sleep to the sleep sounds. Now being preceded by an ad is reasonable, they have to pay the electric bill somehow; but recently I’ve been jolted out of sleep at dark-thirty A.M. by two-to-three minute infomercials. Why is it doing this now, and how the heck can I stop it? It kind of defeats the purpose.
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### Author:  [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/2 "2014-07-26T17:11:27Z")
Just get an adblocker. I haven’t seen any ads on Youtube for years, but I assume that’s what the yellow markers in the timeline are and they seem to be really getting out of hand lately.
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### Author:  [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/3 "2014-07-26T17:22:05Z")
If you download the YouTube videos using something like Download Helper, you could select those without adverts and play them in any player. I’d prefer local playing to 12 hours streaming anyway.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/4 "2014-07-26T18:32:22Z")
> [@Telperion](#):
>
> Just get an adblocker. I haven’t seen any ads on Youtube for years, but I assume that’s what the yellow markers in the timeline are and they seem to be really getting out of hand lately.
I’d cancel my subscription and demand a refund.
That, or I’d stop feeding Google’s insatiable maw for consumer targeting data.
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### Author:  [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/5 "2014-07-26T19:45:07Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I’d cancel my subscription and demand a refund.
>
> That, or I’d stop feeding Google’s insatiable maw for consumer targeting data.
I bet you would, but most people don’t wear tinfoil hats.
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/6 "2014-07-26T20:13:35Z")
> [@Telperion](#):
>
> I bet you would, but most people don’t wear tinfoil hats.
Why the snark? Google’s been tracking and analyzing people’s browsing habits (for the sake of targeted advertising) long before the NSA jumped on the bandwagon.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/7 "2014-07-27T22:59:18Z")
OK, Firefox downloaded the mp4 file; now how do I play it? I’m stuck with Windows XP so I don’t have the latest Media Player, and I don’t see a way to play it in Firefox.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/8 "2014-07-27T23:29:32Z")
Uh, yeah. Anyone who isn’t aware Google tracks almost every click and feeds it into their user marketing model probably doesn’t have touch-tone phones yet.
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### Author:  [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/9 "2014-07-28T00:24:10Z")
No need to play it in a browser: most video players will play mp4s ( although recently YouTubes download as webms, which is little difference ). The only thing to note is that since you are using Windows, you may have to download a codec pack or two.
VLC works fine; although I prefer SMPlayer2. Both are less cumbersome than Media Player; but if you want that, this **[page](http://www.ehow.com/how_7159458_play-mp4-files-windows-xp.html)** says how to make MP4s work in that.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-youtube-early-a-m-commercials/694107/10 "2014-07-28T13:39:50Z")
Ok, had to download and install Download Helper, download the MP4, then download and install something called a Codec for MP4, but it finally works. Thanks all!