Admit it, we've all fallen victim to the YouTube ad vortex. You settle in for a quick cat video, and suddenly, you're three tutorials deep on underwater basket weaving (and still haven't seen your cat). 

But how much time do we REALLY spend watching ads?

Let's face it, ads can be a real buzzkill. We all love our ad blockers, but sometimes they let us down. 



They also don't work on most Smart TVs or streaming devices, so those pesky ads can still sneak in while you're watching YouTube on the big screen.



and hello iPhone users!

Let’s dig some numbers and try to find out how much time we spend watching ads.

don’t worry I will do the digging you sit back and relax!

That roughly translates to

Gosh! People watch a lot of YouTube 



P.S. Did you know YouTube has 2.49 billion monthly active users out of which only 4% (100 Million)  have YouTube premium?

Now let’s talk about ads because 96% of users don’t have youtube premium.



YouTube Interestingly, YouTube ad time varies a lot based on various factors such as...

Let’s look at the share of average time spent on different devices per day with Youtube in United States.

Since mobile gets the most traffic you will see more ads on mobile as compared to other devices. 



My observation is that long-form content on TV has longer ads. You might be engrossed in a history lesson, only to realize the host has spent the last six minutes talking about a specific medication and then you realize it was not the host but it was the never-ending ad about some medication for old people and you are still 24!

Now that we have enough stats about YouTube ads.

Let’s calculate how much time we spend watching ads on YouTube.

People with YouTube premium are welcome to read another case study, just kidding you can learn how much time you are saving in life.

That means you spend

Considering various other factors we can say you spend 2% of your time watching ads on YouTube.

That translate to

That’s means you will spend almost 16 days watching ads in your life time

Let’s think

Platforms like YouTube start showing us personalized dynamic ads to show our own data to manipulate us?

How do you feel about an Ad like this?
I would surely run to buy a YouTube premium

So, the question remains:  Could this become a reality?  It's certainly a ridiculous idea, but it raises an interesting point about the future of online advertising.