Is YouTube Turning into TheirTube??

Last weekend the interweb was all a buzz about the new Lady Gaga and Beyonce video for "Telephone" (I didn't link to it here on purpose). Being the audiophile that I am, I decided that I needed to go ahead and check it out.

Of course, the first place I go to see this is good old reliable YouTube. Imagine my surprise when I look up the video, click on it to play and am not given the video right away. Instead I am greeted by a 10 second ad for some new movie with a mini banner at the bottom saying "Your video will start in..."

Where did that come from????

I've seen ads on YouTube before, but that was either because I looked them up to watch them (see this post for examples) or they were placed in areas on the page, but never inside the video I wanted to watch before. The whole thing seemed weird to me.

One of the reason I think that YouTube is so popular is because you, the user, got to choose what you watched. Nothing was forced on you. If you wanted to watch an ad on it it was because you wanted to. While there were ads on pages they were never really in your face and forced upon you. There really was a "you" to YouTube.

Of course, the first thing I did when I saw this new practice was tweet about my surprise. A few people responded saying that they've seen this happen before, but not often. I also have not seen it again since on any other of the hundreds of videos I've watched over this past week, which makes me wonder if it's something the company is just trying out as a new source of revenue.

Granted, I have no idea about YouTube's revenue stream and how or even if Google is making any money off the site, but I think this way isn't going to work.

Like I said before, people came to YouTube because they got to choose exactly what it was they wanted to see. Things were suggested for them to watch, but nothing was ever forced on them. I think if this is a new thing that's going to start happening on the site a lot, the company is going to see a big backlash from its users. I know I'm already upset about it.

Seriously though, the thing about the internet is that if people aren't getting what they want, the way they want it, they simply move on to a next site that does give them what they want how they want it. If I wanted these ads before things I watch I could just turn my TV on.

I'm curious to see how this whole thing plays out in the near future. Will it disappear or will it start showing up more often??

I'm also curious to know what everyone else thinks about this whole subject. Have you seen one of these ads before? Please leave a comment and tell me your thoughts about the subject. I'd love to start a conversation about this.

Finally, if you're dying to see the video click here (although I just noticed the ad I'm talking about isn't in front of the video anymore, but I hope you still got my point).