The internet has never been free. It's hard to understand how some of what they do to pay for stuff can actually do so, but you're seeing the need caused by the bad economy showing up in more desperation. I ignore them as possible; it seems you can skip one after 5 seconds if it's less than 7 seconds (!) or more than 31. Between that, you pretty much have to mute it. I can't conceive how they would think anyone would sit through a four minute ad to get to a minute twenty video. I bet those don't get viewed much. Sad thing is, I'm one of those people that's more likely to avoid buying something when an ad has impinged on my attention, rather than to buy something.
im not talking about the ones that say "skip ad" in a few seconds, there are new ones that i have been seeing, i'm trying to post a screen shot but ingo says the entity is too large
I was under the impression that the owner of the video was getting money from the ad, maybe sharing it with youtube? But yeah, more people are turning to youtube as a fulltime job or money supplement id assume