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Frustrated YouTube viewers seek explanation for hour-long unskippable ads (Update: Statement)
(www.androidauthority.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It's all about advertising. On a web page, which is cheap to create and cheap to host, the only ad you can really get is a pop-up or similar, and those don't pay very much. On the video, which is expensive to create and expensive to host, you can have 30 or 45 seconds of video ads, which pay a lot more.