Irate Reddit users say Google is going too far with YouTube ads after introducing 90-second ad interruptions that cannot be skipped when watching on the big screen.
Most people can agree that ads are becoming a lot more prevalent on the YouTube platform, ever since the company started allowing advertisers to run the odd 30-second video ad that can’t be skipped in May 2023. The only way to avoid these ads is by paying for a Premium YouTube subscription.
Those 30-second ads are annoying, but not too bad because they don’t come along all the time, instead being interspersed with the minimally invasive 5-second ads that can quickly be killed. But that has changed more recently, with non-skippable 60-second ads starting to appear on TV devices that run Google TV, Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV and other software, such as Tizen and webOS.
Now though, some Redditors are complaining that they’re seeing ads that cannot be skipped for a full 90 seconds, essentially bringing us back to the days of classic TV channels, which would force us to sit through a whole string of ads before resuming our programming. Redditor Ok_Neat1652 uploaded this image as proof of what they're seeing:
All this is a far cry from the early days of YouTube, which began life back in 2005 as a user-driven platform, before being acquired by Google one year later in 2006.
Google has helped YouTube to become the world’s largest video platform, partly due to the way anyone can create a channel, upload content and potentially become a global superstar. But users are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with how Google is slowly but surely “enshittfying” the platform.
YouTube issued a statement to 9to5Google, which first reported the Redditors’ complaints, denying that it has introduced a 90-second non-skippable ad format. It said what users are actually seeing is ad breaks (made up of several ads) that cannot be skipped for 90 seconds. What the company did not acknowledge is that having several shorter ads that cannot be skipped is just as bad as a longer one. “YouTube does not have a 90-second non-skippable ad format,” a spokesperson for the company said. “This isn't something we are testing right now. We're looking into this further."
Not surprisingly, almost every single commenter on the two Reddit threads responded negatively, with some offering workarounds such as unofficial YouTube clients or suggesting ad blockers that might still work. 9to5Google clarified that the ad blocks now being served up by YouTube may sometimes be even longer than 90-seconds – but they can, fortunately, be skipped after that duration. That’s assuming someone is willing to sit and wait that long with their finger on the “skip” trigger.
The change follows Google’s intense crackdown on ad blocking tools that are able to remove ads from user’s devices altogether – Google has made it so that users with adblockers installed simply cannot access YouTube at all. It has also tried to crack down on third-party YouTube clients such as NewPipe and SmartTube. At the same time, Google recently increased the price of its YouTube Premium subscription, and introduced a new YouTube Premium Lite subscription in the U.S. that costs $8 per month. It’s not yet available in the U.K. It has also taken steps to prevent password sharing among those who do subscribe.
It’s thought that these moves are all part of Google’s campaign to bring traditional TV advertisers to the YouTube platform – those who need longer ad formats to get their messages across. Netflix, Disney+ and others are also going in this direction with their lower-cost ad-supported streaming plans.
Sadly, the days of YouTube as a user-driven platform have been all but vanquished. These days, YouTube is just like everything else you’ll find on the web – a vehicle to generate revenue for big companies by forcing as many ads down people’s throats as they believe they can get away with.
