YouTube’s been on an ad-friendly offensive lately, pushing more ads to viewers at large and punishing anyone with an ad blocker through various means. It’s latest move takes matters to a whole new level, though, as 90-second unskippable ads seem to be headed to TV viewers.
As spotted by a pair of Reddit users on r/YouTube, some viewers are now finding themselves subject to 90-second ads, far longer than the 30-second bumpers the company only just made official last month. One viewer spotted these ads on a 40-minute video, while one commenter mentioned seeing them on a video under 20 minutes, so length doesn’t appear to be a factor in where these are appearing. Unsurprisingly, practically every reply to this change seems to be negative, with most viewers recommending unofficial third-party YouTube clients, attempting to offer ad blocker support, or just reminiscing on the good ol’ days.
In the case of both of these Reddit posts, the actual ad block served by YouTube appears to actually be longer than 90 seconds — it’s the ability to skip these ads that unlocks after that initial timeframe. These changes, like those 30-second bumpers, also appear locked to TV viewers at the moment, rather than also rolling out to desktop and mobile viewers. All of this appears to spawn from Google’s attempts at bringing more traditional television advertisers to the platform, just as you’d find on cable TV or, more recently, on ad-supported streaming plans.
These changes arrive less than two months after Google launched a revamped YouTube Premium Lite in the US, delivering ad-free playback, background audio, and offline downloads for practically every video that isn’t related to music for $8 per month. But considering the war of attrition YouTube users have been put through over the past year or two, I can’t fault anyone for digging their heels in simply out of spite. The days of YouTube being a simple user-driven platform are over — clearly, Google sees it as a natural Netflix rival and an obvious landing place for all sorts of advertisers.
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