If you thought YouTube ads were already pushing your patience on your smartphone or laptop, things might be about to get worse.
Google is reportedly testing a new ad format in YouTube (via Android Police) that makes the skip button much harder to access – and in some cases, easy to miss entirely.
The change is centred around a large on-screen banner that appears during ads. Instead of sitting neatly out of the way, this overlay is placed directly over the skip button itself. At a glance, it looks like the option to skip has disappeared altogether.
It hasn’t. Technically. According to users reporting the change on Reddit, the banner can be flicked down to reveal the button underneath, but it’s hardly obvious. If you didn’t already know it was there, you’d be forgiven for assuming you’re stuck watching the whole thing.
And there’s more bad news. Over on TVs, some users are also reporting longer unskippable ads on YouTube’s TV app. Previously capped at around 30 seconds, there are now signs that YouTube is experimenting with ads lasting up to 90 torturous seconds.
For what it’s worth, this doesn’t appear to be a global change just yet. Reports suggest it’s limited testing for now, likely in specific regions before any wider rollout. Optimistic users will likely hope that any backlash causes Google to scratch the changes entirely, though we very much doubt it.
YouTube has been steadily ramping up its ad strategy over the past few years – from cracking down on ad blockers to increasing the frequency of ads for free users, with the hopes of making YouTube Premium more tempting to ad haters.
The premium subscription eliminates ads entirely, while the cheaper Premium Lite tier reduces them. If you opt for the latter, you might still see them when searching, browsing, watching Shorts, or playing music. However, YouTube says Premium Lite users won’t see ads on videos in categories like gaming, fashion, beauty, and news.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, to relive the simpler times before the merciless jaws of capitalism began tearing the world to shreds.
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