⬤ YouTube has started introducing a new type of ads that will appear on the screen saver during video playback.
⬤ Previously, the platform had significantly increased the number and frequency of ads in videos, which drew complaints from viewers.
⬤ The only way to get rid of ads is through a paid subscription to YouTube, especially after blocking ad blockers.
It seems that users of the world’s most popular video platform, YouTube, are in for a new wave of ads being added to the platform. This follows repeated increases in ad frequency in the past, along with the platform’s strong campaign against ad-blocking software.
The new ads will appear on the screen saver when videos are paused, adding to the ads that already appear below and beside the video on the main page, as well as those that play before, during, and after the videos themselves. In the past, YouTube videos had relatively few ads, typically showing one ad before or after the video, with more ads only appearing for longer videos. However, this reality has changed dramatically recently, as ads now appear before and after videos, and for videos longer than 8 minutes, multiple ad breaks can also occur. Within each of these ad breaks, it has become common to see more than one ad, and a significant portion of these ads is non-skippable.
In 2023, YouTube began testing screen saver ads for the first time on a limited basis. It seems that the trial went well, yielding good revenue despite muted viewer complaints, which led to its current wide application.
It’s worth noting that YouTube has been increasingly pressuring viewers who try to avoid its ads recently. There is no way to bypass ads in its official apps, and while ad blockers were previously effective on the web, the platform has started blocking them and preventing users from watching.
Of course, there is an official way to get rid of YouTube ads: the paid Premium subscription, which comes with a free subscription to the platform’s music streaming service. The popularity of this option has grown significantly over the past years, and while it faced strong resistance initially, many have compared it to TV streaming service subscriptions, noting that it is cheaper and opens the door to a much larger amount of content, even if it isn’t necessarily consistent in quality.
