YouTube has declared war on ad blockers in recent months. Its efforts have led online users to revolt against the platform and look for ways to continue skipping ads.
In its latest move, YouTube pauses the videos users are watching and displays a pop-up urging them to subscribe to YouTube Premium for $13.99 per month, disable ad blockers, or put the platform on the list of sites allowed to display ads.
“Ads allow YouTube to be used by billions worldwide,” the reminder says. “You can go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid from your subscription.”
A growing number of people are complaining about the change on X and Reddit. Some critics say they might not use an ad blocker if YouTube didn’t show so many advertisements.
“Maybe if I didn’t see two videos at the start, two videos at the end, and like four mid-roll adverts, with one or two or even three adverts, either I block the ads, or I’m gonna ‘waste’ my time watching smaller videos/markers,” wrote one redditor.
“Wouldn’t have to use an ad blocker if I calmed down with the double unskippable 30-second ads when I’m trying to watch a 5-second video,” another posted on X.
A Reddit post called “Bye-bye YouTube” garnered 21,000 upvotes and nearly 10,000 replies in four days. One person joked that it was the most upvoted post about YouTube since November 2020, when the platform experienced a brief worldwide outage.
YouTube isn’t budging.
“The use of ad blockers violates YouTube’s Terms of Service,” a company spokesperson told Daily Dot via email. “We’ve launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience. Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube.”
When viewers repeatedly ignore the request, playback may be disabled, YouTube confirmed to the Daily Dot. The company did not mention whether accounts would be further affected.
Many are concerned that their accounts will be terminated for violating the terms of service if they continue using ad blockers or various workarounds. YouTube said it would take “disabling playback very seriously.”
YouTube did not respond to an inquiry about the specifics of its global effort to crack down on ad blockers.
People online are increasingly discussing workarounds that are yet to be detected by YouTube, such as using Tampermonkey scripts, uBlock Origin in Chrome, or switching to a different browser.
“If you have a MacBook Pro with a touchbar you don’t have to worry! Just use Safari and enjoy skipping ads,” one wrote on X.
Some have advocated supporting content creators by donating to them directly, rather than paying the platform. This doesn’t seem to have gained traction.
“Despite having made $2,000 in ad money, I have only received one Super Thanks for $7.50 as far as any other support method goes,” a YouTuber wrote on Reddit. “Getting people to do anything more than watch a video is a very, very big ask.”
According to its Help Center website for creators, YouTube pays content creators 55% of the net revenues from ads displayed or streamed on public videos. To be eligible to become a partner, YouTube says that a creator must have 500 subscribers, three uploads in the last 90 days, as well as either 3,000 public watch hours in the last year or 3 million views in the past 90 days.
In addition to implementing stricter policies for ad blockers, YouTube issued an update for content creators saying that it will remove individual ad choices next month. Instead YouTube will automatically show pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable ads when appropriate for long-form videos.
“Starting in November, we’re simplifying the choices for ad formats that show before or after your video to improve creator revenue,” the notice said.
YouTube has been struggling with fluctuations in ad revenue. Going after ad blockers may be an effort to stabilize its revenue stream.
Since reaching an all-time record of $8.63 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, its revenue fell to less than $7 billion. After dropping to less than $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 2023, YouTube parent company Alphabet announced an increase of 4% to $7.7 billion in YouTube Ad revenue during the second quarter earnings call three months ago.
During the call, the company also revealed that as of the end of 2022, it had over 80 million subscribers to YouTube Music and Premium.
In recent months, YouTube has begun exploring other ways to raise profits in addition to its anti-ad blocker endeavor.
In July, YouTube Premium increased in price from $11.99 to $13.99 per month.
During the second quarter earnings call, Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, said this “underscores the value of the products.”