With advertising being a core piece of YouTube’s business, the company is currently testing a new method to reduce the usage of ad blockers on the site.
YouTube is currently testing a new way to kill off ad block users from the platform, as it looks to secure its ad revenue business. The new method, which will be a three-strike system is already in global testing.
Users will be given a three-video grace period, after which YouTube will force users to either subscribe to its paid plan or turn off the ad blocker altogether.
The reaction to the plan has been extremely negative, with users already sharing which ad blockers are still actively working during the test. In our own testing, we have found that it might not have hit every user just yet.
However, Reddit user u/Reddit_n_Me posted a screenshot of the warning, which counts down the videos you have left before it locks out the video player entirely. One user shared the direct links that serve the adverts to block.
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YouTube struggles with falling ad revenue
Google has seen YouTube’s ad revenue decline over the last three business quarters, with its latest being a 2.6% year-on-year according to recent reports.
YouTube is currently in a new phase, as Google tries to find new avenues to get people to subscribe to YouTube Premium. The service eliminates adverts from videos for a fee of $11.99 a month. A new update to the mobile app has moved the “watch later” button below a new Premium-only queue feature.
While viewers on TV apps can still queue videos normally, this is to add to a temporary playlist that will play videos continuously. This has also drawn ire from viewers, as a Reddit thread pointed out that the “watch later” button has been in place for quite some time now, leading to multiple pop-ups of subscribing to Premium.
YouTube and Google have recently been under fire for potentially serving ads that break their own Terms of Service. It categorically denies these claims.
