Why YouTube Shows You Hours of Unskippable Ads
Google has taken its crusade against ad blockers to a whole new level lately, so if you’ve started seeing hours-long, unskippable ads on YouTube, that might be why. Last week, Reddit users shared screenshots showing they were shown ads up to three hours long without a skip button – and that was to watch videos that were much shorter than the ad itself.
Android Authority was the first to report the phenomenon, citing threads by users Lin1ex and Standard-Slip6572 who complained about interruptions in full-screen mode accompanied by images of their screens. The publication also pointed to commenters who made additional claims, saying they were shown 10-hour or even 90-hour ads , although these more extreme allegations were not supported by photographic evidence.
If this all sounds a little unbelievable to you, then you have good instincts. And in one of the photos in the links above, you can see a small pop-up window, separate from the YouTube user interface, that says “Skip Ads…”.
This pop-up prompted Android Authority to question whether only users using ad blockers were receiving this treatment. Questioner Aamir Siddiqui took to YouTube for confirmation. While the company fully acknowledges any specific penalties for users who use ad blockers, its response seems to hint at what’s going on if you read between the lines.
“…the use of ad blockers violates YouTube’s Terms of Service,” Google said in a statement. “We have launched a global campaign encouraging viewers who have ad blocking turned on to allow advertising on YouTube or try YouTube Premium to access ad-free content.”
By YouTube’s own admission , unskippable ads are supposed to be limited to 15 seconds, so there’s definitely something going on here, assuming the Reddit users’ claims are true. Even though I’ve received hour-long ads before, there was always a “Skip” button for them.
I’ve reached out to YouTube myself for further clarification, but for now it’s worth noting that this move is consistent with the company’s recent behavior. The company has previously embedded ads directly into videos to prevent ad blockers from detecting them, and has also used pop-ups to block users with ad blockers from watching videos altogether . Google Chrome has also started disabling some ad blockers overall, thanks to a controversial change to the API extension developers use.
If you notice hours of unskippable ads on YouTube, try disabling your ad blocker to see if that solves the problem. If so, and this new change works the same as YouTube’s previous anti-ad blocking efforts, you can try watching the video again in Incognito mode to see if the measure is related to your account – that should help you diagnose what’s going on. to make it easier for you to understand what to do next .