Recently, there have been reports and complaints about video hosting giant YouTube changing the behaviour of the button that allowed viewers to skip ads. On desktop, the complaint was that it was blocked by a square that you can’t interact with, while on mobile the button doesn’t appear at all until five seconds later, which is the normal forced watch duration for ads.
More recently though, a YouTube spokesperson has come out and said publicly that the platform is not removing the button. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube’s Oluwa Falodun says that the company “is not hiding the skip button”. Instead, it is only making it so that the button “appears after five seconds into playback” for skippable ads.
The change is being justified as “reducing elements on the ad player” so that “viewers can engage more deeply with the ad through a cleaner experience”. Which is a strange reason to give, as unless you’re a marketer yourself trying to learn from the competition, chances are you’re not engaging with an ad at all beyond trying to skip it.
As we mentioned previously, YouTube is recently only making the news because of the things the platform is doing surrounding its ads. The obvious answer to never see an ad again is to pay up monthly via the Premium subscription, but rising prices doesn’t exactly encourage new signups.
(Source: The Verge)
