by Google started a big fight against ad blocking on YouTube a few years ago, which was completely understandable. YouTube is free for people who don’t want to pay for a premium subscription, because advertising revenue is how the service is supported. Of course, some of that money goes to Google, and some of it goes to creators.
Although YouTube makes billions of dollars, Google is also very greedy because it has shareholders to satisfy. Ad blockers cost Google money, so it makes sense that the company would want to fight them.
But when I defended Google’s position on YouTube ad blockers in the past, I also reminded the company that ad blockers are a side effect of Google’s own practices. Whether it’s tracking users across the web or serving up all kinds of annoying ads on YouTube and elsewhere, Google has helped create the need for ad blockers. Internet users grew tired of the invasive ads that Google popularized.
Now that Google is largely winning the war against AD Blockers, it’s time to remind the company that it has screwed up again in the most annoying way possible. Some users see hours of unswitchable ads on YouTube. No, seriously…an hour. I wouldn’t blame anyone if they resorted to ad blockers after dealing with that kind of nightmare.
I don’t remember seeing 60-minute ads on YouTube, although I did see longer commercials popping up for some videos. However, the longer advertisements were always skipped.
Conversely, if you see non-switchable hour-long ads in your YouTube experience, simply reload the page, which will hopefully fix the problem.
As you can see in the photo above, a Redditor was served one of these super-annoying hours of unlinked ads. It’s probably a mistake on Google’s part that we’re witnessing here. Such ads should always be skipped. Why annoy the user if you are going to serve other ads along the way?
But it’s the kind of mistake that shouldn’t happen. Google should have better control over what advertisers can do in YouTube and elsewhere. It should also have the best interest of the user. Watching hours of ads is absolutely not in anyone’s interest, not even the advertiser’s. If that were to happen to me, I would do my best to ensure that the advertiser in question never gets a single cent from me.
If you don’t use ad blockers, no one would blame you if you try one in response to these practices. However, Google always goes back and forth with ad blockers on YouTube, so many of them don’t even work anymore. You may find that you can’t play new clips until you turn off the ad blocker on YouTube.
Ad blocker aside, the experience in the photo above is hopefully a rare bug that Google will fix soon.
