YouTube took offense at adblockers and launched a “small” experiment

YouTube launched a “small global experiment”: the platform began to prohibit viewing of videos by viewers using ad blocking. Thus, the company wants to encourage users to either not limit the display of promotional videos, or subscribe to YouTube Premium.

Those who got “under the distribution” see a pop-up window with a warning: after three videos, the player will be unavailable. But only if the ad blocker is not disabled or YouTube is not added to the white list. The company explains that advertising will allow the service to remain free to billions of viewers around the world and support content creators.

YouTube representatives confirmed that notifications are just part of the experiment. They do not comment on whether a complete blocking of accounts is possible, but they say that the playback of videos can be temporarily disabled in “extreme cases”.

“We take disabling playback very seriously and will only disable replay if viewers ignore repeated ad permission requests,” a spokesperson for the platform said.

This isn’t the first time YouTube has come up with new ways to combat ad blocking. In May, another “small experiment” was conducted, in which users with such programs were completely banned from accessing the service.

The company explains: “The fight against ad blockers is not a new phenomenon, and other platforms regularly require them to be turned off.”

Some YouTube users expressed their dissatisfaction with the experiment, considering it wrong and intrusive. People complain that ads are too frequent, long, and not relevant to their interests.

“It’s just not right. I understand that they want to make money, but it’s not as intrusive. I don’t want to watch ads every five minutes or pay for what I can get for free on other sites,” writes one Reddit user.