YouTube has steadily been increasing its anti-ad blocker stance for a while now. While the company was giving a limited number of tries to users with ad blockers, it seems things have now changed. The company has now started to fully block ad blockers around the world. This is an interesting change that affects everyone. This also means a lot of things for users without YouTube Premium. Let’s talk about it.
YouTube Blocks Use of Ad Blockers Permanently; Terms of Service Updated
As mentioned, it was previously speculated that YouTube was simply issuing warnings to a few people for using ad blockers. However, in a statement issued to The Verge, the company has confirmed that it has “launched a global effort” to crack down on ad blockers. This essentially means that YouTube will block video playback for any user who has an ad blocker enabled.
This clearly states the company is no longer messing around and letting users off the hook. If users still try to view videos, they’re hit with an image that mentions that ‘Ad Blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service.’
This has been a long time coming as we have constantly seen the company ramping up its efforts to go anti-ad block. This includes introducing unskippable ads to stacking multiple ones together.
Short of not watching YouTube, the only thing left to do is buy a Premium subscription which is what the company wants anyway. YouTube has even added a premium bitrate option for its exclusive users. So, as compared to simply using an ad-blocker, the video-watching experience with YouTube Premium will be better. Moreover, paying for YouTube also means people can support their favorite creators.
This sadly signals the end of days when you could go around YouTube and watch videos for free. It won’t be surprising if, in due time, everyone is forced to get YouTube Premium to watch content.
What are your thoughts on YouTube banning ad-blockers? Will you be buying up YouTube Premium after this? Let us know in the comments below.
