According to YouTube, the skip button is “not hidden” on adverts.

YouTube, in its own way, tried to reverse this by making the skip option a bit more difficult. On a desktop computer, users report seeing black rectangles over the skip button while on mobile, they do not get to see the count-down timer when it should appear to show how much more time one needs to wait in order to skip the ad.

Oluwa Falodun, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the platform is not trying to conceal the skip button from users, but it’s just changing – exactly – how ads display in some ways.

For instance, if it is skippable, the skip button won’t appear until five seconds after the ad has played. To make an ad player interface leaner, YouTube is also taking away some extra details. Meanwhile, desktop and mobile users may notice that the on-screen countdown timer of when you can skip is taking on the form of a progress bar at the bottom of the screen.

Second, YouTube is expanding the places and manners in which ads appear. It also started running ads on the pause screen-a place that it never used for the same purpose. Last year, the platform took some of the advertising controls that creators had away from them; this made their job of handling ads on their content much more difficult. Also, YouTube is much more strict when it comes to allowing the use of ad blockers; users make use of such in order to avoid ads completely.

While one could eliminate ads by signing up for YouTube Premium, it’s also worth pointing out that the cost has been increasing incrementally over time. Combine all of these factors-changes to ad display, new strictness in dealing with ad blockers, and rising subscription fees-and the experience that surrounds ads on YouTube is considerably more complicated for the user.

Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to follow my whatsapp channel