Google is launching huge crackdown on popular YouTube trick that could alter your viewing experience
Your days of blocking ads could be behind you.
Adverts on YouTube can sometimes feel like the most annoying thing in the world - whether you're on your phone or on a smart TV, having your video interrupted is never much fun.
For a long time, people have been using ad-blocking apps to game the system - there are countless on the market and plenty of them can help with YouTube ads.
However, Google has announced that it's launching a bit of a crackdown on exactly this sort of app, in an attempt to stop people from finding ways around the monetization of YouTube.
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In a statement on Google's support page, Rob from TeamYouTube said: "We’re strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, specifically ad-blocking apps. Viewers who are using these third-party apps may experience buffering issues or see the error 'The following content is not available on this app' when trying to watch a video."
If you see that error message, then, you might want to check if your ad-blocker of choice is proving a bit of a spanner in the works.
Still, while that might sound annoying, there is more context given a little later, with Rob explaining: "We want to emphasize that our terms don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership, and Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service."
So, in theory at least, if you block ads on a video, the creator of that video doesn't get any sort of reward for the view you've given them, since ad revenue is how videos generate money.
As it turns out, Google actually launched this crusade against ad-blockers back in 2023, so this might suggest it's struggling to make major headway.
After all, there are probably plenty of people out there who aren't too fussed about the consequences, so long as they don't have to deal with interrupting adverts.
Google's ultimate aim here, of course, is to have users either sit and watch adverts or even sign up for YouTube Premium, its membership programme which instantly gets rid of all ads on the platform.
YouTube Premium also unlocks a bunch of other features like the ability to download videos for offline viewing, but it comes at a monthly cost of $14 or £12, which some people might see as pretty steep.
It's certainly comparable to the price of paying for access to a streaming service like Prime Video or Netflix. But then again, younger generations increasingly watch YouTube content just like they would traditional TV shows, so it could well be worth it to some.