YouTube faces backlash over unskippable Ad expansion

YouTube has started adding more unskippable ads, forcing viewers to wait longer before they can watch videos. By reducing the ability to skip ads, the platform aims to expose more viewers to advertisements and increase its revenue.

Users and analysts commonly believe that YouTube is deliberately making ad experiences more intrusive to push more people toward subscribing to YouTube Premium, which offers an ad-free viewing experience.

Users have reported encountering unskippable ads that run far longer than the usual 15–30 seconds, with some claiming they watched ads lasting several minutes, and in extreme or possibly erroneous cases, even hours.

Multiple unskippable ads now frequently play in a row before a video starts. Users who report extremely long, unskippable ads often use ad blockers, and YouTube appears to be targeting them with these aggressive ad formats. By doing so, YouTube bypasses many ad blockers, which fail to block the new ad types, leaving users unable to skip and stuck watching the ads.

The YouTube community widely expresses frustration and annoyance over the increased ad load and unskippable commercials. Many users feel that these changes are significantly degrading their overall viewing experience.

In response, users are actively exploring workarounds such as casting videos from their phones, using browsers with strong ad-blocking tools like Firefox with uBlock Origin, or even relying on VPNs. However, the effectiveness of these methods varies.

YouTube claims that standard unskippable ads stay within set limits, such as 15 seconds on mobile and 60 seconds on TV—but users report a more aggressive advertising experience that often exceeds these durations.