YouTube is expanding its endeavors to counteract ad-blocker usage. Christopher Lawton, the platform’s Director of Communications, explained that YouTube has launched a global campaign to encourage users to allow advertisements or experience YouTube Premium.
Lawton emphasized that the use of ad-blocking tools violates the platform’s terms of service, he added that advertisements support a diverse global ecosystem of content creators and allow billions of users access to content on YouTube.
The platform has now implemented strict actions against ad-blocker usage worldwide. Users who employ ad-blockers may be prevented from watching further videos unless they disable the ad-blocking tool.
These new measures were initiated in June when users started receiving notifications informing them that video playback would be restricted after viewing three videos unless they disabled their ad-blocker, at the time, Lawton described this as a small-scale global experiment.
YouTube has now confirmed that it has begun a global campaign asking users to either purchase a YouTube Premium subscription or enable ads.
Last year, the platform announced that it had 80 million paying subscribers, yet Google’s parent company, Alphabet, continues to explore ways to increase this figure, the company conducted tests asking users to pay for 4K video quality or watch several unskippable ads in exchange for an uninterrupted experience.
Throughout this year, the video streaming platform has introduced several changes in how ads operate. In May, it brought unskippable 30-second ads to its TV app, in September, it began experimenting with longer, less frequent ad breaks for longer content.
YouTube is hopeful that these longer ad breaks will encourage more users to subscribe to ad-free YouTube Premium.
However, the recent $2 price hike in July and the discontinuation of the budget-friendly YouTube Premium Lite plan might make this option less appealing.
