YouTube is reportedly developing another way to crack down on third-party ad blockers as the video streaming platform looks to increase revenue from users who don't have a YouTube Premium subscription. It is speculated that this change may combine video and ad streams, preventing popular browser plug-ins from blocking these ads from being displayed. This development comes weeks after users reported videos automatically skipping to the end when using third-party ad blockers on the Alphabet-owned video streaming service.
YouTube seems to be combining video and ad streams
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), SponsorBlock, a plugin that skips the previous sponsored sections of YouTube videos, claims that YouTube is merging ads directly into the video stream. Currently, videos and ads are said to be two separate items. The player automatically pauses the video to show ads at the specified timestamps.
YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad injection. This means that the ad is added directly to the video stream.
This breaks sponsor lock-in as all timestamps are now offset by ad hours.
— SponsorBlock (@[email protected]) (@SponsorBlock) June 12, 2024
With this change, the video stream is continuous, meaning third-party ad blockers may no longer be able to block it, according to SponsorBlock. The open-source browser extension said it may not be able to function properly if server-side ads are inserted, as “all timestamps are offset by ad times.”
YouTube's crackdown on ad blockers continues
Users with activated ad blockers reported last month that they were facing another problem: videos have started automatically skipping to the end. On the YouTube subreddit, a user reported that he could not watch videos when an ad blocker was activated. The user also allegedly tried to skip to certain sections of the video, but it seems to fast-forward to the end automatically.
In some cases where some users were able to work around this issue, audio playback disappeared. This meant that while they could see the video, the audio was missing.
It is speculated that this crackdown is part of YouTube's “overall effort” against ad blockers. According to the video streaming platform, these programs, often presented as browser plug-ins, violate the terms of service of its API services.
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