Youtube is now testing a technology where it will give three warnings to people using the ad blockers and after someone have used them on three consecutive videos, the video playback will be disabled for them. Than they will have only two options, either to uninstall or disable the ad blocking software or browser extension or buy the youtube subscription in order to watch the youtube content.
This system is currently in test phase and a handful of users have experienced these warnings from youtube. However, soon it may be rolled out the all audiences around the globe. The warnings which some users have claimed to have received are as follows.
In the message above, youtube reiterates the fact that the ads allow the youtube platform to be accessible freely to the billions of users worldwide. If someone is not ok with ads and does not want to see them, he or she must subscribe to youtube premium instead of using the ad blockers. This way, they will still be contributing towards the platform while not seeing the ads on same time.
For the most part, youtube is a free platform which is powered by ads and mostly the ads are major source of revenue for youtube. Now if someone is using ad blockers and trying to access the youtube videos, it is not fair to the platform. As the data storage costs are high and specially the 4K videos take lots of space. So if users start using the ad blockers, youtube will run out of revenues to cover the costs. In this era of 4K and 8K content, it is a blessing that the platforms like youtube are still free for users.
In my opinion, youtube have every right to exercise its right to show the ads. They also have every right to warn and not serve the content to users who are using the ad blockers. If someone is annoyed by ads, they must subscribe to the youtube premium, where you pay a monthly fee to watch the videos without being interrupted by ads. It is very understandable that the ads during the videos can be annoying and distracting, people would want to disable them. However, means like ‘subscribing to youtube premium’ are more appropriate to achieve that.
One important thing here, youtube premium is still not available in many countries and territories around the globe. So youtube also needs to enable this feature around the globe, so any user who is genuinely annoyed by ads and wants to enjoy content without interruptions, should be able to do that by means which are endorsed the youtube.
If youtube does not enable its premium content in a territory for no apparent reason and still asks people to not use the ad blockers, well in that case, to say the least, people will ask questions. However, one thing should be absolutely clear, youtube is a free platform for user, which have it costs which include the storage costs, costs of hardware, salaries and much more. Not just youtube, this is true for all the websites which are free for users, so if you are using an adblocker, you are not doing the justice to all such platforms and websites and you must disable it right away.