YouTube's New Move: Videos Skipping to End for Ad-Block Users, Here's the Scoop

YouTube’s crusade against ad-blockers continues, and this time the platform seems to be ending videos before they even start. Yes, people using ad-blockers have complained that YouTube is skipping videos until the end. But completely depriving them of watching the video seems like a bold and aggressive move that is unlikely to go down well with users and even regulators. Many people have talked about videos on YouTube going to the end and most of them have ad-blocker enabled on your machine. YouTube hasn’t officially commented on the changes and we don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

The company has often cited reasons for not using ad-blockers but this constant barrage of ads that free users see on the platform makes using an ad-blocker inevitable. However, YouTube says that ads are a source of revenue for the company that helps them pay creators. So, if you want to continue using YouTube and don’t want ads, the platform says just pay for its premium service and forget about ads once and for all. As for the latest issue with the ad-blocker, we independently tested it with the ad-blocker enabled on YouTube and observed that the entire video played without skipping to the end. So, it is possible that some of these users faced problems due to ad-blocker but we cannot say the exact reason until more details are out.

YouTube and ad-blockers – the ongoing battle
YouTube began the exercise with a three-strike rule for videos, giving people enough time to stop using ad blockers and let ads show up for all videos on their profiles as long as they wanted to use YouTube for free. If you should get a new YouTube pop-up that appears when it detects an ad blocker on your system, you’ll mainly see two options: “Allow YouTube ads” or simply “Try YouTube Premium.” The page also notes that “video playback is blocked unless YouTube approves or an ad blocker is disabled.”

The changes have already caused trouble for ad blocker companies, who have reportedly seen thousands of people uninstall the apps because YouTube now restricts their use on browsers. Most people bypassing their ad blockers are using YouTube on the Chrome browser.