YouTube: it will no longer be possible to skip the ads

Google to monetize to the maximum from the ads within YouTube will force users to watch the ads before the beginning of the videos

Until now in most of the videos we watched on YouTube the ads were invasive, at the beginning of the movie, but only up to a certain point. After a certain number of seconds, in fact, we could skip the advertisement and start watching the video. This feature, better known as Skip Ads will be removed from YouTube.

Google wants to increase the incoming profits from YouTube and to do so has decided to remove the ability for users to skip the initial ads of a movie. This means that from next weeks when we want to watch a video on YouTube we will have to watch the whole ad first and then the content we are interested in will start. Advertisers until now have paid up to 25% less for an ad skipped via "Skip Ad" by users, and to decrease losses Google has decided to eliminate "skippable" ads leaving only whole ads in its video sharing platform.

Adverts on YouTube

How much will this new decision by Google for YouTube cost us in terms of time? On average, ads on YouTube last 20 seconds, with the minimum being 6 seconds. So before watching a video on YouTube we'll have to deal with a small 10-20 seconds advertisement. According to some market experts this move could seriously be a double-edged sword. It is in fact an important cultural change for YouTube that until not too long ago had quite small and not too invasive ads and that with time has begun to increase the number of ads. This new "obligation" to watch ads could create antipathy in users towards products or companies that are displayed continuously, and maybe not interesting, and also could remove some members from the same YouTube. Now there is no shortage of alternatives to users, such as Facebook Watch, the video streaming platform that recently arrived in Italy.

To respond to these fears Google has made it known that it will use its algorithms to show people only ads that may be of interest based on searches made on the Web and that ads will have a feedback system so that those that users do not like could be removed or displayed less frequently. These are still small measures compared to the obligation to watch an ad before a video, will they be enough to keep users happy within YouTube?