YouTube has many different forms of advertising. Of course, the most annoying for most people are the ones that cannot be skipped until after 30 seconds.
Of course there are ways to avoid these ads completely, but “soon” you won’t have to. Starting next year, Google plans to discontinue this type of advertising altogether.
Yes, you read that right: Google announced that it aims to offer a better viewing experience to its users, adding:
“As part of this effort, we have decided to end support for 30-second unskippable ads starting in 2018 and focus on formats that work well for both users and advertisers.”
Recognizing that this ad format is not hugely popular, particularly among mobile users with expensive cellular connections, the company is pushing advertisers to use different ad formats, such as the six-second overlay that first launched in 2016.
The decision does not seem to come by chance, as the video streaming landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and YouTube is no longer the only player.
Instagram and Facebook have and offer their own video platforms, but there is also competition from various other companies such as vid.me and Rumble.
So to remain competitive, Google seems to have thought about the best end-user experience on YouTube, and a good first step would be the future withdrawal of the most aggressive form of advertising it used to use.
But you'll have to be patient until 2018...
