The biggest uphill battle for ad-supportedentertainment appsought to be ad blockers and account sharing.Netflix fought the latterwith strict measures and more recently, YouTube has stepped up itsfight against ad blocker utilitieson all platforms. Mercifully, the platform still allows you to skip ads after watching the first few seconds. A recent change to theSkipbutton may not be to everyone’s taste, though.
Ad revenue keeps the lights on at YouTube offices and helps the content creators earn a living off their work. It is a sustainable and scalable business model, especially when you always have the option of paying upfront with cash for YouTube Premium, instead of time and attention for ads. Through 2023, YouTube has played around with several ad formats, includingmultiple consecutive unskippable segments, combinations of unskippable ones followed by ones you can dodge.
The old YouTubeSkip Adsbutton
ASkip adsbutton was tested in August
Now, we are noticing thisSkipbutton rolling out on multiple devices in different regions. The button looks the same on the web and on mobile, but it is noticeably different from the one YouTube was testing a few months ago. The original design YouTube tested replaced the boxy translucentSkip Adsbutton with an even more transparent pill containing the textSkip ads(without the uppercase A). However, the button we are seeing now is nearly opaque, and it just saysSkip.
We are now seeing the wider rollout of a smallSkipbutton
Fewer letters in the button text make it a smaller touch or click target, but to YouTube’s credit, the button is almost opaque and easy to spot. It appears in the same position as before, too, so you don’t need to hunt for it. Although we liked the prominent rectangularSkip Adsbutton from before, we would take this smaller button any day over a series of ads or a player UI that lacks an option to dodge ads altogether.
