Google makes a lot of hardware these days, whether you’re looking at their smartphones, smartwatches, or smart home devices. However, ads will always be their primary source of revenue. Those free videos you watch on YouTube are paid for with the ads that you’re forced to watch.
YouTube has been adding more and more ads to YouTube videos these days and if you thought that was annoying, get ready for another stage of ad pressure. The platform is already rolling out ads that appear when you pause a video. There is truly no escape (besides YouTube Premium).
Some Users Are Reporting Being Presented With Ads When They Pause YouTube Videos
Is nothing sacred to you, Google? There was once a time when you’d only have to worry about being shown ads by YouTube at the beginning and the end of videos. At a point, long videos started getting ads inserted in between, especially when the videos were on the longer side. Then the platform added unskippable videos, some of which are as long as 30 seconds. That was already enough to deal with, but a new addition makes it worse.
According to some users on Reddit, it looks like you’re going to now have to contend with seeing ads in the event that you pause a video when watching on your TV. I get that Google is trying to increase its revenue numbers (as every single company is never satisfied), but it is destroying the user experience in the process.
The only seemingly good thing about this new change is that the ads seem to be static images, not videos, and it also seems that you can dismiss them right away. They should be less annoying than the regular video ads we encounter on the platform, but it is still annoying nonetheless. The ad in the screenshot above even references that you paused what you were watching, showing that this is an ad format that is likely here to stay.
It’s A Win-Win For Google As The Only Other Option Is To Get YouTube Premium
There’s nobody that wins in this situation more than Google does. They’ve introduced one more channel through which they can pull money out of advertisers and if you decide that you’re not ready to contend with all of these ads, then the best option is to simply pull out your wallet and pay for YouTube Premium every single month.
Sure, the other option is to leave the platform entirely if you’re more of an activist, but let’s be real: there’s no other video site with a comparable catalog of content, so you’re probably going to be in the minority if you decide to ditch the platform.
I’ve been on YouTube Premium for several years, way before things got as bad as they are now, and I initially did it because I wanted to be able to use YouTube Music in the background. However, these days, I use Spotify and the ad-free experience is what keeps me on Premium. It does suck that YouTube is creating the problem, offering the solution for it, and still winning both ways.
