Bad news comes from overseas: apparently Google is testing the blocking of software that prevents the playback of advertisements, better known as ad blockers, on its video streaming site YouTube. In recent days, several reports have emerged from users who saw screens like the one we propose below, and questioned by the press Google confirmed the experiment through an employee of the site, who spoke with the moderators of the subreddit dedicated to it.
The employee was keen to point out that this is an experiment, and therefore it is not clear what his future will be; it is also good to keep in mind that in the past YouTube has openly sided against the use of this type of initiative. But, you know, ideas can change, and it is true that in general the group has talked about difficult times and has fired a large number of people (even if the CEO Sundar Pichai has received a great economic bonus just in these days, in the order of about 200 million dollars, news that has not pleased Googlers).
It’s extremely easy to imagine why YouTube might be in favor of the idea of preventing ad blockers on its site: the vast majority of revenue comes from advertising paid for by advertisers. The more advertising you see, the more content creators also earn, after all. Of course, there is always the alternative, namely: YouTube Premium, which against the payment of a monthly subscription removes all types of advertising (in addition to several other secondary benefits). Not for nothing, the warning screen invites the user to subscribe.
On the other hand, there is a lot of argument online that advertising on YouTube has become really excessive in recent years – between the two ads at the beginning of the video and those scattered in the middle, to which are often added the sponsored segments of the creators. The risk is that YouTube ends up alienating a significant slice of users, doing more damage than anything else. But here’s an intriguing thought: what if YouTube really decided to ban ad blockers, and reduced ads for everyone? What level could be acceptable?
