The mystery of unskippable ads on YouTube. The company claims: ‘It was a bug, we had a problem’

An avalanche of user requests

Social networks and forums, primarily Reddit, are flooded with posts from frustrated users complaining about unusually long ads that they cannot skip. While viewers are accustomed to ads that can be skipped after five seconds or to shorter, non-skippable formats of 15 to 30 seconds, the introduction of the 90-second block was the last straw for many.

Some users reported that they saw several such advertisements in one day, and they supported their claims with photos from television screens. Many immediately suspected that the wordč about YouTube’s new aggressive tactic to force them to buy a subscription to YouTube Premium, a service that, among other things, enables watching content without advertisements.

A cold shower from the company and recognition

In the midst of growing discontent, the official YouTube user account on the X platform also spoke out, but their response only further fueled the debate.

“YouTube does not have a 90-second non-skippable commercials format. It is not something we are currently testing. We are investigating what it is,” the company’s announcement said.

This denial of the existence of the problem angered the users who faced it, but a few days later the final explanation arrived. In a statement to the portal 9to5Google, YouTube acknowledged the existence of the problem, but attributed it to a technical error.

“We determined that this was the result of a ‘bug’ that was showing longer, inaccurate time measurements for shorter ads. We are working on a fix. As we said, we don’t have a 90-second non-skippable ad format and this was not a test,” the company said.

Although this particular case was a mistake, it happened in the context of YouTube’s increasing pressure on users of the free version. The company previously officially introduced unskippable 30-second commercials on smart TVs and stepped up its fight against ad-blockers, the name makes it clear that the future of the platform is in longer advertising blocks or paid subscriptions.