YouTube Starts Trial Of Ad Blocking Tool Globally, Get Ready For Premium Subscription!

YouTube illustration. (Image Credit: dock. Unsplash)

JAKARTA - YouTube is reportedly starting to fight users who block ads using third-party apps. The company asks them to subscribe to Premium if they want to avoid ads when playing videos.

In screenshots shared by a number of users on Reddit, it shows warnings that will appear where users will be prohibited from playing YouTube videos after watching three content with ad blocking enabled.

The warning also gives users two buttons, asking users to allow ads or buy YouTube Premium to be free of ads and creators can get paid.

"Iklan memungkinkan YouTube tetap gratis untuk miliar pengguna di seluruh dunia," tulis YouTube dalam peringatannya.

A Google spokesperson confirmed they were indeed testing the ad blocking feature to few users globally, of course to see feedback.

"We are running a small global experiment that drives viewers with ad blocking enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium," Google's spokesman Oluwa Falodon told The Verge, quoted Friday, June 30.

"The detection of ad blocking is nothing new, and other publishers regularly ask viewers to disable ad blocking," he added.

Falodun emphasized that if users continue to use advertising blocking tools, they will be flooded with warnings to stop or subscribe to YouTube Premium which is priced at IDR 59 thousand per month.

"We are very serious about disabling playback, and will only disable playback if viewers ignore requests repeatedly to allow ads on YouTube," Falodun said.

"If viewers feel they have been wrongly tagged for using ad blocking, they can share this feedback by clicking the link on the prompt," he added.

Finally, YouTube also states that advertising is very important for creators to generate revenue on their content or work, and for the platform to stay free.