Ads on YouTube seem to have gotten worse and worse over the years. It's hard to watch a video when almost every single one features a 30-second or even 1-minute ad you are forced to watch before the actual video begins.
While I understand it's great for making money and YouTubers deserve as much as they can get, it's not great for a viewing experience.
It looks like they have been listening, as they have announced they plan to phase out 30-second unskippable ads by 2018.
“We’re committed to providing a better ads experience for users online,” reveals a rep from Google. “As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers.”
With this roll out, it will be a challenge for advertisers. It looks like they'll have to take advantage of the website's "bumper" ad feature, which is a 6-second ad before the video. I actually don't mind these since they are so short and to the point.
While the 30-second ads generate more AdSense revenue for the YouTubers, they definitely have other means of income from their videos anyways.
As a person who watches YouTube pretty frequently, this is pretty nice news to hear. Looking forward to seeing how 2018 goes.
