Is Google Ruining the YouTube Experience for Ad-Blockers?
Cheeky YouTube fans are not happy about an apparent change to the popular video sharing website. Owner Google is keen to stop people from using ad blockers which prevent the platform from generating revenue. Last year, the company started clamping down on the practice by barring some of those who use ad blockers from watching videos. It comes as YouTube updated its rules stating that the use of ad blockers violate the site’s terms of service. Anyone who wants an ad-free experience is expected to pay for YouTube Premium instead. Now it seems Google has come up with another tactic to prevent freeloaders.
The YouTube Speed Slowdown: A New Update
Multiple users have reported that YouTube loads at a snail’s pace with their ad-blocker switched on. As soon as they turn it off, video speeds go back to normal. This has led quite a few people to wrongly believe that there was merely something wrong with their internet connection. “I thought my computer was going crazy!” one wrote on Reddit. “I knew something was wrong!” another person said. “I spent ages yesterday cleaning out my laptop thinking it was an issue on my end meanwhile it’s just YouTube killing the performance of my browser just cause I don’t wanna see any disgusting mobile game ads?,” a third moaned.
The Great Ads Debate: Change in Strategy?
However, other users were quick to point out YouTube and other websites rely on advertising for revenue. “Ads are how you pay for their service,” a user responded. “Seems pretty reasonable to me to let you still use the service at a reduced quality until you pay for it.” As 9to5Google reports, affected users have two options. They can either disable the ad-blocker or pay for YouTube Premium.
Bonus Content: What was the first YouTube video?
YOUTUBE’S first-ever video was uploaded 15 years ago – on April 23, 2005. It was a clip posted by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, marking the beginning of the website’s rapid and unstoppable rise to internet dominance. The video is titled “Me at the zoo”, and is geo-tagged to San Diego. In the clip, Karim gives a short speech to camera in very low video quality by today’s standards. He’s standing in a zoo talking about elephants, who can be seen in the background. YouTube’s inaugural video has now been viewed more than 303 million times. It’s received nearly 15 million likes and has racked up more than around 10 million comments. Karim met fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley while working at PayPal. The trio went on to create YouTube, although Karim was officially an adviser to the site – rather than being an employee. He remained relatively unknown until Google purchased YouTube in 2006. Karim received 137,443 shares of stock, which was worth roughly $64 million at the time.
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