"Ad blockers are not allowed": Google escalates its battle against ad-blockers to push YouTube Premium’s $14/month subscriptions

For the longest time, YouTube has been my go-to app for entertainment. The platform features a wealth of content, including documentaries, music videos, and movies. However, its user experience has taken a significant hit over the past few months, primarily due to Google's campaign against ad blockers on the platform.

I get it — ads help generate revenue for the platform, but c'mon, what are up to 3 ads doing in a 3-minute long music video? It's downright annoying, and as it now seems, the experience is about to get even worse, unless you get a Premium subscription.

Last year, Google/YouTube ramped up its efforts against ad-blockers, preventing playback for users with the software installed on their devices, coercing them to disable it.

Users continued to exploit loopholes in browsers and third-party extensions, such as Firefox, that allowed them to bypass YouTube's ads while watching videos. However, the tech giant has seemingly doubled down on its efforts against ad-blockers, closing the few remaining loopholes that allowed users to enjoy YouTube videos without ads that didn't necessarily compel them to get a Premium subscription. Alternatively, users can add the video hosting site to their ad blocker's allowlist.

Multiple users have recently shared screenshots highlighting warnings from YouTube, indicating “Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube” and “Ad blockers violate YouTube’s terms of service” (via 9to5Google).

Interestingly, Google's crackdown on ad-blockers hasn't affected everyone, especially users based in Southeast Asia and Europe, who claim that they are still able to use ad-blockers while watching YouTube videos.

To that end, it seems that YouTube/Google is trapped in a hamster wheel with its efforts against ad-blockers, with users coming up with new ingenious ways to bypass its ban, such as our Managing Editor's nifty Raspberry Pi trick.