YouTube has just announced that they will be removing a feature that many users consider as annoying because of how it works. The YouTube feature is often considered "disruptive" as it often reduces the viewing experience of many users. In a forum post, the YouTube team announced the end of this feature starting from a stipulated date. It has brought a lot of excitement to a lot of YouTube users as the end of this feature will extremely increase their viewing experience.
In a forum post, YouTube noted users' complaints about the overlay ads feature. They also said that they have taken into consideration the ad format and have made a decision to remove it from YouTube next month. The overlay ads feature usually interrupts videos without prior notification and can reduce the quality of the viewing experience.
In their new statement, the YouTube team said, "Hi creators,
Starting on April 6th, 2023, the “Overlay ads” ad format will no longer appear on YouTube to help improve the viewer experience and shift engagement to higher-performing ad formats on desktop and mobile devices. Overlay ads are a legacy ad format that only served on desktop and are disruptive for viewers. We expect to see limited impact for most creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats."
The YouTube team also added that they would only affect the overlay ads feature and that other ad formats won't be affected by the new decision." These ads only appeared on the desktop. We expect to see a limited impact for most creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats. There are no changes to any of our other ad formats," they added.
How Does this Change Affect Users
The new change implemented by the YouTube team only affects those not subscribed to their premium version of the app. Those subscribed to premium are not affected by YouTube ads as it is part of the package. But the freemium users are usually affected by YouTube ads which appear in different formats on the screen.
The overlay ads do not affect those using mobile devices, as it only appears on the YouTube desktop site. The ads usually run across the bottom of the video, and it can be very annoying to users. With the removal of this format of YouTube ads, freemium users can get a slight increase in the quality of their viewing experience. This type of ad format won't pop up again, but other ad formats will still be there.
So, removing the overlay ads format does not mean that other ad formats on the YouTube platform will be removed from free users. The ads that play before a user views a video will remain there, and the usual ad interruptions will remain there after a user plays a certain number of videos. But the skippable ads are less annoying than the overlay ads. The skippable ads allow users to skip them after a certain number of seconds, but the overlay YouTube ads block the entire screen and are not skippable.
YouTube desktop users will appreciate this new development. While this will significantly change the viewing experience of YouTube desktop users, the platform is expected to make more changes to other ad formats.