YouTube continues its "war" against users who "sneak" past ads without paying for YouTube Premium, using popular ad-blocking solutions. We've seen various measures so far, from limiting video playback after watching three ad-free videos to unofficial actions like slowing down user experience or skipping entire videos — all to push users into watching ads or subscribing.

Server-side "injection"

In the ongoing battle against ad blocking, YouTube has taken a step further. According to Android Police, some viewers have noticed ads being inserted directly into video content from the server side. This method makes it impossible for browsers, extensions, or external apps to distinguish ads from the main content, thus preventing them from blocking the ads.

One of the "victims" of this move could be extensions like Sponsorblock, which allows users to skip sponsored segments in videos based on timestamps. With YouTube inserting ads server-side, the video length changes and disrupts these timestamp-based add-ons, rendering them ineffective.

Currently, this appears to be a limited experiment, but it's already being labeled as a new low in the relentless battle against ad blocking. Server-side ad insertion is costly, complex, and more challenging to maintain compared to traditional ad delivery methods. However, if proven cost-effective, it wouldn't be surprising to see it fully implemented in the future./BUG.hr

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