Update: 10/10/2024 at 3:56pm ET — YouTube told The Verge it’s not “hiding” the ad skip button; it’s simply changing how ads are being displayed. While some were noting a black rectangle was seemingly concealing the button, YouTube says a progress bar will be placed here that will eventually result in the skip button showing up. YouTube says this will happen five seconds into playback, which has “always” been the case for skippable ads.
Original story below:
YouTube is looking into ways to make it harder to skip ads.
As shared in a Reddit thread, some of the video platform’s users are seeing little black rectangles covering the ‘Skip’ button for ads.
YouTube adding blackout squares over adverts to hide the “skip” button
byu/BigBlueMountainStar inextremelyinfuriating
It’s not even that the Skip button was made less visible by either being moved or shrunk down — it’s straight up being hidden. For now, it only appears to be a limited test, based on the Reddit comments, but it’s still a pretty sneaky thing to be looking into in any capacity. (For what it’s worth, I’m on YouTube Premium, so I’m not seeing ads either way.)
It remains to be seen whether YouTube will roll out these black rectangles more widely.
Source: Reddit Via: Android Police
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