YouTube Users: Overwhelmed by Ads
Users are experiencing a significant increase in the frequency, length, and intrusiveness of advertisements on YouTube. This is impacting the viewing experience, leading to frustration and prompting some to reconsider their premium subscriptions. The perceived rise in ads is often linked to AI-driven changes.
SOURCES (60)
“Youtube used to let you block advertisers , but it's impossible now. I randomly get creepy religious cult ads here and it won't let me block or report them.”
you can just unsubscribe and check back on their channel whenever
“Thanks for proving my point? The ad product doesn't exist without the user data, and the user data is worthless without the ad product. YouTube uses 'free' content to harvest the scale, and uses the ads to cash the check”
“I get so annoyed with youtube ads, then i just stop watching the video altogether, its the most annoying thing, youtube has made watching youtube impossible without having a subscription service. I just don't even feel like watching youtube anymore.”
This is just fucking horrendous to look at bro, what the hell YouTube
“No joke after, all this ai ad garbage started. Youtube keeps pushing bestiality into my ads. I dont watch ai, I barely watch furry content, I hate ad generated videos/ ai generated music. I've gotten to the point the ai ads are seriously starting to p.ss me off. To the point i just block and report every ai ad I see on YouTube. I mainly watch gaming , Friday night funkin/ vocaloid music covers. I cant be the only one getting annoyed that youtube is allowing very obvious bestiality on the You”
“Thanks! 🙏 I use brace for a long time now but have not tinkered much with it so I’m trying to get a better viewing experience with vpn maybe and avoiding ads with these other methods. Trying to also filter out spam from my outlook bc god damn so much spam email 😭”
“It can be one or both now. Some creators let YouTube do it, most set theirs in addition to YouTube adding them. Note, NONE of them are guaranteed to run as every person will get a different amount. There could be 20 added in a 40 minute video and some will see 4-6, some more or less.”
“Good point. Obviously, we can only estimate. There are several articles from industry analysts in recent years that estimate it’s between $5 and $11 billion. There’s a Substack run by a tech Project Manage r who interviewed a Google Project Manager about this topic in December, 2025. “Rounding for simplicity: YouTube costs approximately $30 million per day to operate. That's roughly $900 million per month, or about $11 billion annually.” When I said $5-$11 Billion I was using the highest and”
“I've been watching a few videos today and i've only gotten four ads (half of them being AI ads, of course), without showing the amount, it pauses on the third, i have to hit play and then it plays the third and fourth. If this is a new "feature", i hope it doesn't continue and they step back from it, if it's a bug, hopefully they fix it soon. P.S. I hope whoever makes the AI ads ends up having to do nothing but watch them on repeat 24/7, if that's hateful enough to”
or is it just me? submitted by /u/SativaGummi [link] [comments]
“I use brave as browser on all my devices. There is no way to block all Ads, I've several lists on pfBlockerNG but don't do much at a practical level.”
“Adguard on opnsense with multiple block lists, and Isponsorblock running on docker catches an awful lot and mutes YouTube ads and shortens the ad barrages.”
“Hi All. I got into this issue because I wanted to limit my exposure to YouTube network for my app campaigns. I removed all videos from it to see how it would shift but I noticed it started doing impressions on YT again a day later. I could not find anywhere in the UI what was being shown. Only after using their AI chat tool it eventually gave me some unlisted YT video links like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OKjocrVWRA Again, this was not visible anywhere in the UI. App Campaigns do”
“Brave, or VPN set to Albania. I would stop supporting youtube. They just continue to do shit like this”
“Oh it definitely has gotten way worse. It's been a slow rise that's for sure but in the last few years it's been VERY notciable. Like it's gotten crazy bad. But I think it'll continue. YouTube is a very greedy company. 50 billion dollars a year just ain't enough for 'em. They can't really screw over creators by taking a bigger chunk, nor can they really raise ad prices and screw over paying advertisers, nor do they really want to boost premium price. So the answer”
“So what? It’s still dramatic when every soul in the world knows to download an adblocker. At this point it’s your own fault if you don’t.”
“For some reason I never ad any ads on my YouTube on my android phone. If I cast to my tv I get ads but never on the phone, for years. But tonight the blessing was over and iv got them now. App was laggy and struggling to load videos half hour before. :(”
“The video is muted in favour of the ad. (This is kind of a "Feature Change" I guess) submitted by /u/Embarrassed-Elk-8194 [link] [comments]”
“I'm so tired of YouTube, I don't even use the official site, but a clone of it so that I don't have to deal with the terrible algorithm. But even with that there is a core problem which is that people are so willing to flood the site with unwatchable garbage. Not just the ai slop, which is a huge problem, but just lazy ass videos in general. No one seems to be able to even come up with a topic that interests them, they only know or care about the money. And they paint themselves as v”
“I’ve used Adblock for 15+ years I forgot this was even a problem. Get adblock stop torturing yourself”
“The price is not a scientifically provable number because its whatever the hell they want it to be. But at what point it becomes a net profit for them? 3 dollars. Now i get wanting to make double what you spend on your product, so 6.99 makes sense. Once again, entirely fair. But theyre making atleast 5x the cost per premium subscription. Its absurd. But its driven by an endless need not just to be profitable, but to be endlessly MORE profitable than last quarter.”
“I've been getting three ads at a time on YouTube streams for a while now. Recently some ads that can't be skipped until I wait 15 seconds have also started appearing.”
“Good for you, she needs some action. But the hassle of setting up adblockers on every device, not just PC and phone, was enough that I just said fuck it and paid for Premium. Adblockers can be finicky. Premium just works.”
“I doubt this complaint will make any form of difference but I’d like to voice it any way in case there’s any tiny chance it does… and I get that ads are how YouTube remains “free”, I mean other than them using and selling my data. And I’m good with that, I’m good with seeing the same annoying Liberty Mutual ad 10 times in an hour and a half video. Fucking limu emu🫠. I was whatever about the unskippable ad and skippable ad. Price you pay ya know. But this shift to unskippable and TWO skippable a”
“Hey! I hope I am in the right place for this. I‘m using youtube in a browser on my iphone alot, and the posts of images are driving me up a wall. Is there any way to get rid of those? It‘s truly terrible submitted by /u/EratsuGG [link] [comments]”
“Until today thereto was ads only with music videos. But they seem to have changed the game and now my feed is filled with ads. Whats even the point in premium light now ? Are they allowed to change the rules during a billing cycle? I paid for having my ads removed and now they started to show them anyway, is that legal? submitted by /u/bagou01 [link] [comments]”
“I am seeing it as well. Youtube, apperently deciding they're not making enough money, need you to watch more ads. submitted by /u/Biocockspeedrunner [link] [comments]”
I don’t think that is true. You see comments to the contrary regularly.
“That's exactly what started happening for me this morning, yesterday it was 1 or 2 😭😭”
“The last part of your comment is what people don't understand when they suggest browser extensions, 99% of people use their phones to watch YouTube, on the mobile app... There are modded apps but are not straightforward to install and google eventually takes everything down. You could use premium lite if you don't want to spend too much”
“they just got rid of the pip feature that lets you watch while using another app for free users. insufferable now. good thing there’s alternatives to get around it still”
“The banner ads are out of control for premium lite today. Usually I never see one now its every 3rd thing on the home page and one on every reccomended section. Literally that is why I pay for it, so I guess I will stop paying and just use firefox with ubo. Like fine, don't take my money I guess. When the offical thing has a worse experience, I'm out. submitted by /u/memelord1776 [link] [comments]”
“I had YouTube premium for YEARS at the student price of $8/month which to me felt very worth it. Unfortunately I’m no longer a student and was kicked off the plan so now I have to fork over double what I was paying before. I’ve been avoiding it for a month and didn’t realize how nice premium was… My main use was listening to videos with my phone locked and it running through my queue. The ads are annoying but I find tolerable. Truly the “playing in the background” is the only thing getting me. I”
“https://preview.redd.it/anthpd1keldh1.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d9b659ece72c6d11300ececfb10d3ea41892500 I just noticed that Daily Dose of Internet is now making "Members Only" videos. It feels really scummy to lock content behind a paywall when the entire channel is built on collaging and curating other people's clips. I understand creators need to make money, but charging a subscription for a compilation of videos they didn't even make just feels wrong”
“For Starters i use "Brave Browser", and to try and entice me to get "1080p Premium HD Enhanced Bitrate" when i still watch 720p Videos on YouTube is absolutely ridiculous! 🤣🤣🤣 submitted by /u/Nathans-Gaming [link] [comments]”
“Watching some videos on mobile (android) this morning and the ads seem completely broken. Anyone else experiencing this? I can't post a video on this sub apparently but what happens is: Ads start I click "skip ad" when I can EDIT: IT DOESN'T SAY SKIP AD IT SAYS "NEXT" THEY LITERALLY ADDED A SECOND SET OF ADS TO EVERY AD BREAK The first ad starts playing again, and when it ends nothing happens. I back out to YT home page, at which point I can press a button in the PIP”
“And wow there are other ways to do it other than soulless corporate advertising while also stealing and selling your data. You keep defending big corporate, they won't pick you.”
“A cellphone charger ad had me curious so I looked up if Amazon had one. Truthly the ad wasn't wrong it is the fastest charger ive ever used. 🤷♂️ Wast expensive either. I need to get another kids friends somehow broke it at his grad party cause I keep that charger in my garage for when im out their working on shit and I need to charge my phone”
“I have Premium, this is ridiculous. Stop with this annoying garbage please!!! submitted by /u/Itisjustsomefun [link] [comments]”
“Is there anyone else that’s recently got this Galactic Command stream whenever they leave their YouTube open for more than an hour? Over the past week, I’ll fall asleep, and every time I wake up this video is playing. I don’t even watch this type of content so I have no idea why it comes up. submitted by /u/Basic-Guy75 [link] [comments]”
“So I use Ublock, cause ads on Youtube nowadays are fucking ridiculous, and everytime I load a video, You know how when you use an ad blocker, the video takes a few seconds to load, well while thats happining, YouTube always says in the corner, "Experiencing Interruptions?" and its not a link or anything to click, it just feels so annoying submitted by /u/Mother-Ad9174 [link] [comments]”
“https://preview.redd.it/1g3xhwav1gdh1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=59c9d814300b6caaab54d38a2a223512e6655d02 Seeing stuff like this really stumps me. Clicks have been a consistent ratio to impressions until just recently, where clicks have now dropped dead. It's even worse than the lines are showing, the lines are smoothed out which hides the huge drop in clicks visually. I wish someone could get in there and fix what isn't optimized and give me some advice. None of i”
“The ads on YouTube reached a level where I can’t take having to hear some stupid AI voice brag some psychological tricks about some sh*tty products, like the stupid TEMU ads, forcing me to buy them and so on? I just hate even hearing it, even if I never buy anything there. Is there any way at all I can ever enjoy YouTube on my iPhone without ads? Or at least hide all TEMU ads and see some better ones instead? submitted by /u/WiiU_player [link] [comments]”
“So I always make sure to turn off music on my ads because it’s literally terrible. I had it before that meta suddenly decides to turn the music option back on but I could always turn it back off. Today I came across one of my ads which suddenly had music on it, went to the ad manager and… all music options are off, even though I’m clearly hearing music on my ad. I don’t know what META is doing with all these bs ai options and extra’s but they should be focussing on performance as I see many many”
“wait... you can block youtibe ads on your router at dns level. Or is that not working with a smart tv?”
“Right to the point, my girlfriend doesn't do horror. She has been bombarded by adds for the new Evil Dead movie. She keeps blocking them but she keeps getting different ones but still the same product. How we get this to stop? It is on her phone, through the app, over wifi if that is important. submitted by /u/L1tch [link] [comments]”