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For several days now, many users have no longer been able to avoid advertising on YouTube with an ad blocker. Countless internet users are throwing out their ad blocker.
For years, YouTube has tolerated the use of ad blockers. Anyone who installed such an extension in their browser would not see any advertisements between the videos. Ad blockers also block many advertisements on other websites. Many websites detected this and required users to disable their ad blocker if they wanted to continue reading.
In June, YouTube also started experimenting with measures against ad blockers. Some users were warned that they had to disable their ad blocker if they wanted to continue watching – or switch to a paid YouTube Premium subscription (which does not show ads). It leads to a lot of angry reactions on social media.
It is not known how many users decided to pay. But according to the news site Wired, hundreds of thousands of users are uninstalling their ad blocker. Although other media report that the number of new installations of ad blockers has also increased sharply. Possibly because anyone who encounters the YouTube blockade removes their old ad blocker and tries a different one.
Deactivate
Most ad blockers, such as Adblock Plus and UBlock, make it possible to allow advertisements on certain websites. It is therefore not necessary to completely remove the ad blocker: deactivating it on YouTube is sufficient. But countless users opt for a more radical option.
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Youtube Premium costs 12 euros per month. For that amount you can watch YouTube ad-free and also get a subscription to Youtube Music, Google’s competitor to Spotify and Apple Music. Youtube Music alone costs 10 euros per month, Spotify and Apple Music cost 11 euros.
At the same time as the intervention against ad blockers, Google is raising the price of Youtube Premium in a number of countries (but not yet in Belgium). Previously, Youtube also offered a cheaper variant in some countries, including Belgium: Youtube Premium Lite, for 7 euros per month. But it has recently become unavailable. So it seems that Google wants to push as many users as possible towards Youtube Premium.
