To use YouTube for free, you need to watch ads before videos. While these ads can often be annoying, the countdown button helps you see when you can skip to your video. However, this may change in the near future.
YouTube is removing the countdown timer from ads
For example, imagine you’ve opened a video from your favorite YouTuber. Since you’re not a Premium subscriber, an ad is shown before the video. Until now, a countdown timer would appear in the bottom right corner, indicating when you could skip the ad. After watching the ad for a few seconds, the timer would fill up, and you could click the “skip” button to watch your video.
Recently, however, some users noticed that in the mobile version of the app, ads no longer have the countdown timer. Instead, the ad plays for a few seconds without the timer, and then the “skip” button appears. On the PC version, users reported that the spot where the timer should be is replaced by a gray rectangle.
Many users believe this is a deliberate move by YouTube to make them think the ads are unskippable. However, you can still gauge when the “skip” button will appear by watching the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen, which indicates how much of the ad is left.
For now, this feature is being tested with a limited number of users. If the tests go well, this feature may be rolled out more widely in the future.
What do you think about YouTube and this new feature? Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments!
