YouTube may be hiding the ad skip button and claiming users
YouTube may be hiding the ‘skip button’ that appears in the advertising interface. Some users have reported that the Skip button is missing completely, while others have discovered that it appears after the countdown time has expired. The video streaming giant has reportedly stated that the skip button has not been tampered with. However, the company is testing the reduction of elements on the advertising interface to improve the viewing experience. In addition, the company has also announced the decision to extend the duration of Shorts. Instead of one minute, the maximum length of a Short can now be three minutes.
YouTube reportedly confirms the reduction of elements on the ad screen
The advertising interface on YouTube has undergone several transformations over the years, but the current layout is fairly standard. There are skippable ads and non-skippable ads. For non-skippable ads, only the bottom bar will be shown, showing how long the ad has been playing and how much time is left. However, the skippable ads have some additional elements.
A countdown timer (between 15 and 30 seconds) will appear on the skippable ads, indicating the minimum duration a user should watch an ad, but once the timer reaches zero, a skip button will appear. Users can tap this button to quickly return to the video. Some skippable ads don’t even have a countdown timer and users can skip them directly.
However, a Reddit user posted one screenshot from an incident where the skip button and timer were hidden by a black square overlay. As a result, the button was not visible despite its presence. So is an Android police report found that no countdown timer was displayed, but the skip button appeared after a few seconds.
YouTube no longer shows me how many seconds it will take before I can press the skip button when there is an ad
I don’t like it.
It also feels like a method to increase the time before the skip without transparency.
I hope they just split test this.
And I hope this is reversed pic.twitter.com/I2cA8WuMc8
— The Bright Knight (@TheBrightKnite) October 5, 2024
These are not isolated incidents either. Several X users have that too posted about not seeing the skip button. Gadgets 360 staff has not yet discovered this, but the YouTube test may be geo-restricted.
YouTube spokesperson Oluwa Falodun told The Verge: “YouTube doesn’t hide the skip button. For skippable ads, the button appears as usual after five seconds of playback.” However, the spokesperson emphasized that the video streaming platform is reducing elements on the ad player to help viewers better engage with the ad’s content. Part of the change is that the skip countdown timer will appear as a progress bar at the bottom of the screen.
It’s possible that the missing skip button that users have seen so far was an issue when implementing this change. However, there is no clarity on this until YouTube provides an official explanation for this change.
