Picture this: you’re lying in bed, your laptop propped up on your stomach, all set to watch your favorite cat video on YouTube. But wait, what’s this? An ad starts playing, and it’s not even about cats! Suddenly, you’re being bombarded with information about car insurance, and your peaceful cat-watching experience is ruined.
Let’s face it, nobody likes ads, especially when they interrupt our precious YouTube time. It’s like trying to enjoy a delicious piece of cake, only to have someone come along and smush it in your face before you can even take a bite. No, thank you!
But fear not, my friends! There are ways to combat the evil of ads on YouTube. You can either upgrade to premium, which will give you uninterrupted access to all the cat videos your heart desires, or you can just sit through the ads and use that time to stretch your legs, grab a snack, or do some quick meditation.
Now seriously, we’ll soon get rid of annoying overlay ads!
Overlay ads will go away on April 6
Starting April 6, 2023, YouTube will remove “Overlay ads” from desktop and browser content as they are disruptive for viewers, as 9to5Google has spotted. This change will have a limited impact on YouTube Creators, and the platform will opt for other ad formats, but no details were shared
Quoting from the official source, it says:
Starting on April 6th, 2023, the “Overlay ads” ad format will no longer appear on YouTube to help improve the viewer experience and shift engagement to higher performing ad formats on desktop and mobile devices. Overlay ads are a legacy ad format that only served on desktop and are disruptive for viewers. We expect to see limited impact for most Creators as engagement shifts to other ad formats.
Google has not revealed what will replace Overlay ads, but it could include the recent Product Tagging feature. This change will benefit desktop viewers as intrusive elements will no longer obscure video content.
