In the early 2000s, users capitulated to the universality of online ads – it was impossible to ignore them and many viruses and early versions of memes arose in that era making fun of pop-ups and ads of that nature. With the advent of ad blockers, much of that era has been forgotten, but there are still remnants of them that remain.
One such example is the unskippable 30-second ad at the beginning of a YouTube video; however, now even that will be going away. Google announced, and the Verge confirmed, that YouTube will be doing away with unskippable 30-second ads in 2018.
“We’re committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” Google said.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that unskippable ads in their entirety will be gone. You’ll still see some 15- and 20-second ads, and then there are the increasingly popular six-second “bumper ads” which will definitely see a rise in use.
And also keep in mind that these changes won’t go into effect until next year, so we still have a ways to go.
via The Verge
