A few days ago, social media apps were flooded with angry posts from YouTube users who claimed the platform was showing them 90-second, unskippable ads.
This was not a one-off complaint. Several viewers shared similar reports and screenshots, all noting that the player UI promised a skip option only after “90+ seconds.”
Now the company has released a statement saying that these unskippable 90-second ads aren’t real, but then why are people watching them? YouTube’s response to the 90-second ad controversy somehow makes things even more confusing.
So does YouTube run 90-second ads?
YouTube has officially responded to the reports, saying it does not use non-skippable 90-second commercial breaks and is not actively testing this format. The company added that it is “still investigating this further,” but that tells us very little.
Here’s the problem with this answer: it doesn’t explain anything. If there are no 90-second ads, why are so many users reporting the same experience at the same time?
It could be a mistake, but at this point I don’t trust the company’s response. Maybe they were testing to gauge the public’s appetite, and the profoundly negative reaction they got caused them to deny it entirely. And if it was an accidental rollout, that’s nothing more than a test, just one that shouldn’t go public yet.
What does this mean for you?
There are currently no clear answers. YouTube has confirmed that unskippable 90-second ads are not an intentional feature, but has not explained how they appeared in the first place.
What we do know is that YouTube has gradually expanded into longer, unskippable ad formats. Last year it began rolling out a 30-second unskippable ad. Whether 90-second ads are the natural next step is unclear, but the timing of these reports is hard to ignore.
If you don’t subscribe to YouTube Premium or Premium Lite and you’re seeing these new, longer-skippable ad formats on YouTube, make some noise on social media so YouTube understands that this isn’t a path they should go down.
