YouTube confirmed last week that it was testing a three-strikes policy for people who block ads on the platform. The policy will see video playback temporarily blocked for viewers who repeatedly block ads.
That got us wondering whether Android Authority readers would pony up for YouTube Premium or try other workarounds to avoid ads first. We posed this question last week and here are the results.
Will this policy make you buy YouTube Premium?
Results
This was a massively popular poll, with almost 18,000 votes cast. The most popular pick? Well, 54.9% of respondents said they’d use other workarounds to avoid YouTube ads first. There are indeed other measures you can take, although the YouTube Vanced saga suggests that Google could crack down on some of these approaches too.
Meanwhile, the second most popular choice in this poll was “No, I’ll use other platforms,” accounting for 35.3% of the vote. The biggest issue here is that there aren’t many other quality alternatives to YouTube. And so I do wonder whether even half of these respondents would actually switch to something like DailyMotion.
Otherwise, 6.3% of polled readers said they’d just sit through the ads, while 3.4% of respondents said YouTube’s three-strikes policy will make them buy YouTube Premium.
In other words, roughly 90% of surveyed Android Authority readers said they’d rather use alternative platforms or ad-blocking workarounds than sit through an ad or pay for Premium. In saying so, we didn’t include an “I already have YouTube Premium” option, but this is still an interesting insight into those of you who haven’t splashed out on the service just yet.
Comments
- Jacob E: I subscribe to YouTube premium but I also sometimes watch YT videos on another browser (Opera) not signed in. My reason for doing this is that sometimes I don’t want to mess up my recommendations when I watch a new music video from an artist I haven’t heard before, for example. Opera has a built-in ad blocker that, so far, has worked seamlessly with YouTube. I wonder if this is about to change…
- Fred: I don’t mind ads but the ads have become very intrusive. i’ll watch a couple of ads BEFORE my video but when you start showing me 4 ads and then also interrupting the video to show me more ads, I’m just done. i use an ad blocker ONLY because of website’s behaviors and just won’t miss youtube enough to care
- PhoenixWitti: If they actually implement this, a nice class action is in order. It won’t be too difficult to show that people who pay for no ads are still getting ads.
- Cassidy James Blaede: Another vote for “I already have YouTube Premium.” I haven’t seen ads on YouTube in years, and it’s worth it. Plus YouTube Music!
- Joe Black: I use YouTube Premium as a family plan for me, kids etc., but we all use adblockers on top of it. For example, Sponsor block is an incredible tool for watching videos on YouTube.
- bogorad: Where’s the “I alredy have Youtube Premium” option? :))))
