It’s no secret that Google wants users to pay for its YouTube Premium service. Apart from adding exclusive features to the paid tier, the platform makes the free service more irritating, which encourages subscribers. YouTube is hiding the countdown timer and greying out the skip button when playing ads in its mobile app. The skip button now suddenly appears once a user has watched enough of the advertisement.
YouTube is testing removing the visible timer for some mobile users. This means no more watching the countdown and fixating on when ads end. Instead, the skip button magically un-grays itself after an unseen portion of the commercial plays.
Sneakily, viewers can still use the progress bar to guess skip timing. But the focus switches from timer-fixation to actually hearing the ad. It’s likely YouTube hopes users pay more attention to promoted content this way.
As a test, not all see the adjusted ads yet. But YouTube constantly tweaks free features to nudge folks towards Premium’s perks instead. Only time will tell if watchers stick around advertisements more or cave to ads annoyance faster with hidden skip buttons. One thing is clear – YouTube will keep experimenting to boost its paid membership.
