YouTube is finally dropping those unskippable 30-second ads

By Sam Barsanti | February 19, 2017 | 10:59pm

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One of the worst things that can happen to a person is when they want to check something on YouTube really quick and they get stuck with one of those 30-second ads that can’t be skipped. By the time they actually get to their video, they might not even care about hearing that song from that thing, checking out the hot new movie trailer, or seeing the countdown of epic fails that they were so excited about just a half-minute ago. Luckily, Google has heard your cries of “eh, it’s not worth it” and has decided to abandon 30-second ads altogether. Unfortunately, there is a catch—or, rather, multiple catches.

This comes from Campaign, which says that the 30-second ads won’t be dropped until 2018, and also that YouTube will still be supporting unskippable 15-second and 20-second ads. Plus, it will be adding more six-second “bumper ads” that cannot be skipped, so it’s not like ads in general are going away at all. Still, though, the YouTube experience is about to become slightly more efficient in at least 11 months, which is a little exciting.