YouTube tests new ad strategy to bypass blockers
YouTube is experimenting with new types of ads designed to be unnoticeable to ad blockers. Currently, they are testing a solution based on server-side ad insertion, which technically makes the ads indistinguishable from the actual video content.
YouTube has not widely publicized this move, and initial reports about these experiments come from an unexpected source. As noted by 9to5Google, the issue recently came to light for a developer of the SponsorBlock extension, which allows users to skip parts of videos marked as sponsored content. It turns out that with these injected ads, the extension cannot function properly because the timestamps are not adjusted according to the length of the ad.
For most users, however, it's probably more important to know that ad injection has a different goal than disrupting (intentionally or not) the functionality of sponsored content skippers. The purpose of ads added to the video server-side is to be technically indistinguishable from other streaming elements and thereby unrecognizable and unblockable by ad blockers, which YouTube has recently been fighting against with increased intensity.
Currently, server-side ad insertion is likely still in the testing phase. Once widely implemented, YouTube is expected to announce this change and use it as an opportunity to encourage users to subscribe to Premium or to accept the ads—as that is the goal.
It is worth noting that long, non-skippable ads appear more frequently in YouTube videos, often at random points. Since last November, video creators have had limited control over ad configurations. YouTube introduced artificial intelligence into the process, which handles the details so that creators can "focus on the videos."
