A few days ago, social media apps were inundated with angry posts from YouTube users saying the platform was showing them 90-second, unskippable ads.
This wasn’t a one-off complaint. Multiple viewers shared similar reports and screenshots, all noting that the player UI was promising a skip option only after “90+ seconds.”
Now, the company has released a statement saying that those 90-second unskippable ads aren’t real, but then why are people seeing them? YouTube’s response to the 90-second ad controversy is somehow making things more confusing.
So, is YouTube running 90-second ads?
YouTube officially responded to the reports and has said that it does not use non-skippable 90-second ad breaks and is not actively testing this format either. The company added that it is “looking into this further,” which tells us very little.
Here’s the problem with that response: it doesn’t explain anything. If 90-second ads aren’t a thing, why are so many users reporting the same experience at the same time?
It might be a bug, but at this point, I don’t trust the company’s response. Maybe they were testing to gauge the public’s appetite, and the visceral negative reaction they got has them denying it altogether. And if it was an accidental rollout, that’s not different from a test, just one that wasn’t supposed to go public yet.
What does this mean for you?
For now, there are no clear answers. YouTube has confirmed that 90 seconds unskippable ads are not an intentional feature, but it hasn’t explained how they started appearing in the first place.
What we do know is that YouTube has been gradually expanding longer, unskippable ad formats. A 30-second non-skippable ad rollout kicked off last year. 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 see these new, longer unskippable ad formats on YouTube, do make some noise on social media so YouTube understands this isn’t a path they should walk.