YouTube earns a major part of its revenue from advertisements and hence it is an essential part of the video platform. It also offers an ad free premium subscription that comes at a cost to users. But the biggest threat to YouTube are ad blockers installed by users. It started a crackdown on users using ad blockers and stopped playing videos on many devices where ad blockers were installed. However, this has landed YouTube and Microsoft in a direct war as YouTube’s system is now flagging users for using Microsoft edge.
Microsoft Edge is a web browser offered by Microsoft which is famous for its AI abilities. It comes with block trackers in its default setting which blocks third party trackers. Many users have complained about this issue while using YouTube on Microsoft Edge. Although YouTube is supposed to flag users only if there’s an active ad blocker running, it is sending popups to users asking them to allow ads or try premium.
YouTube has been pushing users to try its premium version for a long time now. It has significantly increased the duration of ads on videos as well in order to drive users into buying premium subscriptions. This move had backfired as it prompted many to use illegal ad blockers to dodge advertisements. The latest crackdown on ad blocker is an interesting attempt to generate revenue but YouTube needs to address the problems faced by users of Microsoft Edge.
