YouTube is about to get a lot more unskippable ads

YouTube is about to get a lot more unskippable ads. Photo / Getty Images

Watching videos on YouTube is about to get a little more annoying.

The hugely popular video sharing website, owned by Google, is about to increase the number of ads that are unable to be skipped by viewers.

The service announced the move in a video posted to its official Creator Insider account, framing it as a positive for video producers.

The change will force users to sit through video ads of up to 15-20 seconds when watching clips from all sorts of content creators. That's up to four times longer than the current five second viewing time for the company's more typical ads that can be skipped.

As it stands, not all creators are able to use non-skippable ads in front of their videos.

A YouTube spokersperson explained the difference in video announcing the change.

"We have the type that viewers can skip, which you probably see a lot. There's another kind that viewers can't skip," he said.

"The [change] is the ability to turn on non-skippable ads for your videos. In the past it's been something that's only been available to a select few partners."

"In about a week from now we're going to start rolling it out to everyone who's in the YouTube partner program.

"The number one reason is more money. Non-skippable ads tend to make more money because generally advertisers are willing to pay a bit more for them."

YouTube says it will mean video bloggers and creators can earn more money.

But it also means more money for YouTube and from the company's point of view it could also be a way to drive users towards paying for YouTube Premium which is an ad-free option that costs $14.99 a month in Australia.

While the company said the option for non-skippable ads would put more money in the pockets of video makers, in the comments section many creators were quick to challenge the claim, suggesting the longer ads turned people away.

"I experimented with non-skippable ads — I did this for close to three months, each week I saw my ad revenue go down, down, down," said one user. "So I switched back to skippable ads. I saw my revenue go up almost immediately."

Another said people would likely find a way to circumvent any growth in longer ads.

"Non-skippable ads are unlikely to make us more money. It will simply drive more people to use AdBlock and we will end up making less money. I don't see this as a good idea," they said.