Everyone on the web wants a fast browsing experience and because of that, websites and apps always to be fast and remain fast.
Despite more people are online than ever before, tech companies are in an increased rivalry because they're literally competing for the same pool of audience. And nevertheless, YouTube, the video-streaming giant from Google, is among those entities.
Due to how it uses Google's servers to its maximum potential, YouTube is an entity that rarely experience downtime, even if if experiences any. And due to how many users visit the platform, YouTube remains steadily fast and consistent.
With AI and complex algorithms, YouTube is one of those places on the internet that managed to captivate its audience by making them stay minutes, if not hours at a time, dragging those users into an endless rabbit hole.
And if there is one thing that Google hates, is ad blockers.
This hatred is inherited to YouTube.
YouTube has long tried to convince users to switch to from free users who are bombarded with ads, to become YouTube Premium members.
By paying a sum, Premium users would not have to sit through ads anymore.
And in a bid to push ads and earn revenues, YouTube at one point even testing up to eleven unskippable ads, although the subsequent backlash led the company to end this experiment.
The choice users have, is to either remain free users but see ads, or pay up to not see ads.
Some users choose the former, and some others choose the latter.
The remaining users continue to use workarounds, like using ad blockers.
YouTube hates ad blockers, and that its fight against them was apparent in 2023, when the platform tried multiple methods to discourage their use.
The first experiment was when YouTube showed a banner prompting them to disable ad block (allow ads) or try out the Premium subscription.
Then, YouTube introduced a more aggressive three-strikes policy, disabling the video player altogether after three videos.
This was replaced by a timer, which served a similar purpose.
Read: 'Video Player Will Be Blocked After 3 Videos,' Said YouTube In A Test To Ad Blocker Users
It was pretty clear at the time that YouTube hadn't settled on a way to get users on board the Premium tier.
YouTube also failed to convince free users into turning off their ad blocking software.
So here, the company is trying yet another method, which is to slow down loading times, in order to annoy those people.
At first, people complained that YouTube was running too slow for them. Others complained that they can no longer switch to full screen, and that theater mode is no longer available, requiring a page refresh.
Moreover, some users also found that video previews refused to load properly.
At first, people mistakenly thought that the slowdown was caused by their internet speed, and that YouTube was buggy. But when more and more people started complaining, it's then realized that load times improved significantly when the ad blocker is disabled.
And if the ad blocker is disabled, other issues also seem to disappear.
Back in November, a spokesperson for YouTube confirmed that some users with ad block could witness "suboptimal viewing," referring to slow loading times on the platform.