YouTube has always been a master at keeping people watching.
What should have been the end of a single video often turns into the beginning of another, and then another, pulling viewers deeper into its endless library of content. Part of its success lies in the way the platform is designed to keep attention flowing. Every feature seems crafted to nudge viewers toward the next clip, the next recommendation, the next reason to stay.
It’s this carefully engineered design that has earned YouTube the reputation of being a rabbit hole, which can be described as moments where a quick visit to watch a single video can easily spiral into hours of unexpected viewing (and unexpected videos).
One of the most prominent ways YouTube does this is through end screens.
Those familiar pop-ups that appear in the final seconds of a video, suggesting another upload from the same creator, a playlist, or even a channel to subscribe to, are meant to guide viewers smoothly into their next watch. While they can be useful for creators, for many viewers they’ve become an unwelcome distraction.
It literally obscures the last frames of a video and interrupting the natural close of the content.
YouTube announces that it is finally giving viewers a long-requested option: the ability to hide it.
End screen pop ups on YouTube are essentially overlays, often filled with recommendations, links, and "Up next" prompts.
For more than a long time, the feature has been one of the platform’s most complained-about features. Many users have argued that they interrupt the flow of content, especially when they cover the final frames of a video.
In response, YouTube has announced a new "Hide" button, which appears in the top-right corner of the video player whenever end screens show up.
Tapping it will dismiss the overlays for the video currently in view. And if ever the user changes their mind, they can easily bring the pop ups back with a "Show" button.
The catch is that this option only applies to the video users are watching in the moment.
If they move on to another video, the pop up end screen can appear again.
Users must tap the Hide button again.
While that may be a minor inconvenience, it still provides viewers with much more control over their watching experience. For many, it’s a welcome improvement that allows them to finish a video as intended, free from clutter and distractions.
YouTube didn’t make this change lightly.
For years, the company worried that hiding end screens might reduce engagement for creators, since these pop-ups can help channels promote other videos and encourage subscriptions. To address these concerns, YouTube ran experiments earlier this year to study the potential impact.
The results showed that giving viewers the option to hide end screens led to less than a 1.5% decrease in views from those overlays, a minimal effect overall.
That data gave the company confidence that the new option wouldn’t significantly harm creators’ performance.
Alongside this update, YouTube is also cleaning up another part of its interface.
On desktop, the Subscribe button that appeared when you hovered over a channel’s watermark is being removed. The platform explained that this feature was redundant, given that a prominent Subscribe button already sits directly below the video player. Moreover, YouTube found that the hover-to-subscribe option contributed almost nothing to channel growth, accounting for less than 0.05% of all subscriptions.
Together, these changes highlight YouTube’s effort to balance the needs of both viewers and creators.
For creators, end screens and watermarks remain available tools, but viewers now have more freedom to choose how they experience videos. By addressing long-standing complaints without significantly affecting engagement, YouTube is making the platform less cluttered and more user-focused, while still keeping creators’ interests intact.