Suppose getting completely annoyed by ads while watching YouTube videos is something you must have surely faced, but the real problem is how to fix this problem.
Since the paid subscription to YouTube Premium is apparently an expensive way to skip those ads, the most likely and unexpected solution is to implement an ad blocker, the use of which is what seems to have started to disrupt the YouTube experience, as reported by some users on Reddit.
Some even shared screenshots showing videos with comments disabled, perhaps due to the use of ad blockers. This is something that Google strongly advises against.
While unfortunate, this explicitly conveys that using workarounds allows you to get out of one problem and straight into another.
To express their frustration over the mysterious disappearance of video comments and descriptions, many users took to Reddit and other forums.
While it is definitely triggered by the use of ad blockers, although it is not confirmed, some tech fans tried to debate whether Google, being one of the richest corporations, should have this advertising in place, or is it something that is needed to keep the platform running and support Google’s cash outflow to creators in royalties.
While it is highly likely that YouTube deliberately disables comments and descriptions whenever it detects an ad blocker in use, another possibility is the innate tendency of such tools to remove descriptions and comments from videos.
The thing to note here is that this is not the first time that ad blockers have become a headache on the platform. Last year, creators noticed a sharp decline in view counts. This happened because views from users with ad blockers were not counted.
Google has allegedly even resorted to reducing playback speeds or blocking access immediately for those using ad blocking tools.
While the lack of comments isn’t the worst thing Google could have done, it would surely hurt the community aspect of YouTube, as comments are crucial to engaging with creators, and many creators rely on ad revenue to support their work.
If anything, it looks like a losing battle for Google, and so the current cat-and-mouse game between ad blockers and platforms like YouTube will likely continue, with issues appearing and being fixed, only to resurface again.
