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YouTube is finally removing a “legacy” feature that has probably been bugging users for quite some time.
According to the official YouTube forum post and reported by Ars TechnicaYouTube will discontinue the overlay ad starting April 6, 2023. The overlay ads, or “legacy ad format” as the feature is referred to in the post, will no longer appear in YouTube videos or as an available ad format when you turn on ads in YouTube Studio.”
The message states that the banner ads were only available in desktop mode and were “disruptive to viewers”. YouTube believes this removal will have a limited impact on most creators as “engagement shifts to other ad formats.” This makes sense since creators only make money from overlay ads if the viewer clicks on them, and most likely a very small percentage actually did.
Why this is great
This is a great move by YouTube, not only because these ads are actually distracting as they block part of the screen, but also because this is the first time YouTube has actually removed any type of ad.
It shows that the media giant is willing to pay attention to what viewers want and to respond preventively. And this leaves it open for YouTube to re-evaluate other ad types or even ad length and decide whether to retire them as well. For example, it could analyze which types of ads viewers are more likely to click the skip button on (which is an important metric because creators don’t get paid for ads on their videos if the viewer skips them) and then deprecate that ad type.
Either way, aggressively anti-consumer features should always be discontinued. It would be nice if they weren’t introduced in the first place, but it might be too much to ask of a company.
