YouTube is making ads harder to skip yet again

YouTube is systematically making ads harder to skip and longer on free accounts—both on mobile (obscuring skip buttons with ad banners) and TV (testing 90-second unskippable ads versus the current 30-second limit)—signaling an aggressive monetization strategy that will likely impact user retention and employee productivity across organizations. This trend reflects YouTube's shift toward forcing premium subscriptions and creates IT governance challenges around acceptable use policies, bandwidth consumption, and employee experience on sanctioned platforms. Technology leaders should evaluate alternative video platforms, establish clear media consumption policies, and consider the total cost of ownership when YouTube's free tier becomes increasingly unusable.