YouTube has already tried several strategies as part of its campaign against ad blockers, from automatically skipping entire videos to blocking third-party apps. But now they’re trying something new.
The company is now experimenting with its most insidious tactic yet: server-side ads. The news comes from the developers of SponsorBlock, a popular YouTube ad blocker that has sounded the alarm on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter).
Server-side ads (also known as server-side ad insertion) get their name because websites embed ads directly into video content on their servers. YouTube’s current method is similar to Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), which places ads within videos in a web browser.
Ad blockers work by stopping CSAI ads, but they don’t work against SSAI (Server-Side Ad Injection) technology, because SSAI considers ads “indistinguishable from the video,” according to 9To5Google.
If YouTube decides to implement SSAI at scale, it would essentially break ad blockers, since they would no longer be able to stop ads.
A little amount of users on the YouTube subreddit have reported encountering the technology. One of the top comments is about how ads appear despite using uBlock Origin on Firefox. It seems that whatever they do to fix the problem doesn’t work.
Possible workarounds
Despite all the gloom surrounding the situation, hope is not lost. SponsorBlock’s developers created a FAQ about SSAI on GitHub, explaining that this is not the end of the extension.
They say that if YouTube decides to implement the injection, it would need to send data to the video player that tells it how long the ad will last. Ad blockers could receive the data and use it to stop the ads.
New Restrictions
In addition to SSAI, the group of developers discovered a potential new restriction on YouTube: the platform requires users to log into their account before viewing content.
The site apparently wants to ensure that “you’re not a bot.” Android Authority believes in a report that YouTube may “restrict access to videos without registration” in the future. If introduced, this would severely limit how YouTube videos can be shared.
But software developers are a clever bunch. The team behind content downloader Cobalt found a way around this restriction. However, YouTube may tighten restrictions on content sharing and further crack down on ad blockers.
