YouTube will show you a black screen for up to 30 seconds if you are using an ad blocker, according to several users on social media.
YouTube has been in a battle against ad blockers. The Google-owned company wants more users to subscribe to its Premium service. However, users are looking to avoid paying and bypass ads using ad blockers.
In recent years, YouTube has been working hard to make ad blockers ineffective, and its latest move might be the final nail in the coffin.
We reported in June that YouTube would start serving server-side ads to block ad blockers. Now it seems the video-sharing platform has finally implemented that. The result of this move is 6 to 30 seconds of nothingness.
Redditors OreOfChlorophyte and JazzlikeJackfruit372 have reported seeing up to 31 seconds of a black screen when watching YouTube videos with an ad blocker enabled (specifically uBlock Origin).
OreOfChlorophyte suggested that the black “unskippable nothingness” could be the ads YouTube injected on the server side. Since the ad blocker is trying to block these ads, users end up seeing a black screen.