YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it.
“In Q1, we saw strong traction from the introduction of a pause ads pilot on connected TVs, a new non-interruptive ad format that appears when users pause their organic content,” Schindler noted. He went on to share that YouTube’s pause ads are “driving strong brand lift results” and “are commanding premium pricing from advertisers.”
Schindler didn’t share any timelines for when pause ads will start appearing on YouTube, but we know they’ll first roll out on smart TVs. The nature of these ads, including their duration, skippability, and more is still unclear. We also don’t know if Google plans to introduce these ads on YouTube’s mobile apps.
To be fair, if they are like the example (static silent ads) they would be the least intrusive ads that YouTube ever had. To the point that I don't even mind them. All of YouTube ads should be like this, not annoying, silent, and easily ignored.
If they switched over to this method instead of the current I would argue an adblocker wouldn't even improve the experience, the problem is that it interrupts my actual content in the middle of the video.
But for people using YouTube to follow textile patterns, photoshop tutorials, repairs, etc. needing to pause frequently while still seeing the full screen is a big deal 😬
I use Ublock Origin and Firefox/DDG's "view here", so I think I'm safe..
Edit: Also, Google is greedy af, so it's def cumulative with existing ads; the article doesn't say otherwise.
The screenshot does have a “dismiss” button, so I suppose if you click there you’ll still be able to see the fullscreen video.
But yeah, those are definitely cumulative with existing ads, knowing the greedy fucks.