As Streaming Services Make It Harder to Skip Ads, What Does the Future of Online Video Look Like?

As Streaming Services Make It Harder to Skip Ads, What Does the Future of Online Video Look Like?

In a video posted to YouTube's official channel for creators, the platform revealed that the ability to make video ads unskippable will now be available to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Previously, this option was only available to select monetized video creators. But it raises the question of the growing inescapability from ads across most streaming platforms: from traditional TV, to Hulu, to Spotify, to even social media. When People Began Skipping Ads We've already covered the VCR: the video recording device reminiscent of the 1980s, which was used by many to record and later watch live TV, allowing viewers the option to skip through commercials. If viewers paid enough, they could get TV without commercials, and with certain elements that were forbidden on shows on traditional TV networks beholden to advertiser dollars (namely, coarse language and other less-than-family-friendly content). It could be that questions like these spur the next generation of YouTube: a new, independent video-sharing platform that's well-funded enough to not require advertisers dollars (at first, that is). What will the DVR of streaming video be? Some might say that such a thing would be redundant: the ability to record a non-live video that can already be watched at any time, rather than airing on a certain day and hour. According to The Verge, 773,000 viewers paid the required $10 to watch the official stream on YouTube -- while the combination of viewers on Twitch and other pirated streams may have topped that. So, is this Amazon's next industry foray -- an acquisition of the ability to fast forward previously unskippable ads?

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For those of us who grew up with a VCR, it’s easy to remember the simple thrill of being able to fast forward through commercials.

But skipping ads, it seems like, is becoming as antiquated as VHS tapes.

In a video posted to YouTube’s official channel for creators, the platform revealed that the ability to make video ads unskippable will now be available to all creators in the YouTube Partner Program.

Previously, this option was only available to select monetized video creators. The changes will be rolled out by the end of this week.

The announcement was largely positioned on the benefits of this new option. Ads that are unskippable, the video claims, tend to earn more money for creators.

But it raises the question of the growing inescapability from ads across most streaming platforms: from traditional TV, to Hulu, to Spotify, to even social media. What used to be a commercial-free oasis from traditional television, it seems, is starting to replicate it.

So what does this say about the future of online video?

When People Began Skipping Ads

We’ve already covered the VCR: the video recording device reminiscent of the 1980s, which was used by many to record and later watch live TV, allowing viewers the option to skip through commercials.

But even before its advanced, digital version — the DVR — came to fruition, television viewers began paying for what we might think of today as a “premium” membership. It came in 1972 with the debut of HBO (then known as “Home Box Office”), the first commercial-free premium cable channel.

The launch of HBO started a trend of premium, ad-free programming for a fee. If viewers paid enough, they could get TV without commercials, and with certain elements that were forbidden on shows on traditional TV networks beholden to advertiser dollars (namely, coarse language and other less-than-family-friendly content).

It raises the question: Is streaming going in the same direction?

The “Golden Handcuffs”

Consider, for a moment, YouTube’s rules to monetize. Back in January, the platform made it even more difficult for Creators to make money off of their videos, introducing new requirements — like a minimum number of subscribers and accrued watch time — to be eligible for its Partner Program.

But that criteria aside, YouTube also has rules that dictate what makes content “advertiser-friendly,” which bars Creators from using “inappropriate language” or “suggestive content.”

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Sound familiar?

Consider this 1981 New York Times article titled, “Will Cable TV Be Invaded by Commercials?” In it, HBO’s then-SVP of programming, Michael Fuchs remarked, “We’ve seen that…

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