YouTube’s crackdown on ad blockers is having a negative impact on the companies that create these tools. Multiple ad blocking companies have reported that a significant number of users are uninstalling their products after YouTube started displaying warnings to users with ad blockers enabled.
One of these companies, AdGuard, revealed to that they have experienced a surge in daily uninstallations of their Chrome extension since October 9. The number of uninstallations has risen from 6,000 per day to over 11,000 per day. On October 18 alone, AdGuard witnessed 52,000 uninstallations, according to the company’s CTO, Andrey Meshkov, speaking to Wired. However, the company has seen an increase in installations of their paid version, which is unaffected by YouTube’s crackdown.
Ghostery, another ad blocking company, shared that their usage remained steady in October, despite experiencing a three to five-fold increase in both daily installations and uninstalls. Notably, they revealed that over 90 percent of users who completed a survey regarding their decision to uninstall the tool cited compatibility issues with YouTube as the primary reason.
As the impact of YouTube’s crackdown seems to mainly affect Chrome users on laptops and desktops, some users have turned to alternative browsers as a workaround. Ghostery disclosed to Wired that installations of Microsoft’s Edge browser increased by 30 percent in October compared to September.
YouTube ads play a significant role in Google’s overall revenue. In fact, Google generated over $22 billion in ad revenue on the platform between January and September this year. However, YouTube is also actively promoting YouTube Premium, a subscription service that eliminates ads, enables video downloads, offers higher-quality streaming, and provides access to YouTube Music. Earlier this year, the company raised the price of YouTube Premium by $2, bringing it to $14 per month.
