YouTube is serving up hours of continuous ads for some, but Google says it’s not a bug

Despite being an immensely popular entertainment app, YouTube has an interesting business model that maintains a free, ad-supported tier with access to all the essential features. Subscribing to Premium rids you of ads, unlocks experiments, and gives you a few other minor perks, but many users want the ad-free experience without paying a dime. Google cracked down aggressively on these freeloaders last year, but in 2025, YouTube is on a no-holds-barred offensive, with unskippable ads spanning several hours showing up for viewers with adblockers.

Ads might be the bane of free-tier users, but in 2024, YouTube cracked down on people using location proxies for cheaper Premium, patched or modified apps like Vanced, and even resorted to server-side ad injection and slower load times if an ad blocking browser extension was discovered. However, freeloaders have remained a step ahead somehow, because YouTube is now resorting to desperate measures with unreasonably long ad segments, sometimes longer than the video you plan to watch.

This came to light through several unrelated Reddit posts first spotted by Android Authority. Although none of the redditors admitted to using an adblocker, ad durations ranged from 58 minutes to a whopping ten-hour segment. Another user claimed to have seen a 90-hour segment, but didn’t supply corroborative evidence. However, the “gotcha” moment came when /u/Standard-Slip6572 slipped up in sharing their image of a YouTube ad that was two hours and 52 minutes long. The video that would have followed was just 49 minutes long.

Google confirms this is intentional behavior

You might not encounter it if you play fair, though

If you look closely, the image of this disproportionately long advert reveals an interesting pop-up in the lower left corner of the screen, that says Skipping ads. It suggests the redditor might not be disclosing their adblocker usage. While some comments on reddit sided with YouTube, implying the adblocker usage might have triggered the long ad, others pointed fingers at the extension, suggesting it might have hidden YouTube’s Skip button instead.

In a statement about this YouTube behavior, Google told Android Authority that regular in-stream unskippable ads are no longer than 15 seconds on mobile and 60 seconds on TV. It reiterated that the company relies on ads to keep the lights on and help creators, so this is a “global effort” to urge viewers to allow YouTube ads or cough up the fee for a Premium subscription.

While YouTube maintains it doesn’t serve hour-long ads, that might be true for regular viewers who would watch it rather than pay a subscription fee. However, the aggressively long ads might be a new deterrent for freeloaders. YouTube also reserves the right to stop playback entirely for such viewers, but this is a surprising move nonetheless.