YouTube is investigating claims made across social media that Premium subscribers are still having to watch ads.
Over the last couple of years, YouTube has evolved how it handles ads on the platform. From cracking down on ad-blockers to launching ads on a video’s pause screen, viewers have been left frustrated as fewer ways are left to use the platform ad-free.
The Google-owned company offers a premium subscription that removes ads completely, but many users aren’t willing to pay a monthly fee to get rid of them. YouTube is now in the process of testing a new, cheaper, “limited” ad plan that removes YouTube Music access and offers fewer ads.
In a Reddit post on Monday, October 21, one user shared that they were being fed ads on the platform despite having a subscription to Premium.
The screenshot shows the YouTube Premium badge in the top left that indicates an active subscription, as well as a Google Workspace ad being shown where the video player should be.
Another Reddit user shared that they received an ad for YouTube’s own video game service ‘Playables’ while watching clips on the Shorts feed.
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Android Authority reached out to YouTube after spotting the claim and received a statement from the company revealing that they’ve started to investigate why the ad may have been played.
“YouTube Premium subscribers should not be shown ads in their home feed and we’re looking into why this may have happened,” YouTube told the publication. “We’ve also let that user know they should contact support.”
According to the list of benefits offered to YouTube Premium subscribers, users should not see ads played before, during, or after videos played across all of their devices.
This comes just after YouTube revealed that its sleep timer function was being removed from the YouTube Premium paywall, giving access to users across the world.