Google starts slowing down YouTube for some users around the world

Reddit users and other topical resources began to complain about the slowing down of the service. However, this time the cause of the problem is known - it was not a failure in the operation of the servers. It turned out that when an ad blocker was detected, the video hosting began to deliberately "slow down".

According to the "victims", trying to watch a video with a Blocker leads to long loading times and a pop-up window appears, suggesting to find out the cause of the problem. Clicking on it redirects to Google's support page, which blames the unstable operation of the platform on the ad-blocking extension. Judging by the comments, even anonymous users who are not logged in to their accounts are included in the distribution.

The company used the same approach to combat ad blocking in 2023, offering to disable the "problematic" extension or subscribe to a paid premium subscription to comfortably watch videos. Google's position is that advertising helps support content creators and preserve the ability to use the free platform.