- YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers, integrating ads directly into videos to make them indistinguishable from the main content.
- This new method complicates ad blocking, including tools like SponsorBlock, which now face challenges in accurately identifying and skipping sponsored segments.
- The feature is currently in testing and not widely rolled out, with YouTube encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
They probably had this ready to go a long time ago. It is just heavier on their servers so it costs more. Likely they had a number in mind about how many users would have to be using ad-blockers before rolling this out, to balance costs.