Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk concur with a growing chorus of YouTube users who find the proliferation of advertisements on the platform increasingly problematic.
What Happened: The video-sharing giant owned by Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL has long been getting targeted for increasing the number of ads shown to users accessing its free tier.
During the weekend, a Dogecoin DOGE/USD designer who goes by the name DogeDesigner on X (formerly Twitter) shared this sentiment, saying, “YouTube has more ads that the rest of the websites combined on the whole internet,” Musk couldn’t help but agree that “It’s getting out of control.”
In the comment section, while many users appeared to agree with the tech billionaire and kept asking him to launch a YouTube competitor, others pointed out the option of subscribing to YouTube Premium, which offers an ad-free experience in exchange for $13.99 per month.
This isn’t the first time Musk has made comments on YouTube ads.
Just earlier this month, the tech mogul compared YouTube’s ad tactics to “Ad creep” — the term refers to the spread of advertising into areas where advertisements were not traditionally or typically found.
Why It’s Important: While Musk has been vocally targeting YouTube ads, some users have pointed out that they can still get away with getting ads on YouTube by subscribing to its premium tier. Musk’s social media platform X does not exempt users from seeing ads even after taking $8 per month.
However, Musk seems to have taken this feedback seriously, considering he has already announced two new premium subscription plans, including the Premium+ tier, under which users will have to pay double the amount, which is $16, to get a completely ad-free experience.
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