Why are YouTube ads getting worse? - 2025

Ads on YouTube are absolutely out of control-

Youtube ads are absolutely out of control with various scams,  exploitation of the ad system, and adult content that creators wouldn't be allowed to post. 

This isn't a new issue and it's been one that's plagued youtube since at least 2017, in the case of scam ads. 

Reason behind youtube showing such ads

I do believe that the situation has been worsened due to youtube having fewer employees because of the worldwide pandemic. 

You'd think that the tech company of Google would figure out a way for employees to work from home, but that may be a topic for another video. 

The type of bad ads that I'm talking about in this video is not a little kids gaming channel, oh my gosh and that is why you do not punch a wolf or an annoying corporate ad,  or even those trimmer ones that have popped up recently in 2020.  

Some of the ones which I will discuss are worse scams than trimming armor and money doubling in Runescape and others are advertisements for certain adult websites running beside videos rated 13 plus. 

Spammy Advertisers

The most recent exploitation of the ad system happened in summer 2020 by a channel called 'LoL Mobile Gaming' that is only about five months old as of recording this video. 

His channel blew up, absolutely blew up from just paying for ads. So he hides his current amount of subscribers but it does say on Socialblade that he has 600k.  Now in a week, he has gone up around 600,000 subscribers.  

Now that is crazy! But this guy also does have another channel with significantly fewer subscribers that was created in 2013.  Besides the clickbait thumbnails of these ads, this guy has done something ethically wrong. 

When I clicked on one to read the comments, I was greeted by this message explaining that only members could watch the video. 

Now normally that would be fine as special videos are the incentive to get membership, but in this case, it meant that he didn't have to pay at all for these ads since only those who paid for membership could technically count as a view. 

If I wanted to spend 50,000 pounds on having this ad promoted, it would apparently give me up to 47 million views. 

Now that means it could pop up for up to 47 million people on their devices and in this case because it blocks you from actually watching the video, their channel pops up and the little subscribe button is literally on your screen. 

So he was essentially getting free promotion by YouTube to show up on everyone's home pages without having to pay the thousands of dollars that that would normally cost. 

This guy even posted a video on his channel that describes the inspiration behind the members-only ads. 

It doesn't make sense at all! Oja turns him and smiles him what if it happens you see you see the motto what if it happens they all thought member-only ads is bad marketing. 

Looking at his Socialblade it's also very easy to see where he was abusing the ad system.  It's the massive spike in both views and subs that has died down to a way lower amount now. 

He is suddenly getting loads of views and on his Socialblade, well he gained 325,000 subscribers in one day! He went from 3k subs to 300k subs in one day.  It's also interesting to me that he hides his sub count and his likes and dislikes are turned off. 

Broken AD System

This channel has been exposed numerous times now by people such as JT, whose video I used in this one, and countless others. 

It seems that as more people are finding out about this exploit, some other copycats are trying it too meaning they're also getting thousands of subs for free through abusing the broken ad system. 

These channels are complete frauds we're seeing people cheat the system at a new level.   As of recording this, there still has been no channel termination,  strike, or any legal action against those who exploit this system.  

Now, this next set of ads are fairly self-explanatory and as TheQuartering would put it, they are spicy ads. 

We've got a bit of a spicy topic today. These are either straight-up pr0n with music played over it,  or suggestive ads to Only Fans accounts and other similar websites with that type of content. 

Get girlfriend number and video fun download app from description download ad get no vision naughty America with a k.  

But here look at this classic casting couch! I mean no, I've heard the classic. 'Single women need one day friend' - Lol, what is this girl who never refuses to start meeting sparkling girls who are good at everything. Like what ...? I mean come on! that's not hair gel.  

Now some of these may just be interviews with clickbait thumbnails or something like that, but there's a lot of hypocrisy with these spicy ads regardless. 

The hypocrisy comes from the fact that as creators we have to watch what is shown and what we say or else there is a risk of demonetization or worse. Yet those ads get approved somehow even if we were to get demonetized or have community guidelines strike for  the exact same thing. 

The ads are definitely getting pretty bad here on youtube and it's crazy because here on youtube, you get demonetized you know if you say too many cuss words or if the gameplay is too violent, something just goofy like that right. 

But when it comes down to the actual advertisements on the platform it's just absolutely insane things worse things that are being put up on the ad network.  

Now sure, these spicy ads could also be the lower tier of advertisements set to be on videos with limited ads, but they are often found on the home page where the content should be rated 13 plus due to COPPA. 

Here are some of the rules around this type of stuff. 

• Text, image, audio, or graphics of spicy acts intended to arouse: banned.
• Content promoting other types of spicy themes: banned. 
• Content that may be interpreted as promoting spicy themes in exchange for compensation:  banned. 

So, just about all those ads that I have talked with you. And the third type of ad is scams such as the Cash App scam that Mutahar talked about last September. 

It's really cool to get started all you have to do is open up a web browser. Ah, not a malware link at all, lucky. 

And you guys can see the process has completed, so now the next step here is to do human verification so all you have to do is... ahh, the human verification. 

These scams make you install some malware and/or do some surveys.  Download two free apps below to get your free Cash App money. 

Now let's see Disney Heroes, uh get to level 10. Pop Slots, Cyber Ghost VPN, or King of Avalon: Dragon War.  

This type of ad of course also includes the free gift card scams which serve the same purpose as the Cash App one. Like right here, get free 99,999 diamonds in one click. 

Clickbait using Public figures  

I'll give you a little hint, that I've learned through playing online games such as Runescape. If something seems way too good to be true that's because it is. And of course, there are other scam ads using Mr. Beast's face in the thumbnail. 

Then we got to get a free $100 gift card watch this video $100 PlayStation store free! and we got Mr. Beast on there.  And others using Pewdiepie's in the hopes of getting gullible little kids to click on it.  

Now with all this going on and YouTube being made aware of the situation by people's videos or by asking them on Twitter.  Alongside Twitter, YouTube has also been notified of this on their YouTube Help website, so there's no way that they don't know this is a thing. 

But ultimately when you run an advertising system to the scale uh that Google does and that YouTube does uh it's difficult to catch everything.  

What do you suppose is the reaction that the company has taken? so far all that I've seen has basically been this message about reporting the ad if you think it is inappropriate. 

An issue with that response is by that point people have lost track of the ad because it usually shows up only a specific time on the home page or below another video. 

Another issue is that scam ads especially are unlisted, meaning that even going back onto the channel page may not help you find the ad again. 

So you can see that it's an unlisted video so they're trying to do this so if it's public it would get immediately taken off by YouTube. 

I know this has been the case a lot when seeing those bots in comments impersonating large YouTubers and wanting you to click on something about free gift cards, or free v-bucks, etc.  

New glitch Epic Games 100 000 v-bucks only best gamers know about this. Ad by Apple.  

In conclusion: 

YouTube either needs to police their ad system as well as monitor our videos, or major reforms have to be made to ensure that the three bad types of ads are no longer on the website. 

I think that it's worse that you know they over police YouTube to a crazy extent but then you know the ads that they take from you are these kinds of things. 

But the one thing that I'm wondering is if YouTube actually truly cares or not because the advertisers give them money and as a business making money appears to be their chief concern.