According to some reports, YouTube has begun testing up to 5 ads before a video starts, users who don't have YouTube Premium are shown ads before videos, and sometimes during them, lots of people were okay with that as it was only 1-2 ads and they were usually skippable.
However, it seems that YouTube just can't have enough and reports claim that they have started testing showing 5 unskippable ads before the video starts. The reports of the new ads first broke out around the 7th of September when people started complaining on Twitter and Reddit.
Understandably, thousands of users are upset because they could usually just skip the ads and go on to the video before, but now you have to wait through ad after ad.
YouTube has responded to the matter on Twitter and stated that this could happen to any free user, as they are usually just bumper ads which are mostly short-form ads usually around 5-10 seconds. Currently, it seems that not all users are affected and it's only a small group, it seems that YouTube may just be testing out this feature and it might not stick around.
hmm...this may happen with a certain type of ad format called bumper ads, since they're only up to 6 seconds long. if you'd like, you can send feedback directly from YouTube via the send feedback tool
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 7, 2022
