YouTube earns its money through ad revenue. Last year YouTube made almost $15.1 billion dollars in ad revenue. Ads are important in YouTube because it enables YouTube to run the platform and is also the source for the creator’s revenue from YouTube. But what if these ads become shady in nature. That’s currently happening with many Indian YouTube users.
I first come to know about these ads from a Reddit thread. After that, I have done my own research from multiple devices and it seems like the story is real. YouTube India is showing ads that totally scam. I am seeing ads like “ROZ KAMAO ₹500 HAMARI VIDEO DEKH KAR” (means ‘Earn ₹500 every day by watching our video) or “Subscribe to this channel and Get Free Jio Phone 3 Booking And Free Home Delivery). These ads shouldn’t be on YouTube because they are scam or clickbait in nature.
Some Reddit users have noted that they have also seen 18+ ads means adult content ads. (See the screenshot below).
Now YouTube personalized ads based on users’ video-watching habits. So I have gone incognito but still seen these types of ads. These ads are showing both in the YouTube app and Desktop site.
YouTube shouldn’t be showing these types of ads. It could be there are bugs in the YouTube ads serving system. We can hope that YouTube will fix this very soon. Now if you are users and seeing these types of ads I am uring you please do not click in types of ads. They are either scam or clickbaity. It will just waste your time and in the worst-case scenario, you may end losing money too.