YouTube is tweaking its ads again. In its latest experiment, three videos are counted down when an adblock is detected.

In a YouTube subreddit thread, user Reddit_n_Me posted a screenshot of an ominous warning, "Video player will block after 3 videos." And reminding us that ads help keep YouTube free for users, and that we can pay a premium fee to avoid them.

This was confirmed when The Verge spoke with YouTube last week: "We are running a small experiment globally to encourage viewers who have ad blockers enabled to allow YouTube ads or try YouTube Premium.

"We take disabling playback very seriously and will only disable playback if viewers ignore repeated requests to allow YouTube ads.

This follows a recent flood of ads on the platform that has disgusted many. Last year, another "experiment" was conducted in which five to ten unskippable ads were shown in a row.

While we are within our rights as a company, it is not difficult to understand where people are coming from. In a free and open Internet, advertising is inevitable, but often really annoying. I have even had audio ads play on YouTube in the past, forcing me to minimize the video to beat it.

YouTube has been a big part of the gaming ecosystem for nearly two decades, and its creators still struggle with frustrating systems like annoying profanity restrictions. They are probably as fed up with the ad politics on the platform as everyone else is. No wonder many of them turn to Patreon or Twitch or post on sites like Nebula, which offers sub content for almost a quarter of the price of YouTube Premium. Even if it is technically beneficial to creators, I don't see how it will increase YouTube's positive perception of creators.