Make Your Own God Damn Skip Button

When Google burst onto the scene in the late 90s, its search portal stood out for its simplicity: Just a clean, white page with a logo, a search box, and two buttons. In an ecosystem overwhelmed by ad-heavy portals like Yahoo, Lycos, and Excite, this straightforward and no-nonsense approach was a breath of fresh air, playing a significant role in the company’s early success.

It is striking how much the tables have turned. How a forward-thinking company with such a focus on minimalism and innovation, has transformed one of its key acquisitions—a once cool and disruptive video platform that was devoid of ads—into the most hostile ads vs ad-blockers arm race the internet has ever seen.

I’m talking about YouTube of course, and the latest rumour (denied by Google) suggests the button for skipping ads is sometimes being hidden. The heated reaction put me in mind of something that has puzzled me for a while: Why don’t more users create an in-browser skip button themselves?