Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some YouTube users have observed the platform making it harder to skip ads in recent days. On Reddit, a user reported seeing black rectangles over the skip button on desktop instead of the expected countdown timer, and a few days later, Android Police reported not seeing a countdown to skip on mobile. But in statements to The Verge, YouTube says it isn’t removing the skip button — it’s just changing some elements of how ads are displayed. “YouTube is not hiding the skip button,” YouTube spokesperson Oluwa Falodun says in a statement to The Verge. “On skippable ads, the button appears after 5 seconds into playback, as always.” As for the changes, Falodun says that YouTube is “reducing elements on the ads player” so that “viewers can... Continue reading…