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SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

noone_youknow
149 replies
1d15h

As a YouTuber, I’m conflicted about this. My main channel (non-tech) is small, but is monetised, and YouTube see fit to throw me a _very_ variable amount of money every month. CPMs are down right now so revenue has tanked along with it, it’ll pick back up at some point, but the variability is itself the pain point. My videos are relatively expensive and time consuming to make, but people seem to find them useful, and even enjoyable. The occasional (relevant) sponsor read or similar has been a huge help in providing some stability in the past, and I know for many channels it’s the main source of income since YPP revenue share can be so volatile.

I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising, and it’ll be another nail in the coffin for creators. Sure many of us also do patreon etc but that’s never really sat right with me personally (and see also the post on HN just today about Apple coming for a revenue split there for another creator-hostile storm brewing).

On the other hand, I totally get the hatred of “the usual suspect” sponsors (VPNs, low-quality learning platforms etc) that get done to death because of their aggressive sponsor budgets and not-unreasonable deals. Those get shoehorned into a ton of videos and it’s a shame, but a blunt instrument like this is likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole, not just those bad ones.

erklik
49 replies
1d12h

blunt instrument like this is likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole

That's the dream. Ads are a poison and a blight.

Removing them is something many users, including me welcome. If one wants money for their videos, they're welcome to actually allow getting payments i.e. patreon, the "Youtube sponsorship"-thing.

0dayz
19 replies
1d6h

And I'll agree with you the day we all decide to pay a monthly fee that is big enough to support various websites and creators.

ndriscoll
18 replies
1d4h

Why? As a HN-er/content creator, I don't see why it would be taken for granted that people need to be paid for their hobbies. In fact many people post online for enjoyment.

labcomputer
12 replies
23h14m

I’m sort of amazed this has to be explicitly stated:

Because most YouTube creators (even the hobbyists) are at least partially motivated by money, and if you take away all the money they will likely make less content or stop altogether. I understand that it’s fun to get things for free, but that’s usually not sustainable.

ndriscoll
5 replies
22h40m

The point is that's fine, and it is perfectly sustainable for people to do things they enjoy for free. It'd perhaps not be sustainable for someone to play video games as a full-time job, but maybe that's okay (or even desirable from a societal resource allocation standpoint)?

xena
4 replies
20h58m

Simply make rent, housing, and food free. Then people need not make money for the majority of needs.

ndriscoll
3 replies
16h16m

Indeed:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/what-is-gen-zs-no...

According to a recent report by decision intelligence company Morning Consult, which surveyed over 2,000 adults in the U.S., 57% of Gen Zers said they'd be an influencer if given the opportunity, compared to 41% of adults from all age groups.

If true, possibly the most damning rebuttal of UBI proponents that there is.

johnnyanmac
2 replies
16h2m

I don't see how. They are young adults and of course they want to be [flashy job]. Some may do it out of passion, some will inevitably realize the platform exploits them and moves on so they can have stability, or pay rent. Trust me, I'm a game dev, the 2000's version of this, succeeded by the band musicians of the 90's/80's.

UBI would bring out more passionate people and not force the passionate but disheartened to drop out. meanwhile, the passionate who do stick it will optimize for money. So they can pay rent. Or worse, the unpassionate marketers take over and the discipline is reduced to slop (we've probably been here for ~10 years now).

ndriscoll
1 replies
15h26m

Because they're saying if they could sustain themselves, they'd have their job be to... eat at restaurants, play video games, travel, try on clothes, wear makeup, etc. Basically be an exact conservative caricature of socialists.

kjkjadksj
0 replies
1h31m

The irony is that its a caricature of rich nepo babies under consumer capitalism vs socialism. In a pure socialist society (good example of this is US government or military jobs) you still work and there wouldn’t be such striking wealth inequality on display.

kelnos
2 replies
21h35m

I think that's fine, though. Maybe we should have different platforms. Maybe we have a platform just for people who post stuff out of love for their craft, and don't expect any sort of compensation. And then we have a platform for people who want to monetize, and the platform itself has a subscription fee that gets distributed to creators based on views, or... something. Anything, really.

Maybe this could all be YouTube, but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

The current situation with YouTubers asking people to subscribe to their Patreon or whatever is so weird, since often they have to distribute patron perks outside of YouTube, or via unlisted links, or whatever. I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation, but an integrated solution like that would likely be better for both creators and viewers.

ndriscoll
0 replies
18h50m

They do have that functionality[0]. The elephant in the room to me when discussing these things is that people aren't wrong when they won't pay for most "content". The overwhelming majority of it brainless filler-noise that a lot of people probably only look at because they don't know what else to do with their time. If actually pressed to come up with how much they'd pay for it, they correctly come up with $0 as the answer. Unfortunately, they don't then figure that it's not worth their attention either.

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7636690

johnnyanmac
0 replies
16h6m

Maybe we should have different platforms. Maybe we have a platform just for people who post stuff out of love for their craft, and don't expect any sort of compensation

There are plenty of alternative video hosting sites if you seek that. So, why are you still on Youtube?

but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

Sure, works for Onlyfans. they even blend in both subscriptions AND PPV behind the sub. And we know how quality that content is (no offense to the models there. but come on, I've seen $100 for 2 pictures, behind a $20/month subscription. You're not 2000's Brittany Spears).

I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation

They do. CC's can enable Memberships and upload videos specific to that.

The issue is that

1. the memberships are small for many right now. Conseuqnces of being late to the party.

2. what's offered isn't necessarily going to be even higher quality than a public video.

3. ad rev from non-subbed views is still signifigant. Making a paid subscription for certain videos can mean brining in less money.

4. That lower view count affects your algorithm for growing.

It's complex. And sadly, outside of the OF model most people simply don't want to pay for content. They get bored and they move to Tiktok and that's the real endgame should YT fall.

sdoering
1 replies
22h49m

If they want to make money, they are totally free to have a website hosting their content behind a paywall.

Than I can decide if their content is worth money to me (let me tell you: in 999 out of 1000 "creators" it isn't).

But I already pay for a few select content creators. And happily shell out more than I would pay YT for an adfree experience.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
15h59m

Spoilers: the 1 out of 1000's won't get your money either because of any number of arbitrary reasons unrelated to their craft that is conjured up.

- Slow website/video host? Great now they need to pay for a better host or pay a web dev to optimize their site.

- Not responive? now that dev/service needs more money.

- pay is too much (meanwhile they still can't even make minimum wage)? Well, their fault for valuing themselves over a McDonalds' employee

- they pivot to premium teaching and now are a "scam"? Why am I here, I can google and learn this for free on Youtube

You can't win with some people.

maxglute
0 replies
13h13m

Less content frequently better content. Hobby as content job may just not be sustainable in another form. Tons of hobbyist creators jumped on the full time content mill job and burn out. Maybe in another world they have their hobby on the side and put out 1/10th content slowly, without the incentive to make filler to keep bills paid. TBH sometimes when work and passion mix, passion takes a back seat. It would be different if youtube algo doesn't incentivize this type of content milling, but it does.

ESTheComposer
4 replies
23h51m

If you're a HN-er you should know the culture of HN is very old school and fringe mentality. E.g:

- Flip phones are celebrated in some threads because people don't want smart phones (extreme minority in real life)

- Disabling JS and pushing sites to go back to just raw HTML CSS (with some even not understanding why we need JS, extreme minority irl. IRL site owners care about attracting customers and the things they want to do can't be done with raw HTML CSS much of the time)

- Kagi taking off. IRL most people still do and will continue to Google

- People acting like if ads were disabled forever the population would totally pay for things they like (IRL people don't, there's a reason piracy is big. People want the things they want for the cheapest cost possible)

HN is a very specific type of tech-centric bubble

shiroiushi
2 replies
17h20m

IRL people don't, there's a reason piracy is big.

It is? That's not my observation. In fact, music piracy seems to be all but dead, thanks to the streaming services. Movie piracy is not, and seems to be increasing (hard to say though), because of people getting frustrated with the fragmentation of streaming; back in Netflix's heyday, it seemed like movie piracy was much smaller, because you could just pay $7/month to Netflix and watch whatever you wanted.

People want the things they want for the cheapest cost possible

No, most people want convenience. That's why music piracy is basically dead. Piracy is usually a PITA, and it's easy to subscribe to Spotify or Apple Music and listen to everything you want. Piracy is usually a service problem, not an economics problem.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
15h51m

Movie piracy is not, and seems to be increasing (hard to say though), because of people getting frustrated with the fragmentation of streaming

I feel that proves the point. When everything is all together for $20 people don't mind. when it's spread out, people are too lazy to sub/unsub to other $20 services as needed to watch content on demand. Someone that's a heavy enough power user to watch that much TV shouldn't mind paying $100+ to keep up. Premium cable was way more expensive and restrictive back in the day.

Meanwhile, all that conversation and none of these streaming services are even profitable. Because giving all your content away for rent isn't financially viable. But it's still too much for lazy consumers. So the entire thing collapses.

No, most people want convenience. That's why music piracy is basically dead.

It's also why people completely raged when Netflix and GamePass increased prices. There definitely is a breaking point for many (past the ones who complain about every price hike on the internet but stay subscribed).

Piracy is usually a service problem

Everytime I hear this, I simply need to point to the mobile industry to prove it wrong (or maybe right? Just not the way people think is "fair"). They fixed piracy by doing the classic Web dev action: Keep everything valuable on your server. The APK you pirate is worthless, as it is simply a thin client into their actual value.

We know how the rest ends from there.

shiroiushi
0 replies
14h57m

I feel that proves the point. When everything is all together for $20 people don't mind.

I think this proves my point, that it's a service problem. Put everything together in a single, easy-to-use service for a low price (like Netflix in 2012), and only the true die-hards will still bother with piracy. Ask them to subscribe to a whole bunch of services (with a high total cost) or try to figure out how to save money by strategically subscribing and unsubscribing to see the stuff they want, and have to deal with shows suddenly disappearing or moving to a competing service when they're half-finished watching them, and many will simply go back to torrenting because it's honestly easier than all that BS. But instead you think people are "lazy"... A lazy person doesn't do torrenting; it's really not that easy.

Premium cable was way more expensive and restrictive back in the day.

Back then, 1) there weren't many alternatives. At the beginning of cable TV's reign, videotapes weren't even commonly available. And 2) back then, people had more disposable income because the cost-of-living was much, much lower (particularly housing). Technology is much better now too, so people expect to pay less.

Meanwhile, all that conversation and none of these streaming services are even profitable.

Citation needed. Last I checked, Netflix is doing quite well, and even better after cracking down on the password-sharing.

It's also why people completely raged when Netflix and GamePass increased prices.

Some people raged, but Netflix's subscriber count has increased and profits are up, so obviously those people either got over it, or were a small minority.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
15h57m

in all fairness, I'm sure Kagi is aware it's serving a niche right now. It's more a matter if that niche (maybe a few thousand consistent subscibers?) can support their infrastructure. You don't need to compete with Google to make a good living.

noone_youknow
18 replies
1d11h

Sure, I totally get that. I’m no fan of being advertised to myself and as a premium subscriber I do find sponsor segments - especially poorly-places ones - just as annoying as everyone else when watching YouTube - which is why I said I was conflicted in my earlier comment.

However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

lrvick
7 replies
1d8h

Making YouTube non-viable is the entire point. Google should not be the gatekeeper for the world's content, or get to decide who wins and loses in a rat race trying to keep up with algorithms built to keep users addicted to low quality advertizer friendly content.

The end game of ad blocking tech is to make ads a non viable source of revenue so creators will move on to ethical platforms like LBRY or peertube where creators are in charge again and users can pay them directly with no corrupt middle-men .

I would suggest being an early adopter on alternative platforms building a direct relationship with a more independent donation-motivated audience before everyone else does.

eropple
5 replies
21h41m

These are platforms with worse availability and worse affordances, ranging to nonfunctional once you're on a mobile device. Adblocking technology isn't going to make them better. Making them better is going to make them better, but the unit economics remain not in their favor.

A more likely future is less video rather than people move to PeerTube and shake an upturned hat for donations. Which doesn't bother me much, but is likely to invoke the FAFO gator on a lot of folks.

pino82
3 replies
19h49m

A more likely future is less video

You mean I could get a f...ing text again about things, which I could just read at my own speed, skip back and forth by just moving my eyes, use the search function, skip pieces of it, etc etc, in just two minutes instead of ten minutes watching a video clip for the most trivial statements?

What a baaad world that would be...

kalleboo
1 replies
14h28m

The videos aren't going to be replaced with text, they're going to be replaced with nothing. Text died because it is too hard to get paid for, banner ads paid peanuts to begin with and are now trivial to block. Video ads paid really well which is why people started making video content, if video ads also die, then there is simply going to be no content.

maxglute
0 replies
13h28m

There's going to be less content, which will likely still be more than enough content.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
16h14m

You mean I could get a f...ing text again about things

Tone aside, we already do that... it's also monetized and being AI-slopified as we speak. Much faster than video.

in this scenario where videos become non-viable, people would ujst paywall their text like many journalists have resorted to. There's no free lunch these days.

consteval
0 replies
3h54m

A more likely future is less video

I would say less big budget video. If we're being honest, YouTube is essentially television at this point. Many YouTube views, maybe even most, don't go towards individual creators. They go to Studios and the Jimmy Kimmel's of the world.

If someone like boxxy is making videos with a potato cam on her bedroom floor, I don't think she necessarily cares much about the monetization.

That USED to be the entire draw and appeal of YouTube. Then monetization came and surprise! The platform changed to be more monetizable, i.e. watered down and corporate.

pino82
0 replies
19h55m

Exactly that. But surprisingly, although I'd consider it as a trivial insight, we're living in a world that just doesn't want to understand that.

And while YT is a lot about casual nonsense, there are other big tech walled gardens, where content fights against some corporate-controlled algorithms, but the content is our entire public discourse nowadays. :( And people still do not want to understand what a terribly bad idea that is...

manuelmoreale
5 replies
1d6h

Aren’t you, as a YouTuber, in the same position as many creators that do the same on other mediums? There are people out there who write amazing blog posts but now the traditional advertising world is basically dead and people have to figure out other ways to make it work.

Or they have to accept that what they do is not a full time job but rather a hobby and they need to find other ways to earn a living.

Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

johnnyanmac
4 replies
16h13m

Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

because Youtube is owned by a trillion dollar corporation but mostly powered by content creators. Substack isn't.

It's really that simple. most wringing isn't viable because there's no money in it, literally. There still is money in video ads.

manuelmoreale
3 replies
13h40m

I’m not asking why it is. I’m asking why it should be.

johnnyanmac
2 replies
10h36m

Why what should be? Why platforms with money pay people with no money? Why platforms with no money shut down?

It's not a very fun answer. Google gets a lot of ads to pay then to shove ads down the consumer's throats, and they can do this with no risk of users migrating. They "should" get more money because they more effectly do this than news websites, which have failed to appeal to advertisers effectively enough.

I don't really know what to do with that answer, though. Accept I'm the minority that will subscribe to paid avenues to support creators (or even care about other creator's well beings?) and move on?

manuelmoreale
1 replies
7h56m

No I’m asking why we should look at people who make video on YouTube differently than any other type of creator who publish elsewhere.

The original post I was replying to said:

However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
2h59m

I’m asking why we should look at people who make video on YouTube differently than any other type of creator who publish elsewhere.

I don't know who's "we" here. But that's simply psychological. You will look at [person who make lots of money] differently from [person who can barely cover rent], if only because the latter may need more help you may be able to give.

There's no "should" here. And influencers aren't limited to YouTube. all my answers come down to "because they are backed by a trillion dollar corporation"

And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

Maybe instead of "but no one else makes money" to drag down, we should change the lens to "let's reward other mediums for being high quality and throrougly researched" to boost up other mediums of creation.

Especially in a time where we are already getting so much slop and misinformation (and we're not even close to the worst of the storm). I'm sure you seen enough of the internet to know most people will just accept the slop and at best take years of introspection before they realize why quality matters (others never do).

chankstein38
2 replies
23h41m

I'm not trying to be offensive or hostile but, as much as I value the higher-quality content on youtube, if youtube went back to being just a place people posted videos of themselves doing stuff instead of what effectively amounts to studios making youtube content, I'd consider that a win.

Again, not that your content isn't likely appreciated by your audience and valuable. I just miss the days of youtube just being a fun video platform instead of another TV channel.

sdoering
0 replies
22h48m

D'accord

johnnyanmac
0 replies
16h16m

I just miss the days of youtube just being a fun video platform instead of another TV channel.

It's another effect of the economy. Programmers are traditionally well compensated, so they can use their free time literally giving away knowledge for others. Because they don't need to monetize that knowledge to survive.

Video editing: not so much. If you want more people just having fun you need some part of the economy making sure they pay rent. Hence, hustle culture. It'd still exist if everyone was comfy, but many people would instead focus on leisure over minmaxing money.

ndriscoll
0 replies
1d4h

Assuming when you say thoroughly researched, you're looking for high quality educational information, the highest quality videos are generally from a camera pointed at a blackboard/whiteboard recording a lecture that an expert was already going to give. Not a lot of production value necessary.

stronglikedan
5 replies
23h49m

I wouldn't pay real money other than my YT Premium, so I'm fine with sponsor reads. I'm not alone.

zamadatix
4 replies
23h29m

As I understand it YouTube Premium viewers result in significantly more revenue than ad based viewers do [1] but represent a tiny fraction of viewers [2] and can't be targeted separately. I.e. if most people were willing to pay in just one way, even if that were just YouTube Premium, then there wouldn't be such a strong incentive for channels to rely on sponsored segments but most people prefer not paying anything and dealing with ads and/or sponsored segments instead leaving those that do a bit stuck with the latter.

[1] Just one example https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubegaming/comments/p1qmgu/conte... [2] https://backlinko.com/youtube-users

CuriousSkeptic
3 replies
20h36m

I would buy premium in a heartbeat if it actually filtered out all ads and sponsored content. Not just the segment, the entire video should be cut if its creation was influenced by “impressions” or what ever filler content is measured in.

The current deal gives me no value, it just distributes more money to promote quantity crap over quality.

Someone needs to figures out how to take my money and distribute them to people working on actually valuable stuff.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
16h19m

Someone needs to figures out how to take my money and distribute them to people working on actually valuable stuff.

why do you need a financial advisor to donate to Patreon or even Youtube memberships now? The models are about as easy to (un)subscribe from as you can get, while allowing granular control.

Do you really want some "index fund" where you trust someone else to use your money to fund "good creators"? That sounds like a capitalist's wet dreams. And a consumer hellscape.

lotsofpulp
0 replies
14h20m

Do you really want some "index fund" where you trust someone else to use your money to fund "good creators"? That sounds like a capitalist's wet dreams. And a consumer hellscape.

Yes, I have a limited amount of time so I use curators (or algorithms) to narrow down what I might most like. For example, people used to pay HBO and other TV networks, or these days, Apple/Netflix/Amazon/Disney/etc.

maxglute
0 replies
13h24m

Yeah I have premium and TBH expect creators over XYZ size to spend a few minutes to timestamp/chapter their sponsorships and youtube to enable autoskipping. Or have youtube crawl through transcripts and figure it out.

The problem is the people willing to pay for premium likely much more valuable customers for sponsorships to target.

lifthrasiir
2 replies
1d9h

It greatly depends on the audience, but for many cases, unfortunately, it's more likely the case that you are dreaming.

Typical income flows for streamers include:

1. Passive advertising from video and stream platforms (which many adblockers do block)

2. Active advertising via sponsorships (which SponsorBlock wants to block)

3. Live stream donations

4. Video/stream-independent donations, most usually via Patreon

5. Paid "premium" or behind-the-scene programmes (partly overlaps with video/stream-independent donations due to their obvious weaknesses)

6. Merchandises

And not all streamers can do them at once. Live stream donations only work for some genres of streaming and it is easy to stress audiences. Usual donations may or may not work, but it is usually thought to be weaker than live stream donations due to its passiveness (unless you come up with very different perks, but then your income is completely independent from streaming).

Many high-profile channels rely greatly on merchandises because it does have significant margins if you can keep launching enough of them, but they are especially risky when your channel and/or stream is not large enough. So smaller channels have traditionally relied on passive advertising, but its flaws are well known and discussed to the death by now. (If you need a list though, higher processing fees, prevalence of adblocking, generally too low income to be sustainable, extreme platform dependence etc.) This leaves active advertising as a compelling option for smaller streamers, at least for now.

While I do loathe most kind of advertising, active advertising like this is something I can (barely) tolerate because it is meant to be performed by streamers themselves, unlike passive advertising which rarely relates to the streamer or content itself. And I'm afraid that there doesn't seem to be any other viable option remaining. I can always skip an ad portion of a video if I do find it annoying anyway.

account42
1 replies
9h55m

If blocking ads means for-profit video creators go out of business then so be it. There will always be those who do it because it is something they enjoy and usually that kind of content is more worthwhile anyway.

lifthrasiir
0 replies
9h12m

You are free to do so, but your claim won't work for most of my favorite creators and streamers. Thank you.

throw10920
0 replies
16h51m

Direct payment is good, but Patreon-type models are unfair (for both consumers and creators), inefficient (in terms of both time and money spent by consumers), and unscalable (to anything but a tiny fraction of the economy).

We need direct microtransactions on the per-video/content-item level.

chankstein38
30 replies
23h47m

The thing that sucks is I pay for YouTube Premium to remove ads then youtubers always have sponsored segments. It makes my $20/mo useless because I'm spending time watching ads still. I don't have a solution I'm just stating my perspective on it.

That said, SponsorBlock has been around for years. I've been using it for as long as I can remember. Basically any decent-sized channel's videos already have the sponsored segment skipped. I'm not sure why someone just posted it but we're well beyond SponsorBlock "taking off".

Reubachi
20 replies
23h28m

Same feeling here. It's gotten twice as expensive, which is insane by itself. But worse is the jarring rotation of sponsored advertisers.

it's reminiscent of NASCAR. Or, like being a kid forced to watch advertising during TV breaks, wondering why the TV screen istrying to sell me cigarettes.

It's maybe a bit social-media-toxic to say that some youtubers are my "favorite people" in that i look forward to their takes on the topics they cover. I lose interest though when that youtuber presents to me an unprompted ad for my testicular health.

I have no solution for creators consumers or google :(

chankstein38
9 replies
23h18m

I always wondered why YouTube themselves didn't start restricting sponsored segments. I don't necessarily agree with the idea (not a big fan of how restrictive youtube already is) but I always thought it was odd they were ok with their premium offering being devalued by sponsored segments.

dnissley
4 replies
23h4m

They could stop sponsored segments, but they couldn't stop creators and users from going to other platforms where they allow sponsored segments. They have far less control than e.g. Apple with the app store (where they literally can stop other app stores from ever coming into being, barring regulation that changes that).

mschuster91
2 replies
21h52m

but they couldn't stop creators and users from going to other platforms where they allow sponsored segments

It's not like there are many viable competitors, at least for long form videos.

dnissley
1 replies
20h0m

If youtube stopped allowing sponsored segments that puts pressure on the market to produce such a thing. Even now creators are trying to come up with alternatives. Nothing has panned out, but something like stopping sponsored segments could very well tip a large number of people who want to get paid to find another way to get paid.

mschuster91
0 replies
7h55m

So what, even despite high-profile creators such as Practical Engineering constantly pushing for Nebula (the largest of them), it's still a fraction of their YouTube following.

prmoustache
0 replies
10h43m

Most of the time, the complete content is a disguised AD anyway. Same for most hollywood movies.

OnlyLys
1 replies
15h2m

I have YouTube Premium and on my phone I sometimes get a "Jump ahead" button that pops up on the bottom right corner when the video is in fullscreen. It doesn't just appear during sponsored segments but also during "less exciting" moments of a video like the introduction.

bugtodiffer
0 replies
10h52m

They just give you 10% of SponsorBlock so you dont get SponsorBlock :D

johnnyanmac
0 replies
19h6m

People getting their own sponsors means Google doesn't need to increase rates to compensate creators. Who wouldn't take a deal for a 3rd party to pay part of your "employee" compensation if they were given a chance? Google still has plenty of sponsors going directly to them anyway.

gosub100
5 replies
20h23m

It's gotten twice as expensive, which is insane by itself.

No. Look, I'm not happy to pay more, but YT is really great. It's completely obviated the need to watch broadcast or cable TV for me (yes I know, sports...). They haven't enshittified it at all, and since I'm a music lover, I love that they include YT music (although I sorely miss its predecessor). There is the sum-of-human-knowledge and then some !! on youtube. it's absolutely worth what they charge. In fact, I dont know how they can even order enough storage to keep the thing running. tl;dr the features and content has grown proportionately with the price increase.

johnnyanmac
4 replies
18h59m

They haven't enshittified it at all

really? There are entire posts dedicated to how many features Youtube cut removed, or messed up over the years. as a old school forum boomer I still hate that they changed from a nested comments section to "twitter feed of loose chains" over a decade ago.

I won't go on a whole rant on every little feature, but the service has definitely gotten worse. It just so happens that the tech core still works fine enough (smoothly watching videos on nearly any platform), and the business core is powered by user-generated content which is as good as you choose.

P.S. I sure do wish we got Youtube Premium Lite wasn't cancelled. I do just mostly want ad-free browsing. I can manage around offline/offscreen videos and no YT Music (also miss Google Play Music btw).

gosub100
3 replies
17h17m

Cutting or removing features!= enshittification. To me that word means contracts with early cancellation fees, charging more for long form or educational content, pop-ups, rate limiting ( you get 10 vids per day on your free plan), charging to upload, billing authors for bandwidth used, and so on. I don't think you realize how good we have it.

avhon1
2 replies
11h51m

Your definition slightly off. Here it is from the guy who coined the term:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Removing features is absolutely part of enshittification.

gosub100
1 replies
4h13m

Then, they die.

Yeah, any day now YT is going to shut its doors.

yifanl
0 replies
2h48m

You must have an incredible lack of imagination, the story of software is the story of mayflies.

thaumasiotes
3 replies
22h19m

Or, like being a kid forced to watch advertising during TV breaks, wondering why the TV screen istrying to sell me cigarettes.

Cigarette commercials have been illegal since 1971.

bashwizard
1 replies
12h48m

r/USDefaultism

bugtodiffer
0 replies
10h51m

Wow thanks for this

xigoi
0 replies
21h31m

Good to knoW that the entire world is under a single jurisdiction.

sundarurfriend
1 replies
15h22m

That said, SponsorBlock has been around for years. I've been using it for as long as I can remember. Basically any decent-sized channel's videos already have the sponsored segment skipped. I'm not sure why someone just posted it but we're well beyond SponsorBlock "taking off".

I was gonna post a similar comment but with the opposite conclusion: SponsorBlock has been around for years, and the people who are really annoyed by sponsors are mostly already using it. Most of the rest of the population either doesn't mind sponsor segments (me) or isn't willing to go to the trouble of installing addons. Of course, there's always going to be people who become aware of it due to threads like this and start using it, but I'd venture that that's too small a number for worries about this suddenly "taking off".

chankstein38
0 replies
2h34m

I think, to some degree, this was my sentiment as well just not stated as clearly. I meant to say basically "SponsorBlock has been around and I know of a couple people who use it so it's taken off but hasn't caused any kind of revolution" but have been dealing with somethings in life and I think just was short with my explanation.

kelnos
1 replies
21h44m

I'm not sure why someone just posted it but we're well beyond SponsorBlock "taking off".

Are we, though? Regular ad blockers are still only used by a minority of web browser users. I would be surprised if SponsorBlock has larger market share than that.

chankstein38
0 replies
2h36m

That's fair I just mean I was recommended it by someone and have recommended it to others. Mostly just expressing people know about it and it's been around a while not necessarily intending to assert that it's ubiquitous.

sltkr
0 replies
19h1m

You can still manually skip the sponsored segments. That's not the case with most ads on YouTube, so your subscription is not worthless.

sdoering
0 replies
22h54m

Exactly why I instantly stopped paying for Spotify. They even went so far as to have regular advertising before podcasts.

Not paying for shit like that, only because they put a clause in the TOS that says ad free only means ad free music.

I have no qualms using any ad blocking option available. And I am happily paying for creators using patreon or other means they provide.

nozzlegear
0 replies
22h0m

This is why I started using SponsorBlock. I've been a YouTube Premium subscriber since it first became available (when it was called YouTube Red), but I'm still inundated with long-form "ads" for Made In cookware and other such nonsense.

loongloong
0 replies
17h31m

If your creators are also on Nebula ( https://nebula.tv , no affiliation other than being a former user) it may be worth considering.

The various creators I used to follow on Nebula have no ads at all in the videos published in Nebula, compared to those they post on Youtube. Not sure if its applicable for all creators on Nebula though.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
19h8m

being around for years =/= mass awareness. Just look at Hacker News ;)

There is no perfect solution because the interests are diametrically opposed. Many CC's don't WANT to be a business, but if you want to work full time you need to be. Businesses' main incentive is to get max customers or max revenue, while a concumer's incentive is to get as much as possible for as little money as possible.

Ironically enough, the RAID SHADOW LEGENDS (since we're talking about the "usual suspects) financial model may be the best of both worlds, at the expense of some well off people (and some unfortunate addicts): have whales bankroll 80% of the game and subsize the free players. But that probably can't happen with 99.99% of video creators.

efilife
17 replies
1d13h

Don't do your videos for money. You are interrupting users that pay for YouTube premium with ads in the middle of your videos. Set up a way to donate to you on YouTube, channel memberships are an option, they display next to the "subscribe button".

vouaobrasil
8 replies
1d7h

Don't do your videos for money. You are interrupting users that pay for YouTube premium with ads in the middle of your videos. Set up a way to donate to you on YouTube, channel memberships are an option, they display next to the "subscribe button".

You shouldn't work for money either. Just do it for free.

krapp
3 replies
1d7h

We live in a capitalist society, and most people are forced to work to make ends meet. Being able to choose to put in what amounts to full time hours on a passion project isn't a privilege most people have.

You, presumably, wouldn't work for free, why do you insist that artists should entertain you for free?

vouaobrasil
2 replies
1d7h

You, presumably, wouldn't work for free, why do you insist that artists should entertain you for free?

You didn't understand my post. I don't insist that artists entertain for free. I was responding to the parent who said "don't make videos for money". I am in fact a full-time content creator.

krapp
1 replies
1d7h

My mistake then.

I encounter that attitude a lot here so I guess I jumped to conclusions.

vouaobrasil
0 replies
1d7h

Yeah, I get that!

efilife
3 replies
1d6h

YouTube isn't work and I doubt this person creates videos for a living. I assume this is just extra money this person wants, not needs. Many years ago YouTube was about hobbyists, and nobody complained. I'm sick of the attitude to monetize everything. I listed a few non-intrusive options, just don't be hostile to your viewers shoving them sponsored crap in the middle of videos

prmoustache
0 replies
6h9m

YouTube isn't work

Youtube isn't work but producing videos at a decent quality and frequency is. It happens that a large amount of them are distributed through Youtube.

kelnos
0 replies
21h15m

YouTube isn't work

In the beginning of YouTube, true. But nowadays YouTube is work for a lot of people. It's their primary source of income, even. It's pointless to say, "well, that's not how it should be". It is, and that's the reality of the situation.

And, frankly, the production value of a lot of stuff on YouTube is amazing. That doesn't come for free, in the form of recording equipment, set design and purchasing, and just plain old time to write scripts and do post-production work. There's no reason that stuff at that middle quality level (between random guy with a handheld smartphone and professional studio production) shouldn't exist. I think it's amazing that people can make such high quality content, without having to get past e.g. a hollywood studio gatekeeper.

In the past, TV was traditionally paid for through advertising and syndication, and movies through ticket sales, and VHS/DVD/Bluray sales. Nowadays there are so many more ways for people to distribute their creations, and more ways for viewers to compensate them for those creations.

The thing that sucks is that we are still so stuck on this ad-supported model, not that people want to put enough work into their creations that it needs to be a paid full-time job.

dageshi
0 replies
22h7m

For a lot of people, it is work and the quality is vastly better for it. Youtube in the past wasn't a replacement for tv, now given the quality many creators put into their work, it is.

noone_youknow
7 replies
1d11h

Don’t do your videos for money.

This is of course a valid suggestion, and there are many, many creators that do this. However I think the world would be a poorer place if we lost all the creators that do need to make _some_ money for their channels to survive, which IMHO is the natural endgame if we remove or block all routes to passive monetisation.

I do get the issue with premium, as a premium subscriber myself I too find it annoying to be interrupted by yet another 30-second (or increasingly, more) read for some shady VPN or whatever.

Channel memberships, like patreon etc., are an option, but have a vanishingly small rate of uptake, and people expect some sort of value-add in return (early access to videos, a discord, and so on). Without other routes to revenue this just devalues the content itself, which I feel may be part of the problem here - we no longer value attach value to quality content. Rick Beato made a great video on the effects of this (in the music industry) recently, and it’s not great - but it does feel like all media is going a similar way.

Sakos
6 replies
1d11h

I often pay for Patreon to get uncensored videos. Youtube by itself already devalues videos in various ways and avenues like Patreon let creators provide what they actually want to provide, not just what YouTube allows them to.

noone_youknow
5 replies
1d10h

That’s great, I’m glad that you’re supporting creators directly and getting value from it too. But unfortunately you’re in the minority in my experience, for every person who does this, there are hundreds who wouldn’t even consider it.

For creators making certain kinds of content the “uncensored” and “non-ad-friendly” topics are a great argument for direct sponsorship etc, I definitely agree.

Sakos
2 replies
1d9h

If by "certain" you mean anybody covering anything from movies to songs to games to whatever else, yes. I mean "those" creators. It's extremely easy to fall afoul of YouTube's Draconian censorship. I'm not talking about sex games. I'm talking about YouTube demonetizing anything they want for arbitrary reasons.

I feel you're not recognising the issue and what Patreon solves, and why relying on YouTube for revenue is simply not an option for anybody.

noone_youknow
1 replies
1d9h

Well, what I had in mind by “certain” is probably really “not me”. I’m fully aware how easy it is to fall foul of the ad-friendly guidelines, and have had more than one video demonetised for “reasons” myself. I’m also very aware that tying one’s entire revenue to a single platform isn’t a good strategy in _any_ business, it’s not limited to YouTube (but I can see an argument for it being worse there specifically).

I really do recognise the issue, being in it myself. I do have patreon (and others) for other projects and it’s another revenue stream, which is great. But for my YouTube main channel I believe the content itself has value, and having to pour time and resources into building a value-add package devalues it - both in the immediate (since I would now have less time to devote to content creation) and longer term (since it makes it essentially a leader for my value add packages).

(Some larger creators I know do manage to carve out some revenue on patreon etc without any “perk package” but I think for that to work it becomes even more of a numbers game, and won’t help small creators just getting started. I’m also putting aside the recent announcements ref. The App Store etc since they’re not directly relevant here).

Sakos
0 replies
1d9h

If you aren't able to get enough funding through Patreon, then it's simply because you haven't found a large enough or the right audience yet. It has nothing to do with value add. Not every viewer is going to subscribe to you on Patreon. Even the biggest channels I have subbed on Patreon have a fraction of their viewers on Patreon of what they have on YouTube, yet it's more than sufficient to fund an entire well-off lifestyle based on it.

lrvick
1 replies
1d7h

You can also time delay any content .

Supporters get access via paid LBRY views or access to unlisted or privately hosted videos right away, and they are published a month later for free on public platforms.

kelnos
0 replies
21h22m

I just don't personally find that sort of thing compelling. For the kinds of videos I watch, it doesn't matter to me if I watch it today or a month from now.

I think paywalled bonus content has the most value. A creator has a lot of control in that sense: if they are not making enough money, they can shift more of their free content behind the paywall. Certainly there's a point where viewers will get mad and leave, and/or what's available for free won't be enough to attract new paid subscribers, but there's still wiggle room.

PeterStuer
11 replies
1d11h

Let me state upfront I do understand the desire to make money from a channel, and much of the YT content I enjoy would not exist if that was not possible. But allow me to make a few hopefully nuanced remarks.

First of all it is not just the VPNs. Briliants, RSLs etc. that annoy, it is all sponsor reads. Even those channels that try to be creative with it, there's only so many times you can be funny about it, and then it turns into just another piece of formulaic slop.

But another reason why sponsor reads annoy me is that it breaks the youtube premium deal. I pay YT for an ad free experience. YT pays you more for my view than a 'free' watcher, and then you shove in ads anyway. Now I do get your argument that "it's not enough", but that does not change my end of the deal.

Idealy ad reads would be autoskipped for premium subscribers. If that meant premium being a bit more expensive, I would be fine with that personally.

noone_youknow
4 replies
1d11h

But another reason why sponsor reads annoy me is that it breaks the youtube premium deal.

I totally get that, and I feel the same way when I see yet another read as a viewer and premium subscriber.

I don’t really have an answer (and if I did, I’d be doing it already), but I will say that my (subjective, based on my ad placement strategy and viewer profile) experience is that premium views are worth less than non-premium - although YouTube cleverly don’t actually give me enough data to _know_ that as a fact (and it would go against their stated position, which I guess they would never do).

ziml77
2 replies
1d7h

Linus Sebastian has said the exact opposite of that whenever he's discussed the breakdown of where the money that Linus Media Group makes comes from. Premium views are worth more than free views.

manuelmoreale
0 replies
1d6h

Just a guess: maybe it depends by which vertical they’re in? Not all channels earn the same so many be there are cases where non-premium users are more valuable than premium ones?

kimixa
0 replies
23h11m

A game streamer I sometimes watch also said something similar - that "youtube premium" views are tracked separately and worth significant multiples per view compared to those that get ads.

They also said it isn't variable in the same way for what ads can get assigned to your content, or for "limited monetization" content (which apparently pretty much sets the ad income to zero).

PeterStuer
0 replies
1d7h

If I remember correctly the numbers given were 6x more direct payouts for a premium view vs. a free view.

mkaic
4 replies
23h40m

I wish YouTube Premium (and honestly, Spotify too!) had a feature where I could voluntarily commit X additional dollars per month to be directly distributed to the creators I watch according to their share of my total watchtime, with some kind of manual opt-out button for individual videos/creators that I explicitly do not want to support. I am already a member of several Patreons but wish I could cast a bit of a wider support net for the people I watch enough-to-want-to-support-them-but-not-enough-to-join-their-Patreon, yknow?

kimixa
1 replies
23h12m

Is that not just youtube "memberships" though? The creator can choose the cost and have multiple "tiers" - I don't think there's anything stopping them having a $1 "tip jar" tier.

Sure, it's not quite the same, but at some point of similar-enough the number of people who actually use each feature becomes vanishingly small and/or the cost of managing the extra option outpaces the income, and it's just not worth it.

jaderobbins1
0 replies
22h48m

Even then I've heard of some channels uploading ad-free versions of their videos for certain membership tiers.

vstollen
0 replies
22h13m

This somewhat reminds me on the discussions around the Web Monetization API [1] a few years ago.

I still wish for a service that gives me access to all paywalled sites or a way to sending all websites I visit a little money in exchange for them not serving ads.

[1]: https://webmonetization.org/

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h49m

I could voluntarily commit X additional dollars per month to be directly distributed to the creators I watch according to their share of my total watchtime, with some kind of manual opt-out button for individual videos/creators that I explicitly do not want to support.

They halfway do this. The numbers are opaque but part of your premium is given to creators you watch, and that cut is based on your watch time, among other factors.

ofc I dobut we'd ever get that granular a control on CC's. As said in another reply, memberships are sort of that solution.

joshvm
0 replies
19h39m

I've mentioned this in the past but I mind sponsorship a lot less when it's highly relevant for the channel. For example a lot of engineering channels are sponsored by JLPCB who provided machining services or PCBs for the project video - that makes sense.

Coffee influencers selling me NordVPN on a video about grinder particle size distribution does not.

Refusing23
5 replies
1d12h

I will either block/skip ads or not use youtube

instead of having a "sponsored" segment where you talk about some product (basically an ad) you could just make the whole video about that product, and thus sponsorblock wouldnt really be used - i mean, sorta like product reviews

noone_youknow
2 replies
1d11h

Well, that’s your call, of course. And when it comes to regular YT ads I don’t really blame you, “the algorithm” and the way monetisation works encourages us to set up aggressive mid-roll placements etc that must be incredibly annoying if one doesn’t pay for premium.

One of the nice things about sponsor segments is that they don’t involve YouTube, so the creator gets more benefit from the deal, but of course done badly (and I assume this must be the case with many of the generic irrelevant VPN ads for example) they will harm retention and thus limit reach.

Your “whole video” suggestion is really “advertise smarter” IMO, which I completely agree with. Personally I’ve never done a “reading a 30-second script about how great product X is” type segment, but I have done videos where I try out “product X” in some way that’s relevant to my audience. It’s more product placement than direct advertising, but I guess even that is unpalatable to some.

lrvick
0 replies
1d7h

Even sponsor segments mean you are being biased by third parties, which makes it harder for you to criticize them later if they are no longer something you would honestly endorse.

I did not click the video to waste time hearing about corpo sponsors you have been paid to shill. At most I will listen to information of non profit causes to donate to.

Use the sponsor segments to tell users how to donate to you. Sponsor block categorizes these differently and leaves them by default.

chankstein38
0 replies
23h39m

Just a heads up, the VPN ads are annoying sure but I think a lot of people would agree the RAID SHADOW LEGENDS ads are the worst lol

mmmlinux
0 replies
22h23m

Those are called "fully integrated ads" and most of the time you don't see them because creators want more money for the whole video being an ad vs 30second of the 10 minute video. They also tend to involve a lot more back and forth with the creator and the sponsor about what is "allowed" in the video.

Always42
0 replies
1d2h

"I will either block/skip ads or not use youtube"

I agree. But to add, if youtube went all out and made ad blocking sufficiently difficult I probably would pay for it.

I fixed my dryer some time back. Watching a youtube video on how to probably saved me multiple hours then figuring it out all on my own. I use it to fix cars.

simonmysun
4 replies
21h13m

I would rather expect an extension like AdNauseam[1] which automatically play the advertisement muted in background.

[1]: https://adnauseam.io/

StableAlkyne
2 replies
21h7m

The best part about AdNauseum is it solves the criticism people give ad-blockers: content creators still get paid

prmoustache
1 replies
10h39m

But viewers do not owe anything to videomakers[1]

[1] honestly content creator is a terrible word for what it is, I wish people would stop repeating that non sense.

StableAlkyne
0 replies
3h32m

I agree completely, but it's easier to build a bridge than it is to redirect a river.

ivann
0 replies
8h34m

But does it really work? I would expect click fraud detection to catch this pretty easily given how big the click fraud arms race is, especially since AdNauseam said their implementation is quite naive.

cedws
3 replies
11h48m

Why are you entitled to make money from YouTube though? Monetisation is part of the reason the site has become a low quality content farm. Now it’s just an industrial clickbait and ragebait machine. Even the educational channels just pump out poorly researched crap or convert Wikipedia articles to video format. Back in the days it was just a fun little site for people to upload whatever they felt like and it was great, the content was organic.

nicbou
2 replies
11h31m

Counterpoint: why do you feel entitled to free content?

Normally if you don't agree to the price of something, you don't pay for it and you don't get it. With content people feel okay with both getting the content for free _and_ denying the creator any income.

Then when the creators dare to bring it up, there's invariably a comment like this downplaying their contribution.

It's truly adding insult to injury.

cedws
1 replies
8h47m

If you hand out free cupcakes and then people take them, you can’t really then complain about people taking the cupcakes without paying. The reason creators monetise their videos on YouTube instead of charging for them on Patreon is because they know people won’t pay for them. Why would they? There are mountains of other videos they can watch for free and if they aren’t inclined to pay, the videos probably aren’t worth paying for.

This is the free market at work. If you don’t make the videos for free, someone else will, unless they can’t because the production value is too high.

nicbou
0 replies
6h38m

In this case the cupcakes are not free. They are explicitly exchanged for a minute of your attention. You use scripts and tools to get the product without paying for it.

Kind of like sneaking into a meeting room to eat the cupcakes, then leaving before the meeting begins.

If you decided not to watch ad-supported content, it would be the free market at work. In this case you're just stiffing creators.

ulyssys
1 replies
1d2h

I think we need to rethink the whole "advertising as a way to support creators" model. Support comes in many forms, and decoupling knowledge of a thing from being paid for good work would likely result in higher quality outcomes.

It's possible there's something to the Nostr model (https://nostr.com/) that could be of use here. A key part of Nostr is the "zap" system. In addition to allowing users to just merely upvote posts, users can also choose to zap a post, which is just a method of sending Bitcoin to the poster's wallet.

Think of it like a tip system, as it directly and concretely rewards users for good content, by exchanging a token of direct value (money).

With a system like this, advertising is something you do to get recognized, while the zaps are something you receive as a reward for valuable work (by whatever metric your audience appreciates).

zamadatix
0 replies
23h23m

YouTube has something a bit more direct available for partnered channels via the "Super Thanks" comment option. It allows you to tie a dollar amount to your comment on the video.

sBqQu3U0wH
1 replies
23h46m

Never in my life have I been interested in any sponsor mentioned in a YouTube video. It's sad to see creators having to include these humiliation rituals in their videos just to keep their channels alive. To me, such tools are just a noise filter.

pixxel
0 replies
4h0m

It is sad. Early YT was for hobbyists and those that loved to share.

null0pointer
1 replies
22h7m

Sure many of us also do patreon etc but that’s never really sat right with me personally

I'm curious what it is about the Patreon model that doesn't sit right with you? To me it seems like it's both the most respectful monetization strategy to viewers, and provides the creator with a much more stable income than YT ads, YTP shares, or sponsors.

kelnos
0 replies
21h30m

Agreed; I don't get the GP's aversion here. To me, ads -- especially ads embedded in the regular flow of a video -- are one of the most disrespectful things you can do to your audience. Asking for voluntary subscription payments (perhaps with some added perks beyond what you'd get as a free viewer) sounds like the best model possible. People will pay if they find your content valuable and can afford the expense. Sure, there are a lot of people who will freeload, but that's just life. If you don't find that acceptable, then you need to put more of your content behind a paywall.

If you can't make enough money to be satisfied with the Patreon model, and that makes you want to create less, maybe that's the correct outcome.

kelnos
1 replies
21h46m

I absolutely hate advertising in all forms, and will aggressively block ads whenever I can.

I pay for YouTube Premium, though I have no idea how much (if any) of that goes toward creators. If a YouTube channel I enjoy has a Patreon, I'll subscribe.

Advertising is psychological manipulation. I get that there aren't many ways for independent creators to get paid for their work, only a selection of sub-optimal choices, but ads are gross.

NoahKAndrews
0 replies
19h15m

I believe YT Premium supports creators better than the ads you would have watched would have.

AdamJacobMuller
1 replies
19h12m

Make your sponsored segments worth watching.

I watch a bunch of travel vlog channels and for the most part they advertise the same things (If I ever see another athletic greens sponsor segment or a four sigmatic ad I will scream -- I even actually LIKE four sigmatic products) but I have several channels whitelisted in SponsorBlock because the ads they do are hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/user/kingingit365

Watch some of their videos and you will see what I mean. I was watching the channel for a year or more before watching a video while sponsorblock API was down (it's volunteer run so it happens sometimes) and realized I was missing out on a really hilarious and important part of their videos, instant whitelist!

johnnyanmac
0 replies
18h53m

Sponsored segments always have stipulations on what you need to mention and how. Some may let you add some pizzazz, but that's why they all sound the same. Thats part of the contract.

Even that pizzazz is risky though. Sometimes videos get delayed simply because the sponsor comes in last minute and needs to debate the segment.

zamadatix
0 replies
23h18m

I think this is a spot where YouTube fails to give a "fully valid" option as a platform. As a user right now I can have YouTube Premium, be a Patreon, and leave a Super Thanks on a video but still get served a sponsored segment. At the same time on the creator side I have no way to target YouTube Premium users or people paying directly to the channel with different content while keeping it as the same posting on the same platform (i.e. all as one video post on YouTube). As a result, no matter how you slice it, there is no way to have things be "right" even given ideal and fully willing creators and viewers.

This leaves the only realistic way for a channel to make reasonable money to be via ads and sponsored segments targeting the majority of non paying users at the expense of the rest.

throw10920
0 replies
16h48m

As a creator - I'd be very interested to know whether a direct microtransaction system (not crypto, imagine something like PayPal) would be appealing to you. (none currently exists, but I want there to be)

Your per-video ad revenue is probably under 1c/video, right? If so, I don't think that many consumers would bat an eye at directly paying that cent (or more), assuming a sufficiently well-designed wallet UI (clear indicator of balance, easy refund system (with anti-refund-abuse countermeasures), current spend amount per session and spend rate prominently displayed, one-click content purchase with low latency, etc.). Does that sound plausible, or am I missing something?

sorenjan
0 replies
1d8h

I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising

I think most advertisers track how their ads are doing by looking at how much the personal discount code gets used, or tracking links in the description. I won't ever use any of that, so no advertiser will ever know I didn't have to suffer through the ad read about their product.

roboror
0 replies
1d

Obviously these sponsored segments are effective marketing otherwise no one would pay for them, but I'm sure they're far less effective with users who seek out tools like sponsorblock.

One thing I've always wondered is do sponsors request watchtime data for their sponsored segments? I'm under the impression that they don't, which is wild to me.

lrvick
0 replies
1d8h

I actively support channels and causes by purchasing merch, donating, etc. That said, I refuse to waste a second of my life watching ads of any kind or supporting adtech. Adtech is what has enshittified the entire internet and we must burn it with fire at all costs.

I use FreeTube to block all ads and sponsor segments and I teach everyone I know to do the same.

The ad model results in creators being restricted in order to be advertised friendly, and encourages mass spying, of which the data is often irresponsibly managed and leaked putting people in danger.

This model is fundamentally unethical to participate in from either side.

Make some merch, and provide a mix of accessible and anonymous ways to donate to you.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
19h13m

Honestly the VPNs are probably the most ethical usual suspects. They actually do what's advertised and the affiliate links for deals are decent enough. If it's so much noise that people know what it is already, mission accomplished.

But yes, I sympathize. youtubers aren't google, and this will just mean sponsors will push only on the biggest youtubers, wheras the small-medium sized ones need the money the most (where sponsor blocks can be half or more of their income).

heraldgeezer
0 replies
21h47m

I do worry that if this takes off

It won't. Honestly, most people use the official apps on their phones/TVs. Desktops and laptops are in a minority now, sadlyu, but good for stuff like this. Some know about ublock origin, but that's still a small % compared to the population.

godshatter
0 replies
22h38m

I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising, and it’ll be another nail in the coffin for creators.

I don't think I've ever purchased a product that I have seen advertised by a creator on YT that I hadn't already purchased before seeing it in a sponsored ad. That last bit I added because I used to use ExpressVPN and now I'm seeing some sponsored ads for it.

The deal has been made between the creator and the company already, it's been added to their video, so there should not need to be any noticeable affect from running sponsor block for people like myself who don't jump to buy advertised products when seeing them advertised by a creator I follow. Unless there is some kind of feedback that YT is giving the companies about who is viewing their sponsored ads, I guess, but I doubt that's happening. So my use of sponsor block (which I don't actually use - the right arrow button exists) shouldn't have any affect on sponsor finances that I can see.

I'm not against creators making money, but I don't want to see ads in videos placed by YT and I don't want to see them in videos by creators, but I understand they would like to make some money. I've given through Patreon to some creators, but I'm not going to do that for all of the dozens of creators I follow. If I could just press a button and tip a small amount to the creator when watching a video I really liked, using a payment method I've already set up, I'd start doing that in a heartbeat. But I don't know if such an animal exists.

belorn
0 replies
1d5h

The main area that SponsorBlock blocks are the type of sponsor read that typically are recorded separated from the video. Those are never going to be safe again blocking and it likely that most companies that uses that kind of services knows this. They are low quality, low effect, and thus (likely) fairly cheap.

At the other end of the spectrum, we got paid content and sponsored gear. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It turns the issue to a balancing act where too much sponsored content will likely ruin the viewer ship (and artistic freedom/integrity/happiness/extra), but in turn it provide an income. SponsorBlock has no effect here, but naturally users may not click on paid content if they feel like it too much like an advertisement. The channel Linus Tech Tips have a few videos on this, and its a fairly common topic on their wan show.

barnabee
0 replies
2h24m

likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole, not just those bad ones.

I’d like to see this.

If creators make money it should be from YouTube handouts from Premium and paid subscriptions and/or creators seeking funding directly outside YouTube.

Having less “professional” content (and less content in general) is a reasonable price to pay to break our dependence on adtech and the “attention economy”.

account42
0 replies
10h17m

I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising, and it’ll be another nail in the coffin for creators.

For advertisers masquerading as creators. Not all creators turn their hobby into a hustle and not all that do use abusive methods to extract money out of their viewers.

I do support some patreons and have also donated directly to projects I like but I would also be more than happy if payment opportunities for "creators" dried up entirely and we went back to an internet with more genuine content instead of crap designed to be profitable.

542354234235
0 replies
1d5h

Sure many of us also do patreon etc but that’s never really sat right with me personally

Patreon is people explicitly and knowingly agreeing to give you money in exchange for a service they want. Why does forcing people to watch ads preferable to that? Maybe I am misunderstanding what you mean when you say it doesn't sit right with you, because that sounds like you don't like the concept. I can understand if it doesn't bring in enough, but it is by far the most honest transaction between you and your viewers. Whereas with ads, you make the viewer the product and that doesn't sit right with me.

0x0203
0 replies
18h11m

If there aren't enough people willing to pay for someone else's work product to make it worth the producers time/effort, then I'd argue that maybe that work product is not actually worth producing in the first place. In the realm of youtube, that may require putting out enough quality content as a loss-leader to gain a following large enough that a percentage is willing to support the creator directly. Many have made this work well.

I have many issues with advertising in general, but put simply, it breaks the basic transactional nature of business. When the people benefiting from someone else's work product aren't the ones paying for it, then both the producer and consumer end up being taken advantage of for someone else's profit.

The way I see it, tools like Patreon that allow consumers to directly support people they benefit from are just what are needed.

voidUpdate
53 replies
11h21m

I still don't understand a lot of youtube advertising. Like for me, if I'm being advertised something, I instinctively don't trust it, because they're having to pay people to say good things about it rather than people who have used it telling me it's a good thing. And there are still so many sponsorships from places like BetterHelp, which has been known to be a scam for a while now, and Raid Shadow Legends, which is just a crappy mobile game that is about as "mobile game" as you can get. The only reason I use onshape is because a friend recommended it to me, and I was very skeptical about it initially

dkarras
19 replies
11h4m

you're not the target. advertisements work. the people managing ads are very meticulous about their spend vs. return. if you are seeing an ad of something for any noticeable duration of time, that means it works. by that I mean they get positive return from showing the world their ad. if it generates negative returns, it will be pulled pretty quickly. they are humans just like you and me, we don't like losing money.

also one should always be skeptical about the extent they believe they are not influenced by ads. that runs pretty deep. you say you instinctively don't trust it. but when the time comes to buy something, you won't automatically steer yourself towards a product that you have never heard before just because you have not seen an ad for it. having some names in your mind, even them showing up when you do research creates influence.

sidewndr46
6 replies
4h39m

This is the same myths that everyone in advertising propagates.

Such a belief purports that the effect of all advertising is measurable. It clearly is not. For example, someone sees your ad and decides your company is reprehensible. They were not a customer and they decide to never interact with your company. It's not possible to measure this. Anyone claiming it is holds what amounts to a religious belief.

The "generates negative returns" is the next myth in this. Whether or not advertising generates positive returns is not relevant. You can't measure the return of advertising in the first place. Even if you could measure it, you should be comparing it to the opportunity cost of not doing something more productive with that money. Which you also can't measure. No one rationally proposes that someone spends a hundred dollars on advertising to generate $100.10 in revenue is somehow a good use of money.

progforlyfe
1 replies
3h21m

pretty sure YouTube ads are directly trackable though -- if someone clicks it and funnels through to a checkout process and pays, they have a direct report of how much they spent on the ad versus how much they made directly from that ad.

YouTube in-video sponsorships are a different beast admittedly; however there is still some basic tracking through use of promo codes (Use code JOHN15 for 15% off). They can see a report of how much they spent on ads that mention JOHN15 and how many sales included that promo code -- if sales vs ad spend are significantly positive, it becomes simple math to determine how much more to spend on ads, or to discontinue them.

I suppose your point though was that it's not possible to track the negative sentiment generated by the ads (people who get annoyed and decide to avoid your company at all costs). That is true, but companies who rather go down the path of something trackable than an unknown shot in the dark.

sidewndr46
0 replies
2h57m

You're spot on with "go down the path of something trackable". The next step is they assume everything they tracked represents all data for all possible outcomes. It can't.

nj5rq
1 replies
1h38m

Such a belief purports that the effect of all advertising is measurable. It clearly is not. For example, someone sees your ad and decides your company is reprehensible. They were not a customer and they decide to never interact with your company. It's not possible to measure this. Anyone claiming it is holds what amounts to a religious belief.

What on earth? You obviously haven't worked on anything related to sales. It's clearly measurable: An advertisement is shown one day on TV, for example, the sales the next day are higher. That's the case 99% of the time. You can say it's not, and you can call that "religious belief", if you want to.

Companies use ads because they work, obviously. Everybody thinks they are somehow "immune" to advertisements because they are "smarter than the rest", but the sale statistics are plain and simple.

autoexec
0 replies
1h7m

Everybody thinks they are somehow "immune" to advertisements because they are "smarter than the rest", but the sale statistics are plain and simple.

My guess is that those people are the most susceptible to their influence. Even when you know the tricks being employed to manipulate you, it doesn't always make the manipulation less effective. It's like an optical illusion where you know what you're seeing is wrong, but you still can't stop seeing it.

It's the same with people who don't care about their privacy because "no one cares about what I do" without realizing that companies wouldn't be spending massive amounts of time and money collecting, storing, and analyzing every intimate detail of our lives that they can get their hands on if it wasn't making them money hand over fist at our expense.

Ads are not about education or product awareness. Everyone already knows what Coca-Cola is, but they still spend 4 billion a year in advertising. They wouldn't be doing that if they weren't reasonably sure that it was paying off for them. As surveillance capitalism continues to creep deeper into our lives companies are getting better and better at being able to track the success of their advertising and what they've been seeing so far hasn't caused them to scale back their efforts at manipulating us. It's just making them better at it.

blargey
1 replies
2h1m

For example, someone sees your ad and decides your company is reprehensible. They were not a customer and they decide to never interact with your company.

I can't immediately come up with a scenario in which all of the following is true:

1) The ad-viewer is repulsed by the ad

2) The ad is repulsive for reasons unrelated to your product/company's actual characteristics (otherwise they weren't a potential customer anyway)

3) This accounts for a significant portion of ad viewership (otherwise it's not relevant)

4) There is no social/media backlash (that would make the issue visible)

5) There is a significant positive ROI anyway (that's the only motive to continue that advertising campaign, which is required to sustain both negative and positive effects of the ad)

hightrix
0 replies
1h40m

Is not the modern internet and widespread usage of ad blockers that exact scenario?

Take a person that hates being advertised at, a persona that is growing. This person meets all of your criteria. Multiply this person across the internet.

When this person sees an ad, regardless of company or content, they are repulsed because they hate ads. This person likely runs an adblocker so when an ad gets through, they are even more angry. If this person sees this product in the store, they will avoid it.

Take a common example of Coca-Cola. Their ads are everywhere. This person would instead buy the store brand cola even though it has not been advertised at them.

lupusreal
3 replies
9h34m

I only worked in ad tech briefly and many years ago, but what I saw there was a game being played between the people who make/distribute ads and the companies that buy them. The game is to convince the people buying ads that ads have value, even when they don't.

Sander_Marechal
1 replies
6h36m

I am convinced that the bulk of online advertising money spent is just wasted. All it does is steal clicks and attributions for conversions that would have happened anyway.

riiii
0 replies
4h40m

I've been on the internet since before it was all about ads and clocks.

I've never intentionally clicked on an ad. It's either been an accidental drive by click or deception.

fhd2
2 replies
10h37m

From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them.

Now, huge companies do run focus groups and such to ensure their brand advertising has the right (psychological) effects. But it is inherently difficult to measure. And I've seen many mid-sized companies not do that at all, they run these ads based on what they believe might work.

Mind you, this is experience from 4 years ago, but I did find the ad industry, as obsessed with tracking as it is, to be surprisingly gut-driven. For a lot of it, it's hard to tell if it works.

I do fully agree that for people who know what they're doing, advertising absolutely works, in ways that are sometimes unintuitive to consumers.

iamacyborg
1 replies
9h14m

From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them.

Top of funnel advertising is definitely conversion oriented, just on a longer timescale.

fhd2
0 replies
8h58m

Fair, conversions are the ultimate goal. What I meant by conversion-oriented (possibly not the correct term) is ads where you measure their success based on sales, signups etc, as opposed to focusing on the number of impressions (views).

matheusmoreira
1 replies
10h22m

if you are seeing an ad of something for any noticeable duration of time, that means it works

It means my uBlock Origin failed. I will not be returning to that site as a result.

HenryBemis
0 replies
8h33m

You can always 'enter element picker mode'. With a little practice/knowledge you can block that element/frame/etc. forever. And/or add a layer with Privacy Badger and block altogether most of the sus domains.

Another 'trick' I employ (always with Firefox) is that I open links not to a "New Tab", but instead I use "Open in Reader View" add-on, so I "Open in Reader View" (it does exactly what it says on the tin), so I only get the clean text and the relevant images. That works for almost every website.

tormeh
0 replies
8h43m

They are very much not meticulous about ROI. The thing to understand about the ad industry is that it's incredibly adversarial. Companies need ads to raise brand awareness and make people aware of new products. So far, so well-aligned. From there on it goes downwards. A company's marketing department is in an adversarial relationship with the rest of the company, aiming to increase the ad budget at all costs. The ad agency often just gets a pot of money from the department, and instructions to spend it all, no matter how unproductive. Because if the marketing department doesn't spend their budget, it might shrink. ROI is often not a consideration at all. And if the marketing department actually do care about ROI, then the ad agency certainly doesn't. Then you have the websites themselves, with their clickfarms and general fraud, and the ad exchanges that empower them.

The whole business is teeming with waste and fraud, but it's a necessary evil so it stays.

nj5rq
0 replies
1h36m

you won't automatically steer yourself towards a product that you have never heard before just because you have not seen an ad for it. having some names in your mind, even them showing up when you do research creates influence

This is 100% percent true. I thought about exactly this, and it's the first time I hear someone say it, I am glad. I try to keep away from advertisements, but it's just not really possible, you get influenced by even what your friends or family say.

dgb23
0 replies
10h17m

Advertisement obviously works. But the premise or mechanism is not as clean and simple as you laid out.

Marketing, whether they are external firms or internal teams, have their own incentives, just like anyone else.

But… Personally I like good marketing and I‘m drawn to services and products who do so.

For example tech and games sometimes do very good marketing by providing educational resources, transparency through blogs/vlogs etc.

Some products are focused on a high quality, sustainable niche, and they do very pronounced, sometimes humorous over the top ads.

I „mistrust“ marketing if it wants to sell cheap crap in a disingenuous way. But I‘m glad to see ads for interesting, quality products.

freetonik
10 replies
11h18m

I feel the same. The more I hear about a brand in youtube ads (or any ads, for that matter), the more "scammy" feeling I get about it. At this point I feel I won't even consider looking into NordVPN, Betterhelp, or SquareSpace, even though I understand how this feeling is unjustified.

bugtodiffer
9 replies
10h55m

I understand how this feeling is unjustified

Every company you listed is bad.

NordVPN wasn't caught yet, but it's to good to be true and ALWAYS having 73% off is illegal marketing.

Betterhelp sold data to facebook to retarget you with ads.

SquareSpace had a security issue were entering the email of an old, not yet migrated account, was instant account takeover... how does this slip through security reviews?

Everything that needs my favorite minecraft youtuber to advertise it, is scam. It wouldn't sell without influencer marketing.

voidUpdate
8 replies
10h40m

The thing about nordVPN (and VPN services in general) is they always talk about how funneling all your traffic through them makes it more secure and it means that governments cant spy on you and whatever. But sending all your traffic through a single point of failure seems like a bad idea from a government protection view, and how is it any more secure than https? The only thing that I've seen it be good for is making it look like you're from somewhere else to watch different stuff on streaming services. I think Tom Scott put it well here https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY

zelphirkalt
1 replies
8h24m

But people are usually funnelling all their traffic through a single point of failure anyway: Their ISP. If your ISP is known to be bad, then it could be better to choose a good VPN service.

voidUpdate
0 replies
8h18m

And you'd better hope its a good VPN service since now you're sending all your traffic through that single point instead

wzdd
1 replies
9h10m

how is it any more secure than https?

Using a VPN doesn't expose the domain names you're viewing (via SNI) or the IP addresses you're connecting to to your ISP. It also (therefore) doesn't expose to the ISP the volume of traffic you're sending to a particular site, when you connect to it, or how long you stay there.

Whether your ISP is part of the threat model you're interested in mitigating is up to you personally, but this is how, depending on that model, a VPN can be more secure than HTTPS.

voidUpdate
0 replies
8h53m

Instead it exposes them all to the VPN company instead. You've just moved the attack point to another company

GuB-42
1 replies
9h9m

Most of what people use personal VPNs for is to break some rules, sometimes the law. Circumventing geofencing or content blocking is most likely against some terms of service. VPN services can't really advertise for this, so they talk about evil hackers.

schoen
0 replies
8h28m

I saw a couple of VPN promos recently where the sponsored YouTube presenter talked about geoblocking circumvention as an important VPN use case. I don't know whether the sponsor thought that was desirable or not (and also don't know whether the sponsor requested it or not).

iamacyborg
0 replies
9h13m

The same can be said for folks using Clouflare or Google DNS.

Majestic121
0 replies
8h39m

My take on NordVPN is that it's surely some kind of honeypot, to catch extremely illegal uses (pedos, drugs), or high value targets (journalists, politics ?). Not sure who's running it.

But if you're using it for mildly illegal things like having the Netflix catalogue from another place it's probably good enough.

Just don't install their app, configure it yourself, don't use it full time, and don't expect protection from anything other than low level law enforcement from your country. Expect your connection to be monitored when you're using it, as much as can be (so not breaking encryption, but all the rest for sure).

I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever other than the fact that it's been a high visibility service for very long, which makes me think it would have already been taken down a while ago if it was actually effective at protecting high value targets

maccard
8 replies
11h0m

I think you’d be surprised at how effective advertising is on you. An awful lot of it is brand familiarity. You mentioned some examples, but presumably you’ve seen more than three ads (not expecting you to list them).

Square space is one provider that commonly does these kinds of placements and I can confirm that it’s an excellent product (albeit expensive).

Where do you think your friend found out about onshape?

voidUpdate
5 replies
10h45m

Sure, it makes me aware of brands, and then I don't use their service because they have to pay people to say it's good. And I already have a web hosting solution, its the raspberry pi in my closet.

I've asked them but they may be asleep

matsemann
4 replies
10h18m

Ehh, if you go to buy a new car, will you buy a brand you've never heard of before? Or will you perhaps check out the brand you've seen ads for a hundred times in your life?

It's not a conscious decision, your mind is familiar with some of the brands more than others, for whatever reason, and that tricks you into trust. Sure, you still might look into reviews and stuff, but your mind has already been primed to some extent in what brands you even consider.

voidUpdate
3 replies
10h4m

If I go to buy a new car, I'll look at the brands I have experience with, like what my friends and family drive. If I can actually see what its like and have people I trust endorse it, I'm more likely to support it

matsemann
2 replies
8h6m

And people subconsciously trust people they interact with often, like content creators whose videos you watch. Most people think they're above being influenced by ads, but they're not.

voidUpdate
0 replies
7h53m

I barely interact with content creators. They don't reply to my comments very much, and even if they did, they'd still say they 100% support the thing they're being paid to say nice things about. I cant have a genuine conversation with them about the thing, how good it is, what the downsides are etc. See Kyle hill's vaguely recent video about scientific misconduct where they also advertise BetterHelp. The comments section was overwhelmingly negative about it, and their response was essentially "cry about it."

barnabee
0 replies
2h32m

Most people think they're above being influenced by ads, but they're not.

Exactly why they should be illegal!

Allowing people to spend money manipulating us into giving them money so they can spend more manipulating us into… is mad.

euroderf
1 replies
9h53m

An awful lot of it is brand familiarity.

Thus the ad industry term "impressions" ? One gets the impression (heh) that they're just trying to beat logos and catchphrases into your reptile brain.

"Familiarity breeds contempt"... but ubiquitous superficiality does not, I guess.

maccard
0 replies
6h35m

I’ve never realised the use of the word impression until now - makes a lot of sense

ctm92
3 replies
8h42m

It's to get people to remember the name.

What first comes to your mind when you are in need of a website builder? Squarespace. Want to make some PCBs? JLCPCB

voidUpdate
1 replies
7h51m

apache2/html/css, and I'm a little sceptical about pcbway/jlcpcb because the shipping times are nuts. I know its because they're coming from china but it makes me want to etch my own PCBs instead

I now sort of want to see a video about PCB etching sponsored by either of those because it would make me laugh from the contradiction

cruffle_duffle
0 replies
2h55m

The next project I build I want to try one of these services. The idea of a one-off PCB is pretty cool.

cruffle_duffle
0 replies
2h56m

My YouTube echo chamber directs me to pcbway. JLCPCB is clearly targeting a lower quality YouTube audience as I only watch sophisticated content creators whose stunning intellect make me feel comfortable in the products they endorse. I suggest you avoid JLCPCB on these grounds alone.

/s… at least I think :-)

matheusmoreira
1 replies
10h24m

I don't trust them either. The inherent conflicts of interest makes any advertising suspicious. They are guaranteed to be overstating the pros and understating the cons.

"Sponsored segments" on youtube are nothing but normal advertising, they just permanently hardcoded the ads into the video instead. I don't like that they use the word "sponsors" for that. Sponsorships can be an ethical way to make money. Think Patreon, GitHub Sponsors.

schoen
0 replies
8h26m

It might be a noncentral example of sponsorship, but it's been a traditional usage since the early days of television: "and now, a word from our sponsor".

Edit: actually, I think that phrasing arose in the early days of radio!

madaxe_again
1 replies
10h37m

This makes you an outlier - and HN is the kind of place where you will find many such outliers.

The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist.

My business used to be ecommerce platform development and consultancy, and I ended up seeing a lot of how the sausage is made - advertising is a bigger spend than product for most successful retailers, and it’s all about figuring out where to chop off the tail. You’ve got your core 15% who you can send an email to saying “buy this”, and they will, 95% of the time - then segments step down in terms of convertibility until you’re down to 0.01%, at which point you’re usually going to get more people irritated by the marketing than you will sales.

The marginal cost of most marketing is very low - that’s to say, to reach 10,000,000 eyeballs doesn’t cost much more than to reach 10,000 - unless you’re doing paper catalogues, which is a whole other thing, most of your cost is up front, artwork, direction, whatever - so it makes sense to shoot for a bigger basket and get some bycatch.

Me - I resolutely refused to do any marketing for our business. Mistake, bluntly, as I let my emotions get in the way of rationality. Had anyone other than a clique of medium-large UK merchants ever heard of us, the business might have gone somewhere - instead after a decade we were trundling along in a comfortable rut and I ejected.

So, you hate it, I hate it, it’s misleading, it’s annoying, it’s a negative signal to us - but it works on most people.

wzdd
0 replies
9h6m

The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist.

This doesn't follow. Plenty of things are not effective for what they're claimed to do but still exist, have active communities of supporters, make lots of money for their practitioners, are a large part of popular culture, etc etc.

cqqxo4zV46cp
1 replies
5h49m

The easiest people to advertise to are HN knowitalls that consider themselves infallible, completely logical beings.

Advertising works on you. You’re just, at best, describing a scenario where you aren’t being advertised things that you currently find appealing.

You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board.

lupusreal
0 replies
4h53m

That's a quippy response I've heard here before, but it doesn't check out. You, without any knowledge of my personal experience, are asserting that everything I know about my experience is wrong and I am deceiving myself by thinking I know anything about myself. But in truth, this is nothing more than your attempt to deceive me, plain and simple gas-lighting.

You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board.

If that's the sum of your proof, your thesis is a joke. I am not the customer of any YC company, nor have I ever applied for a job at one, nor have I ever or will I ever apply to YC itself. Your attempt to cold read me was pathetic.

joseda-hg
0 replies
12m

Advertising being so lucrative and Implicit endorsement being what it is (plus opportunity cost) means that any public person recommendation might as well be treated as advertisement, so you may only trust the advice of those you know directly

That's probably for the better, but it also means that you'll have blindsposts

Iulioh
0 replies
11h11m

The hardest thing about selling something is making people aware or it's existence. So it's not really a bad bad thing.

Said that, if i see that thing everywhere i can probably find a cheaper thing with the same quality because the marketing budget must be HUGE and these 10% discount codes give 10% to you and 10%the the creator so i can find a code 20% somewhere.

Ekaros
0 replies
8h37m

I am starting to think that these companies aim for saturation of mindshare. Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and such. This bombarding is there for you to remember the name of the company. And then when you are ready to purchase either go for it or try to find some sponsored segment again for that discount. Individual conversions are less important than the long term mindshare.

wanderingmind
28 replies
1d7h

Sponsorblock is not as blunt a tool as people make it here. You can only block specific type of ads and you can whitelist whole channels which I do for some niche channels I subscribe to. In Android, I use Tubular [1], the NewPipe fork that integrates Sponsorblock and ReturnYoutube Dislike. My only additional request in this awesome app is if we can download the video after snipping out the sponsor block sections.

[1] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

johnnyanmac
15 replies
19h16m

and you can whitelist whole channels which I do for some niche channels I subscribe to

Honestly, these are ads that actually support the content I watch. So that's why I keep the adroll by default. AFAIK Google isn't getting any cut of it and that makes me feel good.

ndriscoll
7 replies
18h59m

I don't understand this sentiment. Are you buying a product with a tracking code? If not, it's not supporting anyone, and watching a recording of a sales pitch you're not interested in is just wasting your time.

godelski
6 replies
18h36m

  > Are you buying a product with a tracking code? If not, it's not supporting anyone
Not all ads are equal. Most ad segments are performed with a direct transaction: advertiser hands YouTuber money, YouTuber puts ad in their content. There may be additional parts of the deal such as tracking codes, but that's not how it works.

The YouTuber gets the ad money, even if the video is not watched. Though that does not mean you should skip the ad, because the videos have heatmaps and no one would advertise if the segment was always "cold". Though what the OP is saying is you can send strong signals (to both the advertiser AND the YouTuber) as to what ads you're willing to watch and not. In fact, in this way, it is a great tool for making a more efficient market as it increases information quality. But only under the assumption it is both pervasive and not used bluntly.

ndriscoll
5 replies
17h43m

If you're not interested in the advertisement, then you're creating a less efficient market by signaling that you are. So you ought to skip past it or block it in that case. And if you're not interested in any advertisements, the market is more efficient when you block them all. Or just run adnausium if you're basically just trying to help creators scam advertisers.

Remember in all advertising funded models that you are always the product. The market is for "high quality" (i.e. profitable) viewers, not high quality videos.

paulryanrogers
3 replies
17h32m

Adnausium isn't making the market more efficient. It's wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.

ndriscoll
0 replies
17h28m

Right, I said run it if you want to help creators scam advertisers. That's more or less what you're going for if you're not interested in something, but you believe your "I watched the ad" signal helps the creator negotiate with advertisers.

matheusmoreira
0 replies
10h17m

It's reducing the advertiser's returns on their investments. Reduce it to zero or negatives and they will stop advertising. That's world changing technology.

There's no bigger waste of bandwidth than ads, by the way. Ads are noise that's deliberately added to the signal just because it makes somebody somewhere money. These are actually the most charitable words I can use to describe ads.

account42
0 replies
10h27m

It's wasting everyone's time and bandwidth.

No, that's what ads are doing. And not just your computers bandwidth but also your mental bandwidth. Fuck ads.

godelski
0 replies
9h47m

You're missing a critical part: there's additional information we can communicate. And that's what this is all about, what information is being communicated. The inefficiency is lack of perfect information.

If you indiscriminately watch or block that is a signal. Watch communicates potentially more because there's a secondary effect of some of those people buy the product. But by indiscriminately watching or not watching, we provide information about an interpolation along what was binary before. It is more complex to read, but now we can communicate that we don't dislike this add more than our willingness to support the channel. And on top of that, again our conversion rate. In a way, the discriminating information tells us something about the likely conversion rate. This is just more information, though that doesn't mean we are good at measuring it.

  > The market is for "high quality" (i.e. profitable) viewers, not high quality videos.
Yes, but profits aren't the only thing people care about. At least not all people. Money is still a proxy for something more abstract.

To make it clearer, there are in fact ads that I do enjoy. This is true for all of us because an ad is so vaguely defined. During a political campaign I appreciate some ads because I want to know the candidates positions, when they are debating, and so on. Too much of it pisses me off, but that's different.

I also like ads that make me aware of certain things that provide utility to my life, but maybe not yours and this can be based on timing.

So stop rejecting this and recognize that these are all attempts at communicating these other factors. It's another variable in a system of equations.

aniviacat
2 replies
10h42m

Why do you feel better about using Google's platform without paying (by watching ads) than about consuming someone's content without paying?

matheusmoreira
0 replies
10h11m

without paying

Attention is not a valid currency or payment method. Their service is literally free of charge. They did it that way hoping we would look at the ads. We're not obligated to do so. They have only themselves to blame for their risky business model that gambles on the idea that people might look at irrelevant content they didn't ask for.

They need to charge us up front if they want us to pay. If they send us ads, we'll delete them before they're shown. Nothing they can do about it. And we won't lose a second of sleep over it.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
10h27m

I do pay so the point is moot. But for the exercise:

Google has probably already well overextended it's reach and made thousands off data without my consent. And will probably make more without my consent from Gemini. They have so many cash glows that I couldn't care less about plugging one of the holes up. They've long burned their good will points.

Meanwhile, I am an aspiring indie dev and I've overtime gotten rough ideas of how and what other creators on YT are paid. I honestly feel bad knowing some of these people arguably work 5 times harder than I do selling their brands while making maybe half (if they are a really established creator, maybe 500k+ subs) of what I make just walking to my computer and typing into a codepad. Some can barely afford their rent despite this hard work, and potentially hundred of hours of entertainment given to me. And those are "big" (but not Huge) creators. Someone with 50-100k subs may still not be able to do their work full time, or they do it on the very edge of viability.

I can't do much. I subscribe to some crowd funds, but not all. being able to at least watch their ad rolls is some form of appreciation in my mind. So call it guilt or call it an odd emotional attachment.

I just want to try and pay it forward, knowing I may be on that seat one day.

torlok
1 replies
19h1m

What's the point of this? Nobody's getting a cut unless you use the affiliate link, and it's in the description anyway. You're just watching your favourite creator say how much they love ExpressVPN through gritted teeth.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
10h14m

CC's get paid for the sponsorship on top of any affiliate links. The RAID ads are the most obnoxious thing ever, but you dig through and realize even a tiny 2k sub channel can get a few hundred out of it (at this level you are getting maybe a few dozen dollars a month in YT ads) and you completely realize why they "sell out". I can only imagine the kind of cash moderate sized YouTubers (the 100-300k range) can get (i know a 400k YouTube disclosed half their revenue came from ad rolls, and their revenue was enough to live humbly.

You're just watching your favourite creator say how much they love ExpressVPN through gritted teeth.

Which one of us likes every aspect of our job? Or every order/request of a customer? Gotta do what you gotta do.

account42
1 replies
10h29m

Why not just donate to the creators you like instead of letting them or a third party psychologically manipulate you into giving money to that third party who in turn pay some small part of that money to fund the creator.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
10h10m

I try (tried) to. Money's tight now, but on the heyday of 2022 I was giving at least $5/month to 10 different creators. I'd say only 2 of those were even for a specific reward, 3 of then explicitly had no rewards.

But I'm subbed to 30 channels and probably "watch every video but am not subbed" to 10-15 others. I'm not quite at a point where I can support everyone I want to support.

anotherhue
3 replies
1d5h

yt-dlp has a sponsorblock integration that removes the segments from the downloaded file.

wanderingmind
2 replies
17h15m

Yes I use it in Desktop/laptops, but integrating it in Android through termux was a pain. I recently found out about [Seal](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.junkfood.seal/) which seems to provide a front end for yt-dlp in Android. Might try this out soon.

smahs
0 replies
11h24m

I first found Seal which uses arai2 under the hood. After getting used to Seal, I had to start using yt-dlp with aria2 on linux as well. The only nitpick is that you can't get multiple parallel downloads with Seal.

pxc
0 replies
16h52m

I use Seal all the time when people send me links to videos on social media, since, lacking the apps and accounts, I can't reliably or conveniently get them to play at the present stage of enshittification of those platforms. Seal is great! Definitely give it a try.

stavros
2 replies
1d

That sounds useful, thanks! Odd that it's not on any of the stores (eg F-droid).

Joe_Cool
1 replies
22h56m

It is in the Izzyondroid repo: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.polymorphicshad...

I can also highly recommend the app sponsored by Louis Rossmann: Grayjay. It can do everything that Tubular does and much, much more. It also uses a plugin architecture so you don't have to wait for an update of the app when Youtube blocks it again. https://grayjay.app/

It's also on the Play Store but without any plugins due to Google policy.

stavros
0 replies
17h45m

Thank you! I've added the repo and will look at Grayjay now.

seanw444
2 replies
1d

I've been using NewPipe X which is very similar, but now has comment reply viewing, which I really value. Does Tubular have that now?

aqfamnzc
0 replies
19h58m

Yes, they added comment replies functionality a little while ago.

aembleton
0 replies
21h11m

What's comment reply viewing? Do you mean viewing the replies to a comment because Tubular can do that.

bdw5204
0 replies
16h36m

I also use Tubular on Android. The one caveat is that Youtube changes seem to break the app on a regular basis so you do need to periodically return to the Github repo to update it.

dailykoder
14 replies
13h5m

I don't mind when youtubers have their own in-video ads tbh. Yes, a lot of them are often advertising really stupid shit (because it prolly gives the most money), but at least on most videos it doesn't break the flow as heavy as the normal youtube ads and it ain't as annoying. So I'd give them these few seconds of brainwashing me to deliver content that I like. That's fine.

I just stopped viewing people that use too many ads. Simple as that

Timber-6539
9 replies
11h26m

Your content creators were always going to increase monetization strategies, whether you gave them the nod or not. That's the beauty of capitalism hard at work.

I personally couldn't use YouTube without Sponsorblock as a matter of principle, I hate ads. Doesn't matter how many times you try to categorize and dress them up.

ok_dad
5 replies
11h15m

What's the alternative to ads? I pay for YouTube premium, and I just mute the sponsor segment ads in videos. I get good information and entertainment from those video creators, so I would like them to get paid to continue doing it.

jeffhuys
1 replies
10h48m

The sponsors don't pay less if you skip the segment. They won't know.

ok_dad
0 replies
7h25m

There’s some data available for this in the YouTube dashboard, actually.

wzdd
0 replies
9h2m

Some alternatives include merchandise, sponsorships (Patreon etc), tipping, and organic engagement / sharing so that more people can find them and give them money.

dailykoder
0 replies
10h57m

Yes, the alternative to ads is paying. As someone mentioned in this thread: It's kinda shit that these sponsored segments don't get skipped automatically if you pay for premium.

I am too greedy to pay for premium tbh and as long as µblock works with the normal ads, I'm fine. If it stops working one day, I'll probably rather stop using youtube instead of paying for premium

Iulioh
0 replies
11h9m

Just to make you aware, they added pseudo SponsorBlock on TY Premium.

If you "skip" 10 seconds on a sponsored segment a "skip to next part button" will appear on screen to the end of the sponsored segment (it does not use chapters and it does not appear 100% of times)

armada651
2 replies
10h59m

Your content creators were always going to increase monetization strategies, whether you gave them the nod or not. That's the beauty of capitalism hard at work.

And he can choose which content creators he watches based on how obtrusive their monetization strategies are, that is also very much part of capitalism.

Timber-6539
1 replies
10h48m

I'd argue choosing to watch for free content that cost money to produce is the opposite of capitalism.

armada651
0 replies
9h42m

I wasn't arguing in favor of SponsorBlock, I was stating that you have to option to not watch the content at all if the sponsorship is so annoying you'd consider installing something like SponsorBlock.

strogonoff
2 replies
8h51m

When content creator chooses and delivers ads (like the sponsored blocks on YouTube), as opposed to a network (like Google ads), it is actually worthwhile to me because 1) what they promote can be useful (since I subscribe to this channel in particular), 2) it is not fueled by a creepy shadow profile of me, 3) even if it is not useful, what they choose to promote (and how they do it) reveals something about them (scrupulousness, greed, creativity, what they think of me the viewer).

4ggr0
1 replies
8h44m

what they choose to promote (and how they do it) reveals something about them

maybe the YTers you watch are different, but that's not the case for me at all. Barely anyone promotes things which relates to their channel in the videos i watch. Hello Fresh, Manscaped, Squarespace, RAID: Shadow Legends, World of Tanks are the sponsor segments i mostly see, none of them relate to the video which they're in.

honorable exception is Miniminuteman who sometimes sells handmade jewellery made by a different creator and the jewellery even relates to the content of the videos.

strogonoff
0 replies
3h40m

Among the channels or podcasts I follow that do sponsored blocks, some occasionally promote interesting services I haven’t heard about before, some (well, let’s be frank, there’s probably only one in the world that really hits it home: Map Men) can do even the most basic generic VPNs in a manner that can be equally or more entertaining than the rest of the video, making one literally wait to see the entire ad (even when it is at the very end), some do big but informative sponsored sections where the presenter interviews the business.

8note
0 replies
12h27m

Bdouble0100's are as entertaining as the rest of the video. Still screws with the flow, but worth skipping then going back to watch after

Always42
10 replies
1d2h

i have been using sponsor block firefox extension for some time. It's incredible. Youtubers I watch (LTT, marcushouse) are typically shilling crap like vpn or those stupid ray bud things.

Youtube is not usable without adblocker and annoying without sponsorblock

rchaud
5 replies
1d1h

Those channels are essentially informercials with brand deals. Rather than skipping sponsors, I dumped them altogether. LTT content especially has become far more vacuous over time. It's as if the videos are a vessel around which to place ads.

flutas
4 replies
1d

Hard agree.

I used to watch LMG all the time, then it felt like the content turned to infomercials.

Then that whole drama thing went on and the fact that (in a leaked video) they had a manager say "you gonna get up on that table and dance for me" at the end of a HR meeting with zero reactions aside from laughing led me to fully block all of their channels.

To me it's clear they have an internal culture problem that came along with the money.

BonoboIO
3 replies
23h51m

I find the LTT stupid ideas like watercooling his server room funny but without Sponsorblock it’s a pain.

Also their merch … this is so overpriced. A screwdriver for 70 dollar, when nearly the same product costs 20.

But there are enough people that buy that stuff.

Dylan16807
2 replies
21h59m

As far as I'm aware it's a similar price to screwdrivers of similar quality. Much cheaper options exist but I wouldn't call them "nearly the same".

e44858
1 replies
16h49m

LTT themselves said they worked with Megapro to make a slightly modified version of their screwdriver. The original is $33.

Hawxy
0 replies
14h40m

They licensed the required patents from Megapro, but the internals of the screwdriver are bespoke and higher quality than the Megapro equivalent.

jamesy0ung
2 replies
20h23m

LTT is not even worth watching, it’s just sponsored crap now disguises as a informational video

MaxikCZ
1 replies
15h50m

I really dont understand how that channel can have so many fans. Makes me humble in realizing I really dont know how people work.

ThrowawayTestr
0 replies
3h27m

I know right? Personally, I only watch MIT lectures or C-SPAN highlights on YouTube. No idea how the proles can tolerate that slop.

Joe_Cool
0 replies
22h54m

The same dude (Ajay) also made a "clickbait title and thumbnail fix": DeArrow https://dearrow.ajay.app/

It's not as well known but also really great once you get used to it.

jocaal
8 replies
1d22h

The creator of this extension also makes DeArrow [1]. It replaces the clickbait thumbnails and titles with less annoying ones. I highly recommend it.

[1] https://dearrow.ajay.app/

xdennis
1 replies
23h7m

I used to use it, unfortunately it doesn't work so well with titles. It lowercases unknown acronyms and initcaps all words even in languages which Do Not Use This Capitalization For Titles.

teddyh
0 replies
10h17m

You can change that in the settings.

rendaw
1 replies
1d9h

Whoah, how does it do that? It looks like magic, so does it handle the clickbait use of "this" as well ("this game", "this recipe", "this film")?

I'm using one that just decapitalizes and uses a random frame thumbnail from the middle, which is okay.

gabegm
0 replies
1d9h

According to the extension homepage:

"DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.

...

There are currently 64,634 users who have submitted 230,432 titles and 107,027 thumbnails."

zamadatix
0 replies
23h9m

Oh my god, what a difference it made. Thanks for sharing this. I do wish this could have just been a feature tacked on the Sponsor Block extension, especially considering it has features which rely on that data, but otherwise it's perfect.

For those that haven't watched the demo video: for videos that don't have community thumbnails or titles it has options allowing it to automatically pick a random (non-sponsor segment) screenshot and automatically clean up the title (remove emoji, fix capitalization).

jug
0 replies
18h55m

Yeah, Clickbait Remover extension is similar. It's available for all main browsers and replaces the egregious thumbnails with a frame from either the first, middle, or last part of the video. I like it!

aniforprez
0 replies
13h45m

I found this extension significantly less useful than SponsorBlock. The "less clickbait" titles are all invariably written in a worse fashion and are overtly wordy and annoying. The non-clickbait thumbnails looked worse and were mostly random screencaps of unrelated portions of the video because most people didn't bother picking a proper screenshot. My barometer for this was Tom Scott's channel which generally has titles that are mostly all fine yet a lot of them were "rewritten" for no reason that I could discern

SponsorBlock is significantly more useful but you still see the same kind of annoying people there too. There's a channel called "11foot8" that puts out videos of the local 11'8" (+ 8" after they raised it semi-recently) where trucks disobey the height warning and get destroyed. Most of the videos are around 1 minute long yet there are people picking "highlight" moments in SponsorBlock to skip to the relevant portion. These are mostly videos about a minute long so it baffles me the kind of people whose attention span is that short to want to skip 10 whole seconds to get to the "action". These are the kind of annoying people that rule DeArrow. I didn't want to deal with that anymore

MaxikCZ
0 replies
15h53m

I stopped using this because I found out that I want that custom thumbnails and tittles as a signal of quality. Many thumbnails will signal which creator made the vid at first glance, where before I sometimes missed video from channel I have involuntary vocal reaction whenever they release a new vid (exurb1a).

Its also very helpfull for determining the quality of the video itself. Usually from that one picture I can tell that even if the video is about a topic I'd like to know more about, I definetly dont want to learn in that specific video. Removing this signal made me waste way more time in videos that seemed good from the tittle alone.

delta_p_delta_x
6 replies
1d11h

For anyone using an Android phone, the ReVanced[1] patches for the YouTube app (formerly just YouTube Vanced) applies both an adblock and SponsorBlock, on top of various other convenience features. You'll need to provide your own YouTube APK file to patch.

I'll never go back to using non-Vanced YouTube ever again.

Advertisements are a blight on this world. They are the reason for marketing and sales budgets being quadruple that of engineering and UI/UX budgets, the whole 'form before function' thing, and enshittification in general.

[1]: https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.google.android.youtube

MaxikCZ
2 replies
15h48m

Has the installation gotten easier? Last time I checked I needed to find a speccific version apk of youtube app itself that revanced patcher patches before installing. Too many steps to make way too often.

delta_p_delta_x
0 replies
9h20m

Too many steps to make way too often.

This is not how I feel.

The last time I patched my app was several months ago, and it's still running fine. I do have to patch about twice a year and it's a five-minute affair of getting the correct version, going to APKMirror and downloading the corresponding version of YouTube, and patching it with the latest app.

ThrowawayTestr
0 replies
3h25m

God forbid you have to expend a bit of effort every six months to get free entertainment and skip ads.

precommunicator
0 replies
3h58m

Unless you specifically care about app experience, you can also use Sponsorblock, ublock and many other extensions in plain Firefox on Android

cypherpunks01
0 replies
22h46m

Came here to say the same thing. Revanced YT patches for Android are extremely sweet. And yes, even better features (for viewers) than YT Premium.

BLKNSLVR
0 replies
19h41m

The only thing that moved me on from using (Re)Vanced was setting up my own Invidious instance, and using the Clipious app (F-Droid store) to access it.

Clipious, by default, connects to public instances of Invidious, so you can try it out without having to setup your own instance.

ReVanced remains my backup option, however.

torlok
5 replies
18h54m

Was looking for this exactly. I understand that you have to make money somehow if you want to dedicate yourself to YouTube, but I always found sponsor segments to be worse than native advertising, and just plain gross to watch.

lolinder
3 replies
16h48m

worse than native advertising

Hard disagree. Sponsored segments are better in a few ways:

* They're a return to the days where ads didn't need to be targeted at people but instead were targeted at content. "If you're watching this educational video you might like Brilliant" is a heck of a lot less intrusive than "I noticed you were searching for shoes the other day, so here's a Nike ad".

* The creator has to own it. There's no hiding behind the algorithm or Google or whatever, they have to actually read off the advertisement. I find the human in the loop serves as a valuable filter on what gets advertised (at least on the channels I follow).

* The best creators actually make the ad worth watching. See Terrible Writing Advice for an example. I don't always watch the ad, but I sometimes do because it's just fun.

In general I agree that ads are bad in all their forms, but sponsor reads are one of the least offensive items in a bad genre.

torlok
0 replies
11h36m

I noticed you were searching for shoes the other day, so here's a Nike ad

That's not native advertising. Native advertising is when you write an article about a subject just to shill a product.

On YouTube it's somebody saying they've been using Ground News to do research for the video, or that security it's important, then transitioning to a NordVPN ad. You're looking up to somebody for information, but then they turn into a psychopath for 2 minutes to push vitamin supplements when they damn well know you can just eat better instead.

bigger_cheese
0 replies
13h29m

I presume native advertising on youtube has more strict vetting (i.e. needs to comply with advertising regulations unlikely to be out and out scam etc) then creator sponsored content.

Some sponsored content seems like borderline scams to me I see a lot of creators shilling for stuff like "not a bank" banking apps etc.

alkonaut
0 replies
9h15m

"If you're watching this educational video you might like Brilliant"

I think there is a nuance. If there is a video that does this for 5 seconds in a 15 minute video, to sell a product they really know and like, and that is strongly related to the content, then sure.

But shilling random products? perhaps even "crap products" (you know exactly which ones: gambling, crypto-related, low quality SaaS...) and doing it for more than a tiny mention? This is basically the reinvention of ad funded TV, only the productions are crap in comparison and the regulation is non existent. So in that case, sorry, I'm happy to both watch your content with skipped ads, enjoy the content, and see your content disappear because your monetization fails.

godelski
0 replies
18h43m

  > worse than native advertising
While I agree with the sentiment, this point I highly disagree with. At least sponsor segments are (at their face) transparent. I'm sad that there's many disingenuous products and misinformation in these segments, but at least you know it is an ad. On the other hand, native advertising has all those same bad things but additionally tries to deceive you into believing it isn't an ad.

Analogously, I'd be upset if someone handed me a glass of piss when I asked for something to drink. But at least I can recognize it and turn it down. On the other hand, if you hand me a glass of piss and actively take efforts to make it look, taste, and appear like water, al while telling me it is water, sure, I probably won't be upset because I don't know. But dear god... if I find out... Well, I don't think there are many reasons that someone should be punched in the face, but that doesn't mean there are zero reasons to...

Deception is so much worse.

Btw: check out ReVanced[0]. You can rebuild the YouTube APK (and others) to integrate adblock and sponsor block. All optional too! Unlike pihole, it'll actually achieve that.

[0] https://revanced.app/

pprotas
4 replies
8h57m

uBlock Origin, Consent-o-Matic to automatically decline cookies, SponsorBlock and Argentinian VPN for $2/month YouTube premium makes the internet usable again.

nicce
2 replies
8h56m

What is specific with Argentinian?

pprotas
1 replies
8h44m

Some countries have way cheaper YouTube Premium prices, so you can just sign up in that country using a VPN. I think that these days Argentina might not be the cheapest anymore, though.

nicce
0 replies
5h16m

Ah, I thought that VPN should be bought from there.

fngjdflmdflg
4 replies
21h1m

One issue with SponsorBlock is that people use skip to highlight[0] on music, which should be illegal. To me there often is no highlight for music. You need to hear the first part of the piece in order to enjoy the second. And people have different views on what counts as the highlight. I don't even like seeing the skip to highlight color on the scrub bar in videos that are just music. Skip non music[1] is good though.

[0] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Highlight

[1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Music:_Non-Music_Section

Joe_Cool
2 replies
20h55m

You can just turn that off in the options including the marker on the seek bar.

Also when it is bad don't hesitate to downvote. The database is only that good because of user feedback (and some anti-botting measures). You can check hidden segments and votes here: https://sb.ltn.fi/

And messing about with the API is made easy here: https://mruy.github.io/sponsorBlockControl-sveltekit/

You can find this and many more things on the wiki you already linked.

fngjdflmdflg
1 replies
20h51m

I think that turns off the skip to highlight everywhere, right? I still want to see skip to highlight in non music videos. Also, looking at the use cases on the wiki for highlight, musics should not be allowed

Skipping to the point/most important part of the video Skipping to the part of the video referred to by the title Skipping to the part of the video referred to by the thumbnail Skipping to the part of the video referenced from a preview/teaser at the start of the video

There is no "most important part" of a piece of music. And the last three don't apply at all.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
15h6m

When people Listen to Giorgio by Moroder, but they skip the "boring talking part". Really shows the kind of respect today's people have for the pioneers. Sometimes I'll just loop the introduction as motivation (still has a really good beat!).

But yea, reason #2 for not wanting to use SponsorBlock. I have niche tastes, I don't trust others to tell me what's "the bad parts".

dangus
4 replies
2d1h

Also extra useful: iSponsorBlockTV. You run it in on a server and you can set it up with the YouTube app on all your commercial streaming boxes that don't support browser extensions.

https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV

add-sub-mul-div
2 replies
2d1h

How does this work, how does it get between the client and youtube.com?

synchrone
1 replies
2d

It uses the tv youtube app remote control over local network to see if it plays a video, and skips at the right time.

ilrwbwrkhv
0 replies
1d20h

Ha. What a fantastic piece of hack. Absolutely brilliant. Love it.

post_break
0 replies
23h23m

Oh my god I could kiss you. It works on AppleTV.

surfingdino
2 replies
10h53m

I like the technical side of such projects, because I'm a dev. I am also a creator and I am always conflicted when see such tools, because it does affect the bottom line of other creators.

welferkj
1 replies
10h47m

I hate the very idea of "content creation" for its own sake, so this is perfect. Youtube was a million times better when it was people uploading quirky and informative videos about stuff they actually cared about, as opposed to soullessly shilling "content" dominating the recommendations no matter how much you try to convince the algorithm you aren't interested.

alkonaut
0 replies
9h19m

A hundred times this. I'd go so far as saying I'd trade the 2024 media landscape for the 2014 one in a heartbeat. And honestly, I'd also trade that one for the 1994 media landscape. "Content creators" are the worst thing to happen to media in 50 years.

account42
2 replies
10h21m

Personally I just stop watching videos and entire channels with sponsored segments. If they are okay with shilling some crappy product for a little cash I don't trust them not to sell out or be deceptive in less obvious ways as well.

matsemann
0 replies
10h15m

I also feel it's annoying that videos have become so long to cram in more ad breaks. It's not that I'm "tiktok generation that only can consume short content", but some things just aren't warranted a 15+ minute video. I'm interested, but not that interested. Sorry Steve Mould, Veritasium etc., I love your videos, but many of them could have been a few minutes long

ThrowawayTestr
0 replies
3h23m

I also expect my entertainment providers to work for free.

wruza
1 replies
1d1h

Please if you report segments, use a correct type!

I’ve seen enough segments to be marked as ads when they are self-promotion and self-promotion when they are barely promotion and more like further exploration info.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
15h21m

It's pretty inevitable when you have stuff like this that "ads" devolves into "the boring parts". It's all volunteer driven and there's way too many videos to moderate, so it is what it is.

swfsql
1 replies
17h37m

I wish there existed something like this for arbitrary videos such as for movies..

sheerun
1 replies
9h30m

Skipping is not anonymous by default: "So, if you watch a video, and it does have segments, and you do skip a segment, then the server does get access the that segment ID, which is directly linked to the video."

alkonaut
0 replies
9h23m

What do you mean by "not anonymous" here? Obviously the server will receive what video you are looking at, as well as anything it can deduce from your request (such as IP) in order to work. Whether it just gets the video (required to work at all) or an individual segment (not quite required but could lessen the payload size) doesn't matter for the level of anonymity does it?

heraldgeezer
1 replies
21h51m

Firefox + ublock origin + this + enhancer for youtube = Youtube bliss :)

I dont auto skip sponsors as some are actually useful but clicking the button works

andrewmcwatters
1 replies
20h45m

I suspect if I was creating videos and putting them on YouTube, the best way to make SponsorBlock obsolete would be to put a banner on my video that lasted the duration of my video.

You’d then need to create a new type of in-video adblocker that displayed an overlay to cover the advertisement, since you could no longer block it by timestamp.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
15h8m

That may sadly be the next step if this does become prolific enough for ads to stop sponsoring individuals. A race to the bottom of quality against consumers who want free stuff and content creators who want to pay rent.

t0bia_s
0 replies
1d12h

Freetube.io has it implemented already few years.

seanvelasco
0 replies
10h40m

i've gotten used to having no ads thanks to Firefox with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock that it became painful when i try to browse the web on others' computers

SponsorBlock is a godsend when watching Linus Tech Tips where it feels like it's 80% ads and 20% content

for other YouTubers, i find that their ads are actually useful if they're relevant to the video's content. for example, i discovered Boot.dev when i was watching bigboxSWE

nikisweeting
0 replies
23h22m

For anyone that watches a lot of YouTube I also highly recommend the "Tweaks for YouTube" extension, it's totally transformed my watching experience and fixes a lot of the little nits I have with the facebook UI and algorithmic feeds.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tweaks-for-youtube/...

maccard
0 replies
11h2m

I think this is inevitable, but I’m also disappointed. I run an adblocker because deep tracking is invasive, consent can’t freely be given for every website, a significantly detracted user experience from relayouts while reading, huge performance costs, and bandwidth usage.

We’re seeing here on this thread that it is in fact that people just don’t want ads. These content creators need to be paid somehow.

j-bos
0 replies
19h59m

Youtube premium also supports skipping past commonly skipped video timestamps.

giancarlostoro
0 replies
20h50m

Honestly, my brain tunes out the sponsored segment. Just like it did for TV ads.

frankzander
0 replies
8h19m

Most thread opener start with "I" ... seems that people need to make a statement why or why they are not using Sponsorblock. Interesting.

dtx1
0 replies
13h5m

Firefox, UBlock, Sponsorblock. Only way to tube

ddtaylor
0 replies
13h1m

I have been using it since beta and it's always awesome.

dang
0 replies
1d

Related:

iSponsorBlockTV v2: SponsorBlock for TVs and game consoles - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37873749 - Oct 2023 (115 comments)

SponsorBlock – Skip sponsor, filler, intro, outro, like/sub reminders on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35733993 - April 2023 (4 comments)

SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26886275 - April 2021 (174 comments)

An open-source browser extension to auto-skip sponsored segments on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21743196 - Dec 2019 (101 comments)

Show HN: SponsorBlock – Skip sponsorship segments of YouTube videos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20778926 - Aug 2019 (137 comments)

bugtodiffer
0 replies
10h58m

I can not live without this.

Even if I am on a device with premium, I still need to use like 3 different blockers/extensions to get YouTube to a state were it is usable.

billpg
0 replies
8h43m

But how will I become an actual member of the House of Lords by buying a square foot of land in Scotland if I skip the sponsor blocks of videos?

OldMatey
0 replies
13h17m

Is there an equivalent that anyone knows about for Podcasts?