SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube • Hacker News Board

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#31

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #2

I understand people don't like ads, but at some point doesn't someone have to pay creators for content? This feels just like stealing: I don't know how you can justify it: sponsor spots don't track you and they don't slow down your computer. Yes they are a minor inconvenience but they make the content you watch possible.

It's not stealing because the creators will get paid anyway. Second, said creators have minimal expenses because YT pays for the hosting. Third, ad and sponsorship blocking represents only a small fraction of users. It's a fraction to, say, people sharing their netflix account.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#32

Post by Nextgrid » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #20

donw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious if direct revenue shares are a sustainable model. E.g., I pay some money -- $10/month. I can choose to pay more. A fraction of that is divided evenly amongst all the videos I've watched. Creators get a check at the end of the month. This wouldn't rake in billions of advertiser money. But I think it would sustain a very decent business, and be better for society in general. This does need to be voluntary:…

That is literally how YouTube Premium works today, but people seem to feel entitled to watch without paying any money and blocking the ads.

I can't blame people for not giving money and personal information (signing up to Premium requires creating a Google account and provide true personal information for billing purposes) to a hostile company that makes its money on stalking users.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#33

Post by chii » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #30

vages wrote: post #9

I get the technical justification for doing this: You own your player, so you should be able to control it in whatever way you want. But as consumers, how do we expect the uploader to get paid for their work if we use both Adblock and Sponsor-skip (for the lack of a better word)? Pay to watch is, of course, an option, but that leads to discrimination based on income – unequally distributed between parts of the world…

Ads and sponsorships are two ways that creators can earn a living, but there's additional ones; YT subscriptions, Patreon and selling merchandise comes to mind. Anyway the sponsors won't know (unless I'm mistaken) if a viewer skipped that segment, so the creator will get paid anyway.

the sponsors will have metrics to measure the conversion rate from ad-rolls in their sponsored videos. They will pay initially, but over time, less and less as the ads become less and less effective.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#34

Post by Nextgrid » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #2

I understand people don't like ads, but at some point doesn't someone have to pay creators for content? This feels just like stealing: I don't know how you can justify it: sponsor spots don't track you and they don't slow down your computer. Yes they are a minor inconvenience but they make the content you watch possible.

The problem with sponsor spots is that they're the same every single video, there's just not enough diversity on the market.

Is it bad to be skipping a sponsor segment because you've seen it dozens of times? Is it bad if you're already a happy user of the advertised product? Etc.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#35

Post by Raed667 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

I have been using this for a while, and beyond the sponsorship for whatever earbuds-junk or loot-box scam, this also skips those annoying intro sections so many Youtubers add just to pad their watch-time.

100% recommend

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#36

Post by throwaway3699 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #32

Mindwipe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is literally how YouTube Premium works today, but people seem to feel entitled to watch without paying any money and blocking the ads.

I can't blame people for not giving money and personal information (signing up to Premium requires creating a Google account and provide true personal information for billing purposes) to a hostile company that makes its money on stalking users.

So, basically, ads are more private than subscriptions?

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#37

Post by throwaway3699 » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #22

ThatPlayer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I do pay for YouTube Premium, so videos I watch do make money (and do not have ads for me). As for in-video sponsor segments, I doubt the actual sponsors get any analytics about when they're skipped or not.

They surely get analytics on how well a sponsorship works since they use dedicated URLs. And if a sponsorship does not produce a return on the investment, the sponsor will stop giving money to the content creator.

I would also guess there's some watch time data access through the YouTube API, too. Plus tracked links in those cards at the corner of a video.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#38

Post by disiplus » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #2

I understand people don't like ads, but at some point doesn't someone have to pay creators for content? This feels just like stealing: I don't know how you can justify it: sponsor spots don't track you and they don't slow down your computer. Yes they are a minor inconvenience but they make the content you watch possible.

i pay for youtube premium, i don't want ads, if you bake it in your video i'm still seeing ads i don't want. And it's ads about VPN that are allways the same. I don't want that.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#39

Post by Nextgrid » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #10

gadders wrote: post #3

Someone needs to build similar functionality into a podcast player.

Go on, ping the developer and let them know. Earlier is better to expand something like this to $everything, like what happened to youtube-dl, precisely because the codebase is less mature and it's easier to rip things to bits earlier than later.

Integrating this into youtube-dl would be great.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#40

Post by axiosgunnar » Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

vages wrote: post #9

I get the technical justification for doing this: You own your player, so you should be able to control it in whatever way you want. But as consumers, how do we expect the uploader to get paid for their work if we use both Adblock and Sponsor-skip (for the lack of a better word)? Pay to watch is, of course, an option, but that leads to discrimination based on income – unequally distributed between parts of the world…

By your logic, high-income viewers (such as most of the HN users) are currently paying *more* for viewing videos than the average viewer since their attention is worth more.