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SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

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Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#41

Post by stephen_g »

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.

That is the bit that makes me a little uneasy for running uBlock Origin with basically no exceptions, but then again, ad tech continues to prove to be so abusive again and again that I quickly get over it.

I figure that $1 a month on Patreon is worth hundreds of times more to a creator than the ad revenue I'm depriving them of, and buying any merch probably thousands of times.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#42

Post by donw »

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.

Maybe. But Google has sacrificed trust.

Look at the comments under "YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Gets 'Freedom Expression' Award Sponsored by YouTube"[1]. And this is on Hacker News, probably one of the more Google-friendly communities you'll find online.

This is how you kill a vibrant community of creators.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880582

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#43

Post by Nextgrid »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #36
Nextgrid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When it comes from a hostile company, yes.

You can mitigate the privacy impact of ads with countermeasures such as ad-blockers or provide fake personal information if asked.

You can't easily do so with paid services because you need to provide real information for the payment to be processed. This requires mutual trust on both sides of the transaction.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#44

Post by axiosgunnar »

franciscop wrote: post #23
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.

Will the sponsored bits be skipped if you pay for Youtube Premium? Or would you get to both pay AND be shown the sponsored segments?

Great question and we all know the answer.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#45

Post by ThatPlayer »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #37
DeusExMachina wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

YouTube does show the creator/uploader engagement throughout the video, so you can tell if there are less viewers for sponsor segments. My point is that info isn't necessarily shared through to the advertiser

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#47

Post by tomjen3 »

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.

Does it make much of a difference if I manually skip it? Those sponsor segments are always for terrible products.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#48

Post by jeltz »

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.

To me the issue is the constant races to create more and more annoying ads. I do not mind ads which are relevant and not too annoying, but every time advertisers find a new medium they abuse it as much as they can to squeeze every cent out of the channel even if it ruins it for everyone.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#49

Post by jasode »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31
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.

>It's not stealing because the creators will get paid anyway.

This isn't always true. As several sibling comments already mentioned, this "native advertising" of embedded sponsor spot via the Youtube personality as spokesperson -- is often "paid based on performance" which means the affiliate url links mentioned in the ad are measured for clicks resulting in new customers.

I'm not commenting on morals of using a plugin but just correcting a misconception about arrangements of payment for content creators.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#50

Post by kartoshechka »

londons_explore wrote: post #4

With a million labelled examples, it ought to be possible to use machine learning to detect sponsorships. A simple version using the auto-generated captions should be pretty straightforward - I'm sure a machine learning model can figure out how to detect "This video is supported by..."

Some channels make a lengthy sketch with sponsor "reveal" at the very end
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