Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

sponsor.ajay.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 185 posts

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#61

Post by qshaman »

zeta0134 wrote: post #58
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…

Personally, I just pay content creators as directly as possible. If they have a YouTube subscription option available I'll do that, but most of them seem to have a Patreon instead. If I like someone's content, a couple of bucks a month (or a video, or whatever) is more than worth it to me.

I have the right to watch or not whatever I want , in the same way publishers have the right to add sponsorship content on their videos, same applies to ads , if you don’t want to see ads use an adblocker or skip the sponsorship part with an app like this one. If creators don’t like it , they should find another way of monetizing their work. Shaming people into watching ads is disgusting and wrong.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#62

Post by qshaman »

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.

How is this stealing? They can charge for the video if they don’t want people to see it for free. People have the right to not watch ads.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#63

Post by FreeFull »

Jack000 wrote: post #60

- the more people that use adblock/sponsor block, the less effective ads are in general (lower advertiser ROI for each ad) - if ROI for ads drop, ad sellers (eg. youtubers) have to reduce the price charged to advertisers - given that ad budgets are more or less constant (companies will always need to reach customers) there will simply be more ads, since each ad view is now worth less. - if ads become completely ineff…

Are the people who tend to use adblock likely to actually engage with the ads with adblock off?

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#64

Post by csdreamer7 »

Blocking 3rd party network ads do deprive creators of revenue; but using uBlock Origins does have these important benefits:

*Protects you from malicious attacks through 3rd party ad networks.

*Keeps your browser fast from trackers.

*Stops intrusive ads that literally take up 30% of your screen and move the website around making it difficult to read an article.

But sponsored segments built into the video itself? It has none of these issues. A lot of creators do what they love, but they still need income. If you value the content they create these sponsored posts allow them to keep doing that or you can chip in a few bucks to pay for an ad-free feed.

Video is a lot of work.

Source: made my own DevOps video course that I had to video edit + now part of a video D&D podcast that I thankfully do not have to edit or subtitle.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#65

Post by spockz »

qshaman wrote: post #61
zeta0134 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I just pay content creators as directly as possible. If they have a YouTube subscription option available I'll do that, but most of them seem to have a Patreon instead. If I like someone's content, a couple of bucks a month (or a video, or whatever) is more than worth it to me.

I have the right to watch or not whatever I want , in the same way publishers have the right to add sponsorship content on their videos, same applies to ads , if you don’t want to see ads use an adblocker or skip the sponsorship part with an app like this one. If creators don’t like it , they should find another way of monetizing their work. Shaming people into watching ads is disgusting and wrong.

I think it strongly depends on your legislative region whether you are allowed to watch whatever you want on your own terms if the content has been published under different terms.

When you use YouTube you accept the terms and conditions (at least the parts that apply in your jurisdiction) which (probably) should state that you are not allowed to circumvent ads. If you do so you are in violation. Not sure what the consequences of that are though.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#66

Post by spockz »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #19
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…

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.

Does YouTube share a part of your premium/fee to the creators based on what you watched? That is actually pretty neat.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#67

Post by stock_toaster »

FreeFull wrote: post #63
Jack000 wrote: post #60

- the more people that use adblock/sponsor block, the less effective ads are in general (lower advertiser ROI for each ad) - if ROI for ads drop, ad sellers (eg. youtubers) have to reduce the price charged to advertisers - given that ad budgets are more or less constant (companies will always need to reach customers) there will simply be more ads, since each ad view is now worth less. - if ads become completely ineff…

Are the people who tend to use adblock likely to actually engage with the ads with adblock off?

Yeah, I always wondered if adblockers actually _improved_ per ad engagement, as users of an adblocker are opting themselves out of advertisement (thereby removing themselves from "inventory"), and seem like they would be less likely overall to engage with ads, and thus the adblocker usage is reducing the number of non-engaging users.

Sure, overall "inventory" would go down, but I would expect for ads that actually make it to users, per-ad engagement/ROI (and thus "value") to go up.

----

Unless ad networks are charging advertisers for ad units that aren't actually shown to anybody, which smells an awful lot like grift to me!

(effectively charging for hidden ad units to inflate numbers)

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#68

Post by ddevault »

antiterra wrote: post #57
cyborgx7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is bad and I will oppose it in all its forms. What other system for financing the content does or doesn't exist is irrelevant to the my decision to block as much advertising out of my perception as I can. That said, Patreon seems to be working very well for a lot of people making high quality content.

That reads an awful lot like: “If a content creator’s patronage is not in the form I prefer, I deserve to circumvent that patronage and consume their content anyway. It’s irrelevant to me how & if they are compensated.”

Correct.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#69

Post by delecti »

qshaman wrote: post #61
zeta0134 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I just pay content creators as directly as possible. If they have a YouTube subscription option available I'll do that, but most of them seem to have a Patreon instead. If I like someone's content, a couple of bucks a month (or a video, or whatever) is more than worth it to me.

I have the right to watch or not whatever I want , in the same way publishers have the right to add sponsorship content on their videos, same applies to ads , if you don’t want to see ads use an adblocker or skip the sponsorship part with an app like this one. If creators don’t like it , they should find another way of monetizing their work. Shaming people into watching ads is disgusting and wrong.

> I have the right to watch or not whatever I want

You don't though. You have the right to not watch whatever you want, but if content is published with the value proposition that the ads and/or sponsorships are the price of admission, then it's hard to argue that you have the right to access the content anyway. Some publishers try to enforce restrictions like that, mostly ineffectively, and it's probably only because of technical challenges that more don't.

Re: SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

#70

Post by hemloc_io »

FreeFull wrote: post #63
Jack000 wrote: post #60

- the more people that use adblock/sponsor block, the less effective ads are in general (lower advertiser ROI for each ad) - if ROI for ads drop, ad sellers (eg. youtubers) have to reduce the price charged to advertisers - given that ad budgets are more or less constant (companies will always need to reach customers) there will simply be more ads, since each ad view is now worth less. - if ads become completely ineff…

Are the people who tend to use adblock likely to actually engage with the ads with adblock off?

I've always wondered this.

To add a datapoint, I've used adblock forever, but in places where I do see ads I've never had the thought to click on them, just get past them as quickly as possible.

Other people in my family however have bought things through Instagram/Facebook ads, so there are at least SOME people buying things through ads. They also have never bothered to install adblock.

Conversion rates for ads are super small in my experience anyway so driving conversion up should(?) balance the price out the price of people using adblock who would not see anything, and would not click if they did.

Post reply on HN