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SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

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Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#161

Post by johnnyanmac »

gosub100 wrote: post #135
Reubachi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> 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 you…

>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).

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#162

Post by ndriscoll »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #153
wanderingmind wrote: post #49

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…

>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.

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.

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#163

Post by jug »

jocaal wrote: post #8

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/

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!

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#165

Post by johnnyanmac »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #156
noone_youknow wrote: post #16

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…

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…

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.

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#166

Post by ndriscoll »

kelnos wrote: post #120
labcomputer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 YouT…

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

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#167

Post by johnnyanmac »

mkaic wrote: post #78
PeterStuer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 wi…

>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.

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#168

Post by godelski »

torlok wrote: post #164

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.

  > 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/

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#169

Post by godelski »

ndriscoll wrote: post #162
johnnyanmac wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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.

  > 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.

Re: SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

#170

Post by 0x0203 »

noone_youknow wrote: post #16

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…

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.

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