Sponsorblock for Youtube: users mark segments of videos that have sponsored content, and the extension skips over them. It also skips past introductions and interaction reminders.
I kind of object to this because it's directly messing with creators' efforts. Obviously I'm not telling people not to use it, but I think it's worth thinking about the channels/creators you enjoy - especially if they've been demonetized by Youtube.
Youtube already has ads. Yes, Youtube's revenue model is atrocious for creators, but running your own ads on top of their ads is really not the solution. LinusTechTips is the most egregious example of that. After sitting through two Youtube ads, I have to look at their preroll and postroll for sponsorships, as well as a midroll for another sponsor or their merch store. It just gets tiring after a while. I can't imagine how people who pay for Youtube Premium must feel.
I don't know, I look at it almost exactly in the opposite way. I used to block Youtube ads with uBlock and now use Youtube Premium, and ads that are baked into videos by creators themselves don't bother me.
The ads that are baked into the video don't have tracking code because they're just part of the video file, they aren't an extra javascript burden, often the sound/transition is far better and not so jarring-- really they're IMHO the least "bad" form of ads- better than the alternatives in almost every way- and often these ads are more relevant to the content and probably support the creator well.
I would much rather have a creator do sponsor spots in their video content than ever get served a javascript ad from some ad company.
How does blocking such an in-video ad hurt the creator? If there's no JavaScript, there's presumably no way of tracking "views", right?
It seems like the only harm is that I won't see/click the ad. But I think anyone who runs an ad-blocker is already the sort of person who won't click ads. Even if someone advertises something I'm super excited by, I'll want to take a few days to research the product - and I'm not going to go dig up the sponsored link when I decide to buy in.
I'm not actually saying that I agree that it hurts the creator, just listing the reasons that I don't bother blocking them. I am not necessarily against the idea of sponsorblock- I hate all advertising in general (and even despite this I still fall for ads I do see and check products out...maybe that makes me hate them even more) it's just that in-video ads are the kind of ads I am least inclined to go out of my way to remove or skip.
And, I can't tell you what the difference is- it seems it would be the same- but sponsor spots in audio-only podcasts bother me more than ones in videos. Maybe it's the length. The majority of the content I watch keeps sponsor stuff short- but the podcasts I listen to make a 5-10 minute infomercial out of them, so I do skip them more often in podcasts
As far as whether I think there's any harm to creators from skipping sponsored spots, it's possible that whatever statistics/analysis creators have access to on the platform might inform what they're able to tell their sponsors as far as views/etc. - but I don't know to what extent that goes
I think that's ideal, but will never happen, because aside from creators making money, YouTube wants to make money, and they won't make anything on ads built into the video
Yeah at some point, they're running more ads for sponsors because they want more money. Add another sponsor? Increase pay for their employees, buy new equipment etc. But at what point do you say "nah u don't want to support you THAT much, I won't watch the sponsored video"? Like, YouTube already pays them from YouTube premium subscriptions, at what point is the creator now just being greedy?
The extension actually lets you customize the behavior based on the type of video segment. In your case you could configure it to not skip sponsored segments but skip other segments e.g. the non-music parts of music videos.
Don’t most people just spam right arrow to skip through sponsor segments anyway? For me, sponsorblock just automates this process. As others mentioned, it’s pretty granule and has a lot of options for things like intros, intermissions, etc in addition to sponsor segments.
I mean, it only messes with the efforts of the advertisers, right? Not that they can detect how many views the sponsored block has. Ofc if this becomes too popular, the ad industry will eventually catch up, but this is long ways away imho.
I'm actually curious about this since I've never uploaded to youtube myself. Do the creators get statistics on segments that are commonly skipped, or is all information like that hidden?
