SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube

I'm not going to bash this or anything, I see why people dislike the sponsor segments, it's advertising after all, but as someone who honestly could not afford to donate to every single channel I enjoy watching, I'm glad content creators have a way to make money while still providing content essentially for free. I'd rather sit and watch a silly ad than just not have access to the content because I couldn't afford to donate that month or something.

Similar, I've actually found that they are producing useful adverts, but I'm in niche high-performance manufacturing, so once it figured that out... Also, I'm happy to give a bit of sponsorship funds to creators I like, as long as I can skip the obnoxious adverts in <5sec (that's more than I need to sort useful from chaff).

There's at least one Youtuber that I enjoy who actually makes decent ads. I'd hate to skip over them because they're usually funny.

This is about skipping sponsorship ads that are part of the content, inserted by the creator. The "This video was sponsored by <VPN Company>. For x% off, go to <vpnco.org/whatever> and enter My Channel Name" type things.

Right. And I have no problems with this stuff being stuck into content that I pay $0 for, as long as it's not obnoxious.

Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik and Internet Historian come to mind. Nord VPN Man and Raycon Man ads are the highlight of the latter's videos.

Jay Foreman (Map Man, Unfinished London) does sponsorship messages as silly skits, which is nice.

I prefer those sponsored segments to regular web ads. They are old school, no tracking and are usually relevant to the content I am watching. I can't afford to donate to the YouTubers I like so I'm glad they can make money from those ads.

I don't mind sponsored segments in general, but most of the channels I watch end up with some combination of Raid Shadow Legends, Nord VPN, SimpliSafe, Squarespace, and Raycon. It's actually refreshing when the sponsor is in some way related to the channel content, but I find it's fairly rare especially on the higher-subscriber channels.

I pay for YouTube Premium, which goes to creators, so it's extra annoying to still have to watch a million awkward VPN pitches.

I pay for Youtube Premium specifically because I DON'T WANT TO WATCH ADS.

Ever.

I hate ads with a passion.

I get the fact that content creators need to make money, but there needs to be a better way.

Youtube needs to give content creators a way to put ads in their own content in a manner that gets automatically hidden if people pay for Youtube Premium.

Worst case scenario, I would even pay for a higher tier of Youtube Premium that let me hide that type of sponsor ad.

YouTube Premium pays creators substantially more than viewing ads would, and the creators thank you by shoving ads down your throat anyway. Skipping them is more than fair.

Yeah, agree with this 100%. Really want to support creators, but I’m also specifically paying not to see ads. Would also pay for a higher tier were it available.

Ideally the terms of any such new higher pricing tier would preserve creator profitability (versus whatever arrangement they have now), but not sure how realistic that is once it all comes under Google’s purview.

I note that a lot of the best creators seem to put their private sponsorship arrangements at the back end of their videos, so at least you can switch away after the content is over.

One of my favourite instances of this was in podcasts where Cards Against Humanity sponsored and just sent one of the podcasters toasters to review: https://cardsagainsthumanity.com/toasters/

Nothing else was said about the sponsor's product. There should be more sponsors like that.

I think people aren't realizing that the SponsorBlock tool also isn't just blocking sponsored segments. It also has options to skip other segments too such as intro segments, self promos, engagement badgering, etc...

A couple examples from Linus Tech Tips when I compare the video times with all these segments skipped versus nothing skipped:

Original: 14:10 SponsorBlock: 12:38

Original: 14:11 SponsorBlock: 12:04

Original: 19:31 SponsorBlock: 17:40

I'm saving almost 2 minutes in each of these videos and there are many creators who are much worse in this regard. I've had some shorter videos where they basically are half as long once all the crap is cut out of it. It's also nice for when I don't have my hands on the keyboard/mouse such as if I've got my laptop connected to my TV. I will get some videos queued up and set my wireless keyboard down to the side and just watch. With AdBlock + SponsorBlock I don't have to touch the keyboard or mouse through multiple videos and can just enjoy things without issues. I don't have to worry about skipping past ads, sponsor segments, intros, outros, self-promo's, etc...

Overall it just makes my viewing experience so much better. At one point I had YouTube premium but it felt like I was paying so much to basically just get rid of ads but not completely get rid of them. Even with ads gone I still have sponsor segments. And if I'm having to use a tool to skip sponsor segments it starts to make me just not care to even pay for the product anymore.

Yes, yes, yes. YouTube can solve this problem easily by requiring annotating ads "chapters" from the uploader, then having a higher paid tier that skips these chapters.

I am the same. I hate ads, I pay not to see them, and hate anything that has "paid sponsorship" inside the content. It's like product placement/shows designed to sell things, in between the outright advertisements occuring all over again.

Tired of getting VPNs, audiobooks and mobile games getting flogged to me by people who are reading a script and come across as disgenuine all because they have a big enough audience that can be monetised.

I don't like being monetised.

Internet Comment Etiquette was the one I had in mind, yeah.