SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

That's the dream. Ads are a poison and a blight.

Removing them is something many users, including me welcome. If one wants money for their videos, they're welcome to actually allow getting payments i.e. patreon, the "Youtube sponsorship"-thing.

However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

Typical income flows for streamers include:

1. Passive advertising from video and stream platforms (which many adblockers do block)

2. Active advertising via sponsorships (which SponsorBlock wants to block)

3. Live stream donations

4. Video/stream-independent donations, most usually via Patreon

5. Paid "premium" or behind-the-scene programmes (partly overlaps with video/stream-independent donations due to their obvious weaknesses)

6. Merchandises

And not all streamers can do them at once. Live stream donations only work for some genres of streaming and it is easy to stress audiences. Usual donations may or may not work, but it is usually thought to be weaker than live stream donations due to its passiveness (unless you come up with very different perks, but then your income is completely independent from streaming).

Many high-profile channels rely greatly on merchandises because it does have significant margins if you can keep launching enough of them, but they are especially risky when your channel and/or stream is not large enough. So smaller channels have traditionally relied on passive advertising, but its flaws are well known and discussed to the death by now. (If you need a list though, higher processing fees, prevalence of adblocking, generally too low income to be sustainable, extreme platform dependence etc.) This leaves active advertising as a compelling option for smaller streamers, at least for now.

While I do loathe most kind of advertising, active advertising like this is something I can (barely) tolerate because it is meant to be performed by streamers themselves, unlike passive advertising which rarely relates to the streamer or content itself. And I'm afraid that there doesn't seem to be any other viable option remaining. I can always skip an ad portion of a video if I do find it annoying anyway.

The end game of ad blocking tech is to make ads a non viable source of revenue so creators will move on to ethical platforms like LBRY or peertube where creators are in charge again and users can pay them directly with no corrupt middle-men .

I would suggest being an early adopter on alternative platforms building a direct relationship with a more independent donation-motivated audience before everyone else does.

Or they have to accept that what they do is not a full time job but rather a hobby and they need to find other ways to earn a living.

Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

- Flip phones are celebrated in some threads because people don't want smart phones (extreme minority in real life)

- Disabling JS and pushing sites to go back to just raw HTML CSS (with some even not understanding why we need JS, extreme minority irl. IRL site owners care about attracting customers and the things they want to do can't be done with raw HTML CSS much of the time)

- Kagi taking off. IRL most people still do and will continue to Google

- People acting like if ads were disabled forever the population would totally pay for things they like (IRL people don't, there's a reason piracy is big. People want the things they want for the cheapest cost possible)

HN is a very specific type of tech-centric bubble

Again, not that your content isn't likely appreciated by your audience and valuable. I just miss the days of youtube just being a fun video platform instead of another TV channel.

[1] Just one example https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubegaming/comments/p1qmgu/conte... [2] https://backlinko.com/youtube-users

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.

Than I can decide if their content is worth money to me (let me tell you: in 999 out of 1000 "creators" it isn't).

But I already pay for a few select content creators. And happily shell out more than I would pay YT for an adfree experience.

A more likely future is less video rather than people move to PeerTube and shake an upturned hat for donations. Which doesn't bother me much, but is likely to invoke the FAFO gator on a lot of folks.

Maybe this could all be YouTube, but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

The current situation with YouTubers asking people to subscribe to their Patreon or whatever is so weird, since often they have to distribute patron perks outside of YouTube, or via unlisted links, or whatever. I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation, but an integrated solution like that would likely be better for both creators and viewers.

The current deal gives me no value, it just distributes more money to promote quantity crap over quality.

Someone needs to figures out how to take my money and distribute them to people working on actually valuable stuff.

And while YT is a lot about casual nonsense, there are other big tech walled gardens, where content fights against some corporate-controlled algorithms, but the content is our entire public discourse nowadays. :( And people still do not want to understand what a terribly bad idea that is...

You mean I could get a f...ing text again about things, which I could just read at my own speed, skip back and forth by just moving my eyes, use the search function, skip pieces of it, etc etc, in just two minutes instead of ten minutes watching a video clip for the most trivial statements?

What a baaad world that would be...

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7636690

It is? That's not my observation. In fact, music piracy seems to be all but dead, thanks to the streaming services. Movie piracy is not, and seems to be increasing (hard to say though), because of people getting frustrated with the fragmentation of streaming; back in Netflix's heyday, it seemed like movie piracy was much smaller, because you could just pay $7/month to Netflix and watch whatever you wanted.

>People want the things they want for the cheapest cost possible

No, most people want convenience. That's why music piracy is basically dead. Piracy is usually a PITA, and it's easy to subscribe to Spotify or Apple Music and listen to everything you want. Piracy is usually a service problem, not an economics problem.

We need direct microtransactions on the per-video/content-item level.

why do you need a financial advisor to donate to Patreon or even Youtube memberships now? The models are about as easy to (un)subscribe from as you can get, while allowing granular control.

Do you really want some "index fund" where you trust someone else to use your money to fund "good creators"? That sounds like a capitalist's wet dreams. And a consumer hellscape.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/what-is-gen-zs-no...

> According to a recent report by decision intelligence company Morning Consult, which surveyed over 2,000 adults in the U.S., 57% of Gen Zers said they'd be an influencer if given the opportunity, compared to 41% of adults from all age groups.

If true, possibly the most damning rebuttal of UBI proponents that there is.

It's another effect of the economy. Programmers are traditionally well compensated, so they can use their free time literally giving away knowledge for others. Because they don't need to monetize that knowledge to survive.

Video editing: not so much. If you want more people just having fun you need some part of the economy making sure they pay rent. Hence, hustle culture. It'd still exist if everyone was comfy, but many people would instead focus on leisure over minmaxing money.

Tone aside, we already do that... it's also monetized and being AI-slopified as we speak. Much faster than video.

in this scenario where videos become non-viable, people would ujst paywall their text like many journalists have resorted to. There's no free lunch these days.

>Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

because Youtube is owned by a trillion dollar corporation but mostly powered by content creators. Substack isn't.

It's really that simple. most wringing isn't viable because there's no money in it, literally. There still is money in video ads.

There are plenty of alternative video hosting sites if you seek that. So, why are you still on Youtube?

>but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

Sure, works for Onlyfans. they even blend in both subscriptions AND PPV behind the sub. And we know how quality that content is (no offense to the models there. but come on, I've seen $100 for 2 pictures, behind a $20/month subscription. You're not 2000's Brittany Spears).

> I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation

They do. CC's can enable Memberships and upload videos specific to that.

The issue is that

1. the memberships are small for many right now. Conseuqnces of being late to the party.

2. what's offered isn't necessarily going to be even higher quality than a public video.

3. ad rev from non-subbed views is still signifigant. Making a paid subscription for certain videos can mean brining in less money.

4. That lower view count affects your algorithm for growing.

It's complex. And sadly, outside of the OF model most people simply don't want to pay for content. They get bored and they move to Tiktok and that's the real endgame should YT fall.

UBI would bring out more passionate people and not force the passionate but disheartened to drop out. meanwhile, the passionate who do stick it will optimize for money. So they can pay rent. Or worse, the unpassionate marketers take over and the discipline is reduced to slop (we've probably been here for ~10 years now).

- Slow website/video host? Great now they need to pay for a better host or pay a web dev to optimize their site.

- Not responive? now that dev/service needs more money.

- pay is too much (meanwhile they still can't even make minimum wage)? Well, their fault for valuing themselves over a McDonalds' employee

- they pivot to premium teaching and now are a "scam"? Why am I here, I can google and learn this for free on Youtube

You can't win with some people.

I feel that proves the point. When everything is all together for $20 people don't mind. when it's spread out, people are too lazy to sub/unsub to other $20 services as needed to watch content on demand. Someone that's a heavy enough power user to watch that much TV shouldn't mind paying $100+ to keep up. Premium cable was way more expensive and restrictive back in the day.

Meanwhile, all that conversation and none of these streaming services are even profitable. Because giving all your content away for rent isn't financially viable. But it's still too much for lazy consumers. So the entire thing collapses.

>No, most people want convenience. That's why music piracy is basically dead.

It's also why people completely raged when Netflix and GamePass increased prices. There definitely is a breaking point for many (past the ones who complain about every price hike on the internet but stay subscribed).

>Piracy is usually a service problem

Everytime I hear this, I simply need to point to the mobile industry to prove it wrong (or maybe right? Just not the way people think is "fair"). They fixed piracy by doing the classic Web dev action: Keep everything valuable on your server. The APK you pirate is worthless, as it is simply a thin client into their actual value.

We know how the rest ends from there.

I think this proves my point, that it's a service problem. Put everything together in a single, easy-to-use service for a low price (like Netflix in 2012), and only the true die-hards will still bother with piracy. Ask them to subscribe to a whole bunch of services (with a high total cost) or try to figure out how to save money by strategically subscribing and unsubscribing to see the stuff they want, and have to deal with shows suddenly disappearing or moving to a competing service when they're half-finished watching them, and many will simply go back to torrenting because it's honestly easier than all that BS. But instead you think people are "lazy"... A lazy person doesn't do torrenting; it's really not that easy.

>Premium cable was way more expensive and restrictive back in the day.

Back then, 1) there weren't many alternatives. At the beginning of cable TV's reign, videotapes weren't even commonly available. And 2) back then, people had more disposable income because the cost-of-living was much, much lower (particularly housing). Technology is much better now too, so people expect to pay less.

>Meanwhile, all that conversation and none of these streaming services are even profitable.

Citation needed. Last I checked, Netflix is doing quite well, and even better after cracking down on the password-sharing.

>It's also why people completely raged when Netflix and GamePass increased prices.

Some people raged, but Netflix's subscriber count has increased and profits are up, so obviously those people either got over it, or were a small minority.

Yes, I have a limited amount of time so I use curators (or algorithms) to narrow down what I might most like. For example, people used to pay HBO and other TV networks, or these days, Apple/Netflix/Amazon/Disney/etc.

The problem is the people willing to pay for premium likely much more valuable customers for sponsorships to target.

It's not a very fun answer. Google gets a lot of ads to pay then to shove ads down the consumer's throats, and they can do this with no risk of users migrating. They "should" get more money because they more effectly do this than news websites, which have failed to appeal to advertisers effectively enough.

I don't really know what to do with that answer, though. Accept I'm the minority that will subscribe to paid avenues to support creators (or even care about other creator's well beings?) and move on?

The original post I was replying to said:

> However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

I would say less big budget video. If we're being honest, YouTube is essentially television at this point. Many YouTube views, maybe even most, don't go towards individual creators. They go to Studios and the Jimmy Kimmel's of the world.

If someone like boxxy is making videos with a potato cam on her bedroom floor, I don't think she necessarily cares much about the monetization.

That USED to be the entire draw and appeal of YouTube. Then monetization came and surprise! The platform changed to be more monetizable, i.e. watered down and corporate.

I don't know who's "we" here. But that's simply psychological. You will look at [person who make lots of money] differently from [person who can barely cover rent], if only because the latter may need more help you may be able to give.

There's no "should" here. And influencers aren't limited to YouTube. all my answers come down to "because they are backed by a trillion dollar corporation"

>And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

Maybe instead of "but no one else makes money" to drag down, we should change the lens to "let's reward other mediums for being high quality and throrougly researched" to boost up other mediums of creation.

Especially in a time where we are already getting so much slop and misinformation (and we're not even close to the worst of the storm). I'm sure you seen enough of the internet to know most people will just accept the slop and at best take years of introspection before they realize why quality matters (others never do).

There's some wiggle-room on what "their lifestyle" means, but I doubt that the positive answer is biased toward e.g. HENRYs, and in fact it's likely biased in the other direction. If UBI can match whatever their current lifestyle is (or even exceed it, e.g. paying for a personal living space instead of roommates), then these people are essentially saying that they'd be happy not to work.

I am actually not responsible for their choices of how they spend it.

Everybody has to invest something to deliver their craft. A handyman needs tools and materials. A carpenter as well. They pay taxes. And so on. That’s the reality of doing business. If they are not business savvy enough to turn a profit. Not my responsibility.

That’s called free market capitalism by the way. Everybody is free to try to make money on their terms in any given environment. But nobody is entitled to actually make money. That’s how the market actually acts as an agent for economic and business evolution. Not the worst thing there is, given how well real existing socialism worked. I grew up next to the GDR. I know how "strong" their economy was. How successful their companies were.

Other aspects, like creating a social net to mitigate the worst effects of capitalism on the people is a topic for a different thread imho, though.