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    SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

    (sponsor.ajay.app)
    661 points anotherhue | 15 comments | 12 Aug 24 09:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.828s | source | bottom
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    noone_youknow ◴[13 Aug 24 02:41 UTC] No.41231674[source]▶
    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 even enjoyable. The occasional (relevant) sponsor read or similar has been a huge help in providing some stability in the past, and I know for many channels it’s the main source of income since YPP revenue share can be so volatile.

    I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising, and it’ll be another nail in the coffin for creators. Sure many of us also do patreon etc but that’s never really sat right with me personally (and see also the post on HN just today about Apple coming for a revenue split there for another creator-hostile storm brewing).

    On the other hand, I totally get the hatred of “the usual suspect” sponsors (VPNs, low-quality learning platforms etc) that get done to death because of their aggressive sponsor budgets and not-unreasonable deals. Those get shoehorned into a ton of videos and it’s a shame, but a blunt instrument like this is likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole, not just those bad ones.

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    1. PeterStuer ◴[13 Aug 24 07:07 UTC] No.41233038[source]▶
    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 it turns into just another piece of formulaic slop.

    But another reason why sponsor reads annoy me is that it breaks the youtube premium deal. I pay YT for an ad free experience. YT pays you more for my view than a 'free' watcher, and then you shove in ads anyway. Now I do get your argument that "it's not enough", but that does not change my end of the deal.

    Idealy ad reads would be autoskipped for premium subscribers. If that meant premium being a bit more expensive, I would be fine with that personally.

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    2. noone_youknow ◴[13 Aug 24 07:30 UTC] No.41233159[source]▶
    > But another reason why sponsor reads annoy me is that it breaks the youtube premium deal.

    I totally get that, and I feel the same way when I see yet another read as a viewer and premium subscriber.

    I don’t really have an answer (and if I did, I’d be doing it already), but I will say that my (subjective, based on my ad placement strategy and viewer profile) experience is that premium views are worth less than non-premium - although YouTube cleverly don’t actually give me enough data to _know_ that as a fact (and it would go against their stated position, which I guess they would never do).

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    3. ziml77 ◴[13 Aug 24 10:48 UTC] No.41234178[source]▶
    Linus Sebastian has said the exact opposite of that whenever he's discussed the breakdown of where the money that Linus Media Group makes comes from. Premium views are worth more than free views.
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    4. PeterStuer ◴[13 Aug 24 10:50 UTC] No.41234189[source]▶
    If I remember correctly the numbers given were 6x more direct payouts for a premium view vs. a free view.
    5. manuelmoreale ◴[13 Aug 24 11:54 UTC] No.41234541{3}[source]▶
    Just a guess: maybe it depends by which vertical they’re in? Not all channels earn the same so many be there are cases where non-premium users are more valuable than premium ones?
    6. mkaic ◴[13 Aug 24 18:50 UTC] No.41238344[source]▶
    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 wider support net for the people I watch enough-to-want-to-support-them-but-not-enough-to-join-their-Patreon, yknow?
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    7. kimixa ◴[13 Aug 24 19:19 UTC] No.41238685[source]▶
    Is that not just youtube "memberships" though? The creator can choose the cost and have multiple "tiers" - I don't think there's anything stopping them having a $1 "tip jar" tier.

    Sure, it's not quite the same, but at some point of similar-enough the number of people who actually use each feature becomes vanishingly small and/or the cost of managing the extra option outpaces the income, and it's just not worth it.

    replies(1): >>41238963 #
    8. kimixa ◴[13 Aug 24 19:20 UTC] No.41238696{3}[source]▶
    A game streamer I sometimes watch also said something similar - that "youtube premium" views are tracked separately and worth significant multiples per view compared to those that get ads.

    They also said it isn't variable in the same way for what ads can get assigned to your content, or for "limited monetization" content (which apparently pretty much sets the ad income to zero).

    9. jaderobbins1 ◴[13 Aug 24 19:43 UTC] No.41238963{3}[source]▶
    Even then I've heard of some channels uploading ad-free versions of their videos for certain membership tiers.
    10. vstollen ◴[13 Aug 24 20:18 UTC] No.41239344[source]▶
    This somewhat reminds me on the discussions around the Web Monetization API [1] a few years ago.

    I still wish for a service that gives me access to all paywalled sites or a way to sending all websites I visit a little money in exchange for them not serving ads.

    [1]: https://webmonetization.org/

    11. joshvm ◴[13 Aug 24 22:51 UTC] No.41240684[source]▶
    I've mentioned this in the past but I mind sponsorship a lot less when it's highly relevant for the channel. For example a lot of engineering channels are sponsored by JLPCB who provided machining services or PCBs for the project video - that makes sense.

    Coffee influencers selling me NordVPN on a video about grinder particle size distribution does not.

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    12. johnnyanmac ◴[13 Aug 24 23:41 UTC] No.41241022[source]▶
    >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.

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    13. ◴[14 Aug 24 02:25 UTC] No.41241980[source]▶
    14. fmj ◴[15 Aug 24 01:35 UTC] No.41252393[source]▶
    I've actually bought/planned to buy a few things that I was introduced to via YouTube sponsorships, but it's never been any of the generic YouTube sponsor merchandise. It's always something highly relevant to the topic of the channel, or even the specific video. Usually some sort of specialty tool.
    15. owjofwjeofm ◴[15 Aug 24 04:43 UTC] No.41253138[source]▶
    but if the sponsorship is relevant it could be a conflict of interest for the editorial