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SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

(sponsor.ajay.app)
661 points anotherhue | 22 comments | 12 Aug 24 09:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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chankstein38 ◴[13 Aug 24 18:43 UTC] No.41238280[source]▶
The thing that sucks is I pay for YouTube Premium to remove ads then youtubers always have sponsored segments. It makes my $20/mo useless because I'm spending time watching ads still. I don't have a solution I'm just stating my perspective on it.

That said, SponsorBlock has been around for years. I've been using it for as long as I can remember. Basically any decent-sized channel's videos already have the sponsored segment skipped. I'm not sure why someone just posted it but we're well beyond SponsorBlock "taking off".

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1. Reubachi ◴[13 Aug 24 19:03 UTC] No.41238502[source]▶
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 on the topics they cover. I lose interest though when that youtuber presents to me an unprompted ad for my testicular health.

I have no solution for creators consumers or google :(

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2. chankstein38 ◴[13 Aug 24 19:13 UTC] No.41238617[source]▶
I always wondered why YouTube themselves didn't start restricting sponsored segments. I don't necessarily agree with the idea (not a big fan of how restrictive youtube already is) but I always thought it was odd they were ok with their premium offering being devalued by sponsored segments.
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3. dnissley ◴[13 Aug 24 19:26 UTC] No.41238778[source]▶
They could stop sponsored segments, but they couldn't stop creators and users from going to other platforms where they allow sponsored segments. They have far less control than e.g. Apple with the app store (where they literally can stop other app stores from ever coming into being, barring regulation that changes that).
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4. thaumasiotes ◴[13 Aug 24 20:12 UTC] No.41239276[source]▶
> Or, like being a kid forced to watch advertising during TV breaks, wondering why the TV screen istrying to sell me cigarettes.

Cigarette commercials have been illegal since 1971.

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5. mschuster91 ◴[13 Aug 24 20:38 UTC] No.41239578{3}[source]▶
> but they couldn't stop creators and users from going to other platforms where they allow sponsored segments

It's not like there are many viable competitors, at least for long form videos.

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6. kawsper ◴[13 Aug 24 20:49 UTC] No.41239693[source]▶
Someone spotted a "SKIP"-button for sponsored segments and posted about it on the LTT-subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1ekajmt/is_y...
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7. xigoi ◴[13 Aug 24 21:00 UTC] No.41239799[source]▶
Good to knoW that the entire world is under a single jurisdiction.
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8. gosub100 ◴[13 Aug 24 22:07 UTC] No.41240345[source]▶
> 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 youtube. it's absolutely worth what they charge. In fact, I dont know how they can even order enough storage to keep the thing running. tl;dr the features and content has grown proportionately with the price increase.

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9. ◴[13 Aug 24 22:08 UTC] No.41240353{3}[source]▶
10. dnissley ◴[13 Aug 24 22:30 UTC] No.41240525{4}[source]▶
If youtube stopped allowing sponsored segments that puts pressure on the market to produce such a thing. Even now creators are trying to come up with alternatives. Nothing has panned out, but something like stopping sponsored segments could very well tip a large number of people who want to get paid to find another way to get paid.
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11. johnnyanmac ◴[13 Aug 24 23:25 UTC] No.41240888[source]▶
People getting their own sponsors means Google doesn't need to increase rates to compensate creators. Who wouldn't take a deal for a 3rd party to pay part of your "employee" compensation if they were given a chance? Google still has plenty of sponsors going directly to them anyway.
12. johnnyanmac ◴[13 Aug 24 23:31 UTC] No.41240931[source]▶
>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).

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13. gosub100 ◴[14 Aug 24 01:14 UTC] No.41241605{3}[source]▶
Cutting or removing features!= enshittification. To me that word means contracts with early cancellation fees, charging more for long form or educational content, pop-ups, rate limiting ( you get 10 vids per day on your free plan), charging to upload, billing authors for bandwidth used, and so on. I don't think you realize how good we have it.
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14. OnlyLys ◴[14 Aug 24 03:28 UTC] No.41242288{3}[source]▶
I have YouTube Premium and on my phone I sometimes get a "Jump ahead" button that pops up on the bottom right corner when the video is in fullscreen. It doesn't just appear during sponsored segments but also during "less exciting" moments of a video like the introduction.
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15. bashwizard ◴[14 Aug 24 05:43 UTC] No.41242942[source]▶
r/USDefaultism
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16. avhon1 ◴[14 Aug 24 06:39 UTC] No.41243213{4}[source]▶
Your definition slightly off. Here it is from the guy who coined the term:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

> Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Removing features is absolutely part of enshittification.

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17. bugtodiffer ◴[14 Aug 24 07:38 UTC] No.41243559{4}[source]▶
They just give you 10% of SponsorBlock so you dont get SponsorBlock :D
18. bugtodiffer ◴[14 Aug 24 07:39 UTC] No.41243569{3}[source]▶
Wow thanks for this
19. prmoustache ◴[14 Aug 24 07:47 UTC] No.41243623{3}[source]▶
Most of the time, the complete content is a disguised AD anyway. Same for most hollywood movies.
20. mschuster91 ◴[14 Aug 24 10:35 UTC] No.41244585{5}[source]▶
So what, even despite high-profile creators such as Practical Engineering constantly pushing for Nebula (the largest of them), it's still a fraction of their YouTube following.
21. gosub100 ◴[14 Aug 24 14:18 UTC] No.41246382{5}[source]▶
>Then, they die.

Yeah, any day now YT is going to shut its doors.

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22. yifanl ◴[14 Aug 24 15:42 UTC] No.41247377{6}[source]▶
You must have an incredible lack of imagination, the story of software is the story of mayflies.