Was looking for this exactly. I understand that you have to make money somehow if you want to dedicate yourself to YouTube, but I always found sponsor segments to be worse than native advertising, and just plain gross to watch.
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> worse than native advertising
Analogously, I'd be upset if someone handed me a glass of piss when I asked for something to drink. But at least I can recognize it and turn it down. On the other hand, if you hand me a glass of piss and actively take efforts to make it look, taste, and appear like water, al while telling me it is water, sure, I probably won't be upset because I don't know. But dear god... if I find out... Well, I don't think there are many reasons that someone should be punched in the face, but that doesn't mean there are zero reasons to...
Deception is so much worse.
Btw: check out ReVanced[0]. You can rebuild the YouTube APK (and others) to integrate adblock and sponsor block. All optional too! Unlike pihole, it'll actually achieve that.
Hard disagree. Sponsored segments are better in a few ways:
* They're a return to the days where ads didn't need to be targeted at people but instead were targeted at content. "If you're watching this educational video you might like Brilliant" is a heck of a lot less intrusive than "I noticed you were searching for shoes the other day, so here's a Nike ad".
* The creator has to own it. There's no hiding behind the algorithm or Google or whatever, they have to actually read off the advertisement. I find the human in the loop serves as a valuable filter on what gets advertised (at least on the channels I follow).
* The best creators actually make the ad worth watching. See Terrible Writing Advice for an example. I don't always watch the ad, but I sometimes do because it's just fun.
In general I agree that ads are bad in all their forms, but sponsor reads are one of the least offensive items in a bad genre.
Some sponsored content seems like borderline scams to me I see a lot of creators shilling for stuff like "not a bank" banking apps etc.
That's not native advertising. Native advertising is when you write an article about a subject just to shill a product.
On YouTube it's somebody saying they've been using Ground News to do research for the video, or that security it's important, then transitioning to a NordVPN ad. You're looking up to somebody for information, but then they turn into a psychopath for 2 minutes to push vitamin supplements when they damn well know you can just eat better instead.
I think there is a nuance. If there is a video that does this for 5 seconds in a 15 minute video, to sell a product they really know and like, and that is strongly related to the content, then sure.
But shilling random products? perhaps even "crap products" (you know exactly which ones: gambling, crypto-related, low quality SaaS...) and doing it for more than a tiny mention? This is basically the reinvention of ad funded TV, only the productions are crap in comparison and the regulation is non existent. So in that case, sorry, I'm happy to both watch your content with skipped ads, enjoy the content, and see your content disappear because your monetization fails.