SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

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.

> blunt instrument like this is likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole

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.

And I'll agree with you the day we all decide to pay a monthly fee that is big enough to support various websites and creators.

Why? As a HN-er/content creator, I don't see why it would be taken for granted that people need to be paid for their hobbies. In fact many people post online for enjoyment.

I’m sort of amazed this has to be explicitly stated:

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.

If they want to make money, they are totally free to have a website hosting their content behind a paywall.

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.

Spoilers: the 1 out of 1000's won't get your money either because of any number of arbitrary reasons unrelated to their craft that is conjured up.

- 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.