Louis Rossman/FUTO's YouTube app, GrayJay, now supports Sponsorblock... and shames you if you use it

Seriously this was very surprising. I’ve been experimenting with GrayJay since it was announced and I largely think it’s a pretty sweet app. I know there are concerns over how it isn’t “true open source” but it’s a hell of a lot more open than ReVanced. Plus, I like the general design and philosophy of the app.

I updated the YouTube backend recently and to my surprise and delight they had added support for SponsorBlock. However, when I went to enable it, it warned me “turning this on harms creators” and made me click a box before I could continue.

Bruh, you’re literally an ad-blocking YouTube frontend. What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to be facilitating ad-blocking and then at the same time shame the end-user for using an extension which simply automates seeking ahead in videos. Are you seriously gonna tell me that even without Sponsorblock, if I skip ahead past the sponsored ad read in a video, that I’m “harming the creator”?

flop_leash_973,

Outside of his right to repair work I find most anything Rossmann gets involved in is questionable. He is a good example of someone that got popular for something they cared about and knew something about, then mistakenly got the idea that success meant they had valid opinions on other things they know nothing about.

Rossmann knows about laptop hardware repair and running a small business. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into being a knowledgeable voice in the software dev or large scale digital advertising industries.

He is just a mouthpiece for the company behind Greyjay, nothing more.

WarmApplePieShrek,

So he’s basically Elon Musk.

bionicjoey,

I’m inclined to agree. I respect the work he’s done for R2R, but I find his videos on New York commercial real estate to be incredibly cringe. Nonetheless I think GrayJay is a decent YouTube frontend and will probably continue using it until it gives me a reason to stop or until something I prefer comes along.

Scary_le_Poo, (edited )
@Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

Grayjay doesn’t block ads. It simply doesn’t load them in the stream. There is a difference.

LittleEndu,

Grayjay also doesn’t send analytics data back to YouTube, so watching the sponsor or skipping it look identical to YouTube’s servers. One can’t make the argument that you are supporting creators by watching their sponsors if the sponsors have no way to know that the sponsor part of the video was watched.

Silentiea,

As far as I’m aware, creator sponsorships rarely care about whether or not you watch the segments, but about how many people follow the link or whatnot. So you could make the argument that sponsorblock makes you never follow the links, but that really assumes you would otherwise, which…

LittleEndu,

Yeah, and there are no products that I care about that get advertised by youtubers so I would never click on those links. I don’t shave, I don’t need to build a website, I don’t need a VPN, I don’t need a food delivery service, I don’t listen to audio books, I don’t need earpods, I don’t play mobile games…

Listening to these sponsors literally loses me time. I reinstalled revanced 2 months ago and sponsorblock already has skipped 50 minutes worth of sponsors. (oh these sponsorblock stats also seem to be missing from grayjay. Grayjay doesn’t seem to have any sponsorblock settings besides allowing you to manually skip instead automatically)

apotheotic, (edited )

In case anyone is wondering, here is the “shaming” that is done in the app. (images attached)

You’re not being shamed anywhere in this text. You are being presented factual information. Any shame that you feel as a result of being faced with information is pretty much entirely on you.

I have no qualms turning on sponsorblock and adblockers, I support the creators that I enjoy via other means.

If you are taking issue with the “don’t freeload” then I guess you perhaps feel bad being told that you’re freeloading? I won’t pretend to know what’s going on in your own brain. But you’re posting this in a piracy community so I don’t imagine it should be any surprise to you that you’re freeloading, lol. If ye choose to sail the seas, do it with pride, me hearty. And support small businesses, yarr.

image 1image 2

RickyRigatoni,
@RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

Sponsorblock does not harm creators. Youtube has no method of detecting when a sponsored segment is skipped, so the creator still gets their sponsorship money. A person who is using sponsorblock is extremely unlikely to use the sponsored products even if they did watch the ad, so the creator isn’t losing out on any affiliate money either.

TheKrevFox,

YouTube gets metrics on which parts of videos are being played. You can see this in the player where it’ll display things like “most played segment” on the timeline.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

See my other comments on the matter they don’t, not when using apps like this, it’s literally by design as they are meant to be privacy friendly so they naturally won’t send analytics data.

lud,

In theory the sponsor could demand access to the statistics showing watch time and pay differently because of that.

I doubt it happens though.

YouTube is unbearable without it.

apotheotic,

YouTube absolutely can see which parts of videos people are actually engaging with. So can creators. And sponsors can request engagement metrics as part of their sponsorship deals.

Advertisers care about impressions and engagement. A person simply watching a sponsored segment is an impression. If people’s impression metrics for sponsored segments start dropping, they become less attractive to sponsors as they knew they’re going to get fewer impressions as part of the deal.

It may, or may not, be a very small impact but it is an impact nonetheless.

If nobody is watching sponsored segments (which we’ve established: YouTube itsself, creators, and sponsors can track) then companies don’t have any incentive to sponsor videos, and creators no longer get revenue from sponsorships. Sure, this is a very end of the line example, because there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t have sponsorblock installed and can’t be bothered to skip the segment.

lukas, (edited )
@lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

Advertisers that care a lot about engagement use CTR instead of CPM. CTR enables advertisers to keep track of engagement and lie about real engagement numbers to save costs. If advertisers rely on video segment statistics, creators can fake the statistics to earn more money. So advertisers rarely measure their payout based on unverifiable information. And people that use SponsorBlock wouldn’t buy it, even without SponsorBlock. Or in other words: Most creators can ignore SponsorBlock.

apotheotic, (edited )

I agree with you that clickthrough rate is a far more useful metric for advertisers, and is probably more widely used in sponsorship deals.

Creators faking impression metrics would be followed by the advertisers seeing weirdly low clickthrough ratios, seeing that somethings up, and the creator losing future deals from that advertiser, so it’s not something I would expect creators to do unless they think they’re smarter than multi million/billion dollar companies advertising departments.

Where does this assertion come from that people that use sponsorblock are somehow never going to buy products? People keep saying it but I just don’t get it. We live in a world where people buy things. Some products are relevant to some people and some aren’t to other people. I use sponsorblock and adblock, and if I were to somehow see an advert for a product that seemed like it perfectly fit a need that I had, I’d definitely consider getting the product.

lukas, (edited )
@lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

Where does this assertion come from that people that use sponsorblock are somehow never going to buy products? People keep saying it but I just don’t get it. We live in a world where people buy things. Some products are relevant to some people and some aren’t to other people. I use sponsorblock and adblock, and if I were to somehow see an advert for a product that seemed like it perfectly fit a need that I had, I’d definitely consider getting the product.

I use SponsorBlock. Ads have an influence on me, but usually with a negative impact on whatever they sell, so it’s beneficial for them that I don’t see their ads.

If I was looking for a fantasy-themed, turn-based role-playing gacha game, and a specific game annoys the fuck out of me with their massive marketing budget, they’re automatically on my blacklist. I’ll proactively ignore the game in my market research and exclude the game, the game’s company and publisher from my Google search results with the uBlacklist browser extension.

If it’s a SaaS and they charge a premium for SSO, they get a once in a lifetime opportunity to land on a public wall of shame that some sysadmins use to preemptively filter out software vendors from their purchasing process. So it’s a really shitty idea to advertise crap to the wrong people.

apotheotic,

Okay, sure, that’s a nice story about yourself, but like, this doesn’t address the core of your assertion that people who use sponsorblock won’t buy products if they see ads for them. It doesn’t seem like the two are actually inherently related at all. (People who don’t want to watch adverts) are not necessarily (People who don’t buy products).

Silentiea,

Why do they have to prove that? You backed up the assertion that sponsorblock hurts creators with the mere unlikely possibility that sponsors might be able to see metrics, how does their single anecdotal bit of evidence that people using sponsorblock are the kinds of people that won’t click ads anyway not pass the same muster?

Admittedly they’re both bad evidence, so why are we treating yours as better?

apotheotic,

I mean, sure, you can say I made a bad argument, I don’t entirely disagree given the context was originally about grayjay, but at this point I’m not even making my argument anymore I’m just trying to figure out why it seems to be a shared view. I want to understand, y’know?

And I don’t really think it’s fair to say my assertion was only backed up by that unlikely possibility, but I don’t fully stand behind my original argument in this context anymore anyway

Silentiea,

People who use sponsorblock or other kinds of adblock are the kinds of people who get annoyed by watching ads. I suppose it’s possible some of those are short because the ads are working and they keep spending money, but in my experience and the experiences I’ve seen discussed elsewhere, it seems to generally be that they are annoyed because they’re not interested in what the ads are selling and wouldn’t be sold on them anyway.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Just FYI for all the people who keep repeating this ad-nauseam it doesn’t apply to third party apps like Newpipe and grayjay which DO NOT send analytics data. If anyone wants to make arguments against sponsorblock they also can’t support apps and front-ends which strip the Analytics from the video because without them you add no watch time or metrics, so it’s a hypocritical argument.

apotheotic,

I mean, it applies equally here. Using apps that strip metrics and analytics, has a similar effect to using sponsorblock. I don’t think I was arguing against sponsorblock I was saying facts about it. I use sponsorblock, I use grayjay, and I pay content creators.

Silentiea,

The thread is about grayjay saying that using sponsorblock on grayjay will hurt creators. If grayjay doesn’t send metrics, then any metrics sponsorblock might mess up are already messed up by watching on grayjay.

voracitude,

deleted_by_author

    •
    abcxyz,

    Please explain to me how does blocking sponsor segments harm creators?

    voracitude,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    abcxyz,

    This is not how ot works though.

    Modern internet-based video platforms like YouTube do NOT tell this information to advrrtisers, because the sponsor block ads have no contract with YouTube directly. They are paying the content creator, not youtube.

    There’s no way for sponsor block advertisers to tell how many people skipped their ad.

    Tak,
    @Tak@lemmy.ml avatar

    Most sponsors I’ve seen for youtube have some link or code to reference who sent you but I’m not buying anything they are selling.

    I don’t care how many people Nord pays I’m not using their fucking VPN. Why even waste the electricity displaying an ad for a service I will never purchase.

    voracitude,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    abcxyz,

    It’s fine if you don’t want to admit you’re wrong, but please don’t preach it to others, because none of what you said is factual. Speaking from first hand experience.

    cupcakezealot, (edited )
    @cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    i keep sponsorblock on but i pretty much have it set on manual skip by default. i mostly use it for critical role (whom i also subscribe to on twitch) shows to skip the intermission or for twitch vods on youtube to skip the beginning and after parts where it’s just the streamer talking to chat.

    but i also don’t understand how skipping in video sponsored segments loses them money like it’s not a youtube thing it’s a creator thing like television adverts. how would they know if it’s been skipped wouldn’t they already get the money to do the sponsorship before the video is posted?

    chiliedogg,

    They get paid more if people use the affiliate links or coupon codes from the sponsored sections of the video.

    DanForever,

    Youtube tracks how much of a video each person watches. These metrics are used by youtubers to strike deals with sponsors.

    The amount of money the sponsor pays will be based on how many views the sponsor’s message part of the video gets.

    neeeeDanke, (edited )

    I was kind of dissapointed when I read the new pipe team was having an issue with sponsor block, but tbh their reasoning makes a lot of sense:

    https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertising/

    And even thought I am using the sponsor block fork now I only skip the non-music part in music videos, because I do agree that creators have to make money somehow. And while I don’t love ads most of the time (sometimes they are really well made) my main issue with ads on Youtube/the wider Internet is how intrusive they are and them not respecting my privacy.

    unknowing8343, (edited )

    How sure are you that your view through NewPipe is getting counted on YouTube statistics so that the channel is getting a proper measure of reach?

    Because I am not so sure the view is being counted, and much less the (not)viewing of the sponsorblock segment.

    cucumber_sandwich,

    It’s still loading the page internally to extract the video link. I don’t think newpipe after that looks different than say a smart tv,. So it’s up to YouTube to do the counting.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It looks like any other web browser, the problem is that without the Analytics being sent back it looks like a paused video buffering all the way through then the user leaves without watching the video. The analytics include how much and which parts of the video they watched, but videos can be loaded without watching them (that’s what buffering does).

    neeeeDanke,

    I know my klick on the link is counted if I am interested in the product they are selling.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Views don’t get counted on Newpipe and if they do somehow it’s not accurate, as in it won’t count watch-time or parts of the video watched, the way it parses the video these analytics don’t get sent.

    Scrollone,

    There’s no reason in watching the sponsors through NewPipe, because the view doesn’t count, especially segment-based view.

    The YouTube channel (and their sponsor) will never detect that you actually watched the sponsor. So, why bother watching it in the first place?

    roofuskit,
    @roofuskit@lemmy.world avatar

    If you really want to support someone on YouTube something like patreon is the way to go. Sponsored videos are life draining and a lot of extra work for paultry pay. But a legion of patreon subscribers can set someone up for a comfortable income from actually making things you want to see.

    Aux,

    Depends on a sponsor. Some sponsors can pay crap loads of money to a big creator.

    Draconic_NEO, (edited )
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Well they won’t make any money off you watching them on NewPipe because the way it parses videos doesn’t register views or watched timestamps, the things that sponsors take into account when paying creators.

    It’s why their argument is garbage, because they designed NewPipe the way they did for the purpose of privacy, which also defeats any method of making money through analytics yet they think Sponsorblock in this case stops them from making money, as if they could make money off NewPipe users at all in the first place.

    ashtefere,

    I block all advertising myself, but sponsors I think are ok. The creator can control who they sponsor with, they can write a funny ad skit that is entertaining (the best ones I have seen are the ones by squishy boi) and the creator gets paid directly without fucking us with an algorithm.

    I’m happy to watch those kinds of ads as I know the creator is getting paid from them, and e.g. YouTube isn’t taking a cut.

    venji10,

    But scammy sponsors are very common. Most of the promoted products are just trash because the company behind them puts way too much money in advertisement.

    Blackmist,

    How dare you besmirch Shadow Raid Legends VPN like that!

    TwoBeeSan,

    Raid specifically pays BUCKETS

    Can’t fault any content creator for needing to eat

    Meowoem,

    Yeah, personally I enjoy seeing adverts for things I think are dumb because it’s like a shitty game company is paying my favourite creators to amuse me and they’re doing it by collecting money from rubes that’d only be wasting their cash on something worse anyway.

    It feels like the sort of thing a chaotic hero would do in a cyberpunk romance.

    Blackmist,

    I can only assume they’re some sort of front for a cartel because I’ve never met anyone that actually plays it.

    DogMuffins,

    Yes but you watching the ad doesn’t make money for the creator.

    neeeeDanke,

    Ot does if its a good ad / sales pitch and I actually buy the product which is not gonna happen if it is automatically skipped.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Set it to manual skip if you think you might be interested, that way if you are you keep watching, if not hit the skip button.

    Just make sure when you click that affiliate link that nothing is stripping the tracking code or they’ll get nothing from you whatsoever.

    DogMuffins,

    This is such a bizarre concept to me.

    Why would I want someone to convince me to buy something with a “good pitch” ?

    janguv,

    Hey I respect the hell outta this guy for manufacturing desires in me, lemme now buy this shit I didn’t want before he manipulated me. Good job guy!

    /s

    Meowoem,

    Someone I watch was sponsored by a PCB fabrication company and the way he described their service I realized I could save a lot of time and money doing it that way.

    I don’t think advertising always has to be manipulation, it could just be making you aware of the advantages of a product. Though most adverts are nothing but lies and bullshit.

    neeeeDanke,

    Because I didn’t know of it before?

    DogMuffins,

    If you didn’t know of it, then you didn’t need or want it.

    neeeeDanke,

    That’s just false. For example I didn’t know Nebula existed before all those sponsored segments on the creators videos but I like the service now and am happy I got it…

    DogMuffins,

    I guess there are exceptions, it’s unknowable but one wonders how long it would’ve taken you to discover nebula some other way.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It’s part of the reason why many say the ad-funded internet is on it’s way out, the idea of ad-revenue is based on the idea that people are going to buy YOUR product when there are 1000 other products making the same exact claim, and 1000 other of the same ads they ignore. Advertisers and Ad-funded companies have a lot of cope when it comes to this fact and make claims like “oh it’ll get in eventually” but the fact of the matter is this isn’t stable, it’s based on the promise of making money, this bubble will burst eventually, it’s not a matter of if but when.

    MonkCanatella,

    Eh, at least they added support for it. Good for them. Still looking at this app with some skepticism but so far seems to be doing what it sets out to do.

    akilou,

    How do you turn it on? I’m on Grayjay v 195 but I’m not seeing the option in settings.

    narp, (edited )

    You have to go first to “sources” and then it’s in the YouTube options

    Chewy7324,

    I know there are concerns over how it isn’t “true open source” but it’s a hell of a lot more open than ReVanced.

    For me, terms and definitions are very important. Just like right to repair is often misrepresented to the detriment of consumers, it’s important to only talk about open source if the license actually respects your freedom [1].

    Open source has a lot of positive connotations and calling some project open source while only being source available feels like taking advantage of it.

    It’s similar to how large corporations talking about being eco friendly with their packaging whilst making the actual devices as hard to repair as possible.

    You’re right, the ReVanced project is open source, but the resulting app is not, since it’s modifying the official YouTube app.

    [1] opensource.org/osd/

    Tischkante,

    Real sponsors pay up front, or only add an additional bonus for affiliate link sales, if a creator accepts a deal on affiliate link money only, it’s their own fault. So if you always fast forward through sponsors and don’t care, you might as well enable it to save the bandwidth and power.

    Chewy7324, (edited )

    Skipping sponsors automatically means you definitely won’t be influenced by the marketing, so it hurts the creator because the sponsor might not work with them again because of low sales impact.

    Anyway, I’ll continue to use NewPipe x SponsorBlock and the Firefox addon.

    wolfshadowheart,
    @wolfshadowheart@kbin.social avatar

    Do these particular advertisers asks the influencers to show their statistics?

    I mean, wouldn't the creator have to take a screenshot and send that info in? How do the advertisers even know people are skipping through sponsored segments?

    Also I've never understood. I'm not going to buy a subscription service because someone I watch is offering it. If I want it I'm going to buy it regardless whether I've seen its ad or not, and the creators are just offering a discount code that can help them as well.

    Lost views is not lost sales. That's just stupid.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Lost views is not lost sales. That’s just stupid.

    That’s why the ad-funded internet is referred to as a bubble and people are saying that the bubble will burst. It’s money-making based on the promise it’ll make the company paying the advertiser money, without any guarantee. You can’t make money out of nothing, people have tried and failed for years if not decades, it always comes crashing down, either through crypto scams, pyramid/ponzi scemes or though worthless investments like the Dot-com crash, it’ll always blow up in your face sooner or later. Which is what is slowly happening with the ad-funded internet, it is becoming overvalued similar to the dot-com investments.

    Rentlar,

    Seems to me an overreaction to complain about a single checkbox suggesting that people who make YouTube videos make actual money from sponsorships where ads get them jack shit. They added Sponsorblock but just have a one-time warning, is that really big of a deal? It’s informational, and if you don’t like it, ignore it and move on with your day.

    If they were more insistent like a popup every time you used it I could see getting upset about it.

    bionicjoey,

    It’s not a big deal, just something I thought was odd. I’m not gonna claim checking a box is ruining my life or anything.

    Rentlar,

    Yeah. I use NewPipe myself just to be able to enjoy videos with my screen off, that Youtube has locked behind a subscription for no good reason.

    That said Rossman is someone who sticks to his principles and the FUTO group is an extension of those principles. At heart he’s a New York businessman so he knows that people need money to live, but he also isn’t trying to stop people to do what they like with tech that they supposedly have purchased.

    Kuro,

    Are they even able to see when their baked in ads get skipped over?

    bionicjoey,

    Kinda. YouTube has stats about which times of a video are watched more proportionally for a single view. You can ironically usually use this data to see when a sponsor spot ends (to skip to it) since there will be a peak in the watch time curve.

    cyanarchy,

    Probably, I’m fairly certain they get told which parts of the video get skipped and which get rewatched.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Only applies on official apps and frontends with analytics. Without them it’s just buffering the video.

    vagrantprodigy,

    Shame is an artificial construct that I am choosing not to opt into. Thanks for letting us know that sponsorblock is in, I’m turning it on now.

    bionicjoey,

    Yeah I agree, I just thought it was funny… Not “haha funny” but a bit jarring

    DrinkMonkey,

    Shame is a mismatch between ego and ego-ideal, whereas guilt is a mismatch between ego and super-ego. The ego-ideal in shame does depend on social norms. But that is by no means “artificial”.

    anothermember,

    Blocking YouTube’s advertising is necessary for privacy, and it punishes YouTube for their bad business practices.

    But sponsors aren’t underhanded like that and I feel like they’re the type of thing we should really be promoting as an alternative to privacy invading ads, and hopefully a way for creators to move off of YouTube eventually.

    bionicjoey,

    A lot of sponsors are very exploitative companies in their own right, and I don’t owe them my time or attention.

    anothermember,

    The point is that YouTubers pay for that with their own reputation, if I followed a YouTuber that promoted exploitative companies I would stop following that YouTuber - why would you want to watch their content anyway?

    yum13241,

    Raid: Shadow Legends anyone?

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