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.

crunchpaste,
@crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I believe this is because sponsor segments are like traditional TV ads. They don’t use trackers, they are not targeted and they respect your privacy.

xep, (edited )

They don’t use trackers, they are not targeted and they respect your privacy.

In that case it won't matter to anyone that I skipped them.

joyjoy, (edited )

They don’t use trackers,

Well, they can see whether you watched them or not. So technically still tracked. At least in the official youtube app.

EnderofGames,

They can see the percentage of people who watched that part of the video, as part of the video analytics. This doesn’t track the user, though, at least not if you have history turned off, or are using another front end.

crunchpaste,
@crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

And I’d guess that’s done in the backend instead of the frontend. They should be able to know how many times their server steamed a part of a video.

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

Well when a video is buffered it’s loaded in memory but not viewed yet, they can’t count loading the video as a view or they’d count the whole video as viewed if you simply buffered it in full, it would also screw up that watched timestamps feature to see which part has been played back most.

So yes they can count how many times it has been streamed but they also need to know you’ve watched it because sitting on pause while the video buffers all the way through isn’t a view, it isn’t watching those segments, but it does stream them from the servers, in the same way Newpipe and Grayjay does. Which is how a video can register no views despite being watched on something like NewPipe.

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

As I’ve mentioned in another thread, I believe YouTube provides analytics on this (hence the “most replayed” parts for some videos), and I’m certain I’ve seen some creators mention sposors requiring that information before a deal is made. So it may really hurt some small youtubers that can’t rely on merchandise sales.

That said, I personally use sponsorblock as I don’t feel like wasting my life on nordvpn ads, but I have to admit sponsor segments are a whole lot better than regular YouTube ads.

Edit: And as I far as I know they pay much better than regular ads.

MigratingtoLemmy,

I wish there was an add-on that could fake a view for the sponsored segment for the creator but skip it for the user. I.e. every time the user skips a sponsored segment, the extension adds a view for the sponsored segment for the creator, so they get paid whilst we skip their segment.

Scrollone,

The most replayed section won’t count your view anyway since you’re watching through an unofficial app that doesn’t send tracking data to YouTube

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

It’s true that YouTube does track the most watched portions of a video, but in the case of clients like NewPipe or this one the way the video is parsed it doesn’t send the analytic data necessary, so it likely doesn’t even count views, let alone watched segments.

infectoid,
@infectoid@lemmy.world avatar

I manually skip all sponsored segments except for the Internet Historian ones.

sexy_peach,

You thief!! /s

infectoid, (edited )
@infectoid@lemmy.world avatar

Pretty much. I watch all the NordVPN Man ads and don’t even sign up for a 12 month discount and the first month free. I’m basically a criminal.

Also Mullvad FTW.

PopShark,

My man Windscribe always forgotten about

SchizoDenji,

Localscriptman also does really creative ones.

WarmApplePieShrek,

And Some More News

Apollo2323,

You are right! I used to hate on sponsors but now I understand that they are way better than targeted ads.

Chais,
@Chais@sh.itjust.works avatar

I don’t care for those, either.

Mac,

I skipped over therlm for years before using sponsorblock anyway.

bionicjoey,

If that was their reasoning, they should say that rather than vaccuously claiming that it “harms creators”

half_built_pyramids,

Vaccumoulsy

crunchpaste,
@crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Well, it does harm creators, as they may get less money. The same goes for adblockers.

Then again I don’t really understand why would you care about being “shamed”, especially by a company that charges money for a frontend using YouTube’s (extremely expensive) servers for free.

bionicjoey,

Then again I don’t really understand why would you care about being “shamed”, especially by a company that charges money for a frontend using YouTube’s (extremely expensive) servers for free.

To paraphrase Norm MacDonald: the worst part is the hypocrisy 😅

EnderofGames,

“extremely expensive” is a bit of an overstatement.

Youtube proper, not the rest of Google, is tens of billions in the black, annually.

They reached this level of control over the market by running without video ads for a long time, forcing competitors to close out or not even open into the market without similar money backing. Turning around now and forcing tracking and ads should open them up to antitrust suits.

It’s all arbitrage. If you can afford YouTube Premium’s price, and don’t mind the tracking, go for it. But all this ad blocking and alternative front ends MIGHT come to half a billion annually. uBlock has around 15 million installs, each installed user- assuming all separate and unique and blocking YouTube- would have to deny YouTube $1000 annually for it to be affecting their revenue.

Kir,

They don’t respect my attention and time, thought

crunchpaste,
@crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I completely agree with you, and that’s the reason I block them as well. I was just trying to give an explaination for the app’s behaviour.

NuXCOM_90Percent,

I mean, the person making the video you are watching respected your time to the point they put in 10-100x the amount of time it takes you to watch that video to make it.

And the sponsor ad is how they afford said time commitment.

brothershamus,
@brothershamus@kbin.social avatar

Then they fucked up.

glimse,

Skip it all you want but don’t act like it’s such a terrible inconvenience. Creating high quality content is a full time job and people gotta eat

Auli,

No people think everything should be free.

Dirk_Darkly,

Shit, I didn’t realize the only way some people can eat is by making Youtube videos.

glimse,

Shit, I didn’t realize there were 48 hours in a day.

Sorry, you’re right. Creators should work their 9-5 and then spend another 8 hours a day making videos for us out of the goodness of their hearts. I now think it’s disgusting that these people try to monetize their hard work

I think it’s ironic that the argument is both “sponsor segments don’t respect my time!” AND “I have no respect for the time of the creators”

Dirk_Darkly,

Nobody needs YouTube videos nor is anyone compelled to make them. I’m guessing you don’t remember when YouTube was completely free and people just made videos for fun?

Now people quit jobs that support them to do something fun and try to make monry off that. Which is fine, but we’re not required to support their hobby. Stop acting like people have no other option in their life except to make reaction videos, video essays, meme compilations, etc.

glimse,

If nobody needs them then why are they complaining? Just don’t watch it. Your problem is solved!

Videos on YouTube are so much better than the era you’re remembering. If nordvpn or whoever sponsoring videos is the way for creators to continue making great things on a regular schedule, I’m not gonna make a huff when they take a minute to acknowledge them. I skip most of them, too, but I’m not venting about what a terrible inconvenience it is.

And sorry for not specifying that I wasn’t speaking about reaction videos and meme compilations when I said “high quality”, I thought it that would be pretty damn clear but I guess we watch different things on YouTube

Stop acting like it’s morally wrong to get paid for your work. If there’s a market for it, why shouldn’t people do it full time? Should Hollywood work for free, too?

brothershamus,
@brothershamus@kbin.social avatar

Okay let's get this straight: No Ads. Ever. Period. Capisce?

Create, don't create, steal, don't steal, jerk off, don't jerk off - don't care. NO. ADS. THE END.

glimse,

Ok

Kir,

Seriously, this. Advetising based economy is hell. what’s next? a punch in the face every 5 minutes of watching? And don’t you dare cover your face, because the creators deserve compensation and punch-a-face insertion by big corporation is the only way they got!

WarmApplePieShrek,

It is.

Kir,

Everytime the same argument. I don’t want to see ads never ever, period. They are useless and annoying at best, sometimes plain evil manipulation.

I recognize the need of income for creators, and they can ask for money in the form of donation/subscription and other methods. I am paying and will pay for everything I want to support. If you decide that your way to sustain yourself is by shoving up fake opinions and useless noise in order to manipulate me into buying something, I don’t accept it. It’s as simple as that.

glimse,

If the creators you like choose to monetize with sponsors, you can choose not to watch them instead of complaining about it on a forum. Or go create the content you like yourself.

I don’t like ads either and have stopped watching several channels because of how they use them.

“Every time the same argument” is right - “my time is valuable but the creator’s time is not!”

AeroLemming,

Instead of not watching them, you can just use SponsorBlock!

glimse,

Go for it! I’m not holding that against anyone. I’m railing against the entitlement of saying it’s “not respectful of the viewer’s time” to have sponsored segments.

Like I said elsewhere, I think that stance is ironic because it’s not respecting the creator’s time and effort. “I want you to spend hours and hours making videos for me but I don’t want you to make money from it”

AeroLemming,

Yeah, I see video monetization as running on a similar model to that of free to play games. The majority of people either don’t make you any money or only very little money, but they boost your engagement and popularity metrics so that you get more ‘whales’ that do things like donating on Patreon, choosing to watch sponsors and use affiliate codes, and buying merch.

Ads are only the worth the actual amount of business they generate. I know that a lot of people don’t realize that even if they never intentionally buy something from an ad, the familiarity of seeing things in an ad makes them more likely to pick it over something else down the line. However, this still only works if you have any disposable income and don’t immediately hit mute, close your eyes, and count to 30 when an ad comes on. A lot of people using ad blockers would just devalue the ads themselves if they were forced to watch them. The people with the money just pay for Premium.

ColeSloth,

It’s also under control of what the creator placed in the video. Youtube can insert commercials into your video, even if you chose not to monetize it.

YeOldGrim,

On one hand true, on the other, a lot of those sponsorships advertise dubious things at best. I love the channels that just shill their own merch, but being entirely fair, you need to be at a certain revenue threshold to afford making said merch.

The problem with those, 3rd party sponsorships is that they’re usually just either mobile games, F2P(P2W) MMOs, overpriced basic products or software advertised in the FUD way. Sorry, I don’t care for Raid Shadow Legends, War Thunder, Manscaped or NordVPN. Especially the last one and the ones like it grind my gears because the sponsorships for that kind of product are borderline misinformation.

All of them, in some way, can be considered somewhat predatory. I’d rather buy a silly hat or a plushie, thank you very much.

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.

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.

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)

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.

1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi,

He’s still bitter someone Sponsorblocked his cat segment :-)

sheepishly,
@sheepishly@kbin.social avatar

That's unironically the reason I don't use Sponsorblock, I don't have any control over what people choose to mark as sponsored, what if they make me skip important content like cat segments?

wolfshadowheart,
@wolfshadowheart@kbin.social avatar

You also don't have to set it up to skip automatically, it will play through with a popup option to skip.

fernandorincon,

Sponsorblock has categories and you can choose which to skip.

sheepishly,
@sheepishly@kbin.social avatar

But which category is the cat in??

fernandorincon, (edited )

Not having seen the video I would think it is in filler/off topic

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Also it’s important to report incorrect submissions since if enough people report them they get removed and the users who do this reprimanded.

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.

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.

    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.

    Norgur,

    Since the app has ties to creators, I get why they disapprove of sponsorblock, but... Why did they implement it if they don't like it?

    bionicjoey,

    Certainly there was big demand for it. I was hoping they’d eventually implement it as I’d been testing the app out

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    I get why they disapprove of sponsorblock

    The app strips analytics and watch data preventing views from being counted. So the argument doesn’t logically make sense. They’re trying to make a moral argument out of something that doesn’t and can’t have any impact because the data used to justify watch-time and engagement isn’t provided.

    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.

    TCB13,
    @TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

    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.

    +1

    Firenzebel,

    I guess there’s a moral reason behind it.

    YouTube is a behemoth of a company so you’d expect most of the ads money to go to the creators but you can be sure it’s not.

    They also demonetize videos for stupid reasons more and more, and they use their quasi monopole on the video hosting to push ads down our throats in many ways with less and less control over the type, placement or duration of the ads they greenlight because what are we gonna do? Go on vimeo or dailymotion?

    On the other hand, sponsors pay the creators directly or through affiliated links, they work even if the video is demonetized, creators can decide whether or not they agree with the sponsor content and remain somewhat in control of how the sponsor sequence is gonna be in their video since they’re the ones making them.

    Morally, you can decide you hate YouTube and its ads while still wanting to support the creators (or not) but all users are not on the same level of technological knowledge and might not know what sponsorblock is gonna block exactly (despite the name) or how to set it up.

    For those users, I think it’s not a bad idea to have such a warning/opt-out step in the setup process.

    Draconic_NEO,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    This ignores the fact that these apps don’t have the functionality to tell YouTube a video or segment of a video has been watched, therefore they literally can’t make money off these users period, it’s just the way these clients work, they don’t send analytics data to YouTube, so they don’t count views. It’s as if the person paused the video, let it buffer all the way then clicked off without watching.

    People can argue semantics about watching or not watching or what it means philosophically but in the end the views aren’t counted by the software on these apps, it doesn’t matter how much or how long you watch something it just doesn’t count the view, because they never receive any tracking data. So in that regard there really is no sense in shaming SponsorBlock usage, if it seems like a problem you shouldn’t be using these apps in the first place because they defeat the money-making part of the segments in and of themselves.

    Player2,

    Before getting Sponsorblock, I would always manually skip forward past the integrated advertisements. This tool does the exact same thing but faster and more convenient for me. My conscience is unaffected

    bionicjoey,

    Precisely! The sponsors have to be aware that some subset of the audiences watching the sponsorees will skip ahead anyway. They can’t seriously believe that they are entitled to our attention.

    Firenzebel,

    They are aware of it I guess, but probably don’t deal with the issue in an effective way.

    There’s a French channel I look at, they make sponsor sequences as well but I don’t skip them because they make those in such a bizarre, ridiculous and remotely funny way I’m even curious to see how bad the sponsor sequence is gonna be.

    They alone are the only reason why I set up my sponsorblock to not skip sponsor sequences, but to skip everything else

    Blackmist,

    The Wadsworth Constant was a thing even from the earliest days of Youtube.

    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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