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”?
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
They don’t respect my attention and time, thought
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.
they put in 10-100x the amount of time it takes you to watch that video to make it.
And show it to millions of people… So per capita… I put in more time then they did.
Apologies. You are the true hero. Thank you for your service
Hence why it might be hurtful to small creators. I’d love to see the numbers on that though, as the overall percentage of people using an adblocker is very low, I assume for Sponsorblock it’s significantly less.
No not even close. You did not put in more time.
Then they fucked up.
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.
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.
You are right! I used to hate on sponsors but now I understand that they are way better than targeted ads.
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
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.
The Wadsworth Constant was a thing even from the earliest days of Youtube.
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.
Yeah I agree, I just thought it was funny… Not “haha funny” but a bit jarring
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A lot of sponsors are very exploitative companies in their own right, and I don’t owe them my time or attention.
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?
Raid: Shadow Legends anyone?
Just use the NewPipe + Sponsorblock fork.
I do too and I’ve been wondering why we would need anything else 👍
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m confused about your stance on ReVanced. It’s about as open-source as you can get https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches
no it’s not. the modifications are open source, but the base client is the same old closed source Youtube app.
With ReVanced there is a core underlying app being patched which is not OSS. With GrayJay, the source of the whole thing is source-available
I understand that and wouldn’t have commented if you said that. Instead you said that, quote, ReVanced, end quote, is not open source.
Well the app it creates on your device is not open source. The patch is, but the actual software being run isn’t.
Also you can just use actual quotation marks my dude, no need to say “quote end quote” like some kind of Dan Carlin impersonator
My understanding is that it literally can’t be used in an open fashion since it critically requires a proprietary closed base.
Some source code is available but the entire thing is not open source.
I think you guys are just discussing semantics. Revanced as a project is the patches themselves, so Revanced is open source. But a YouTube app patched with the Revanced patches is not.
Exactly. Could have just said YouTube is closed source from the start when ReVanced is 100% open-source.
Well I’m glad that’s settled then.
That’s a better way to frame it.
The patch is ‘about as open source as you can get’ but the actual application is far from it.
He’s still bitter someone Sponsorblocked his cat segment :-)
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?
Sponsorblock has categories and you can choose which to skip.
Also it’s important to report incorrect submissions since if enough people report them they get removed and the users who do this reprimanded.
But which category is the cat in??
Not having seen the video I would think it is in filler/off topic
You also don’t have to set it up to skip automatically, it will play through with a popup option to skip.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I know my klick on the link is counted if I am interested in the product they are selling.
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.
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?
I’m fairly certain they didn’t want to include it but felt it was the only way to offer the same/better service over revanced.
I’m sure as hell happy about that. I understand the creators need their sponsors but at the same time, I cannot stand ads. Like this I’m keeping his app and frequent it more often.
Grayjay doesn’t block ads. It simply doesn’t load them in the stream. There is a difference.
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.
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…
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)