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”?
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.
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
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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.
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?
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.
Certainly there was big demand for it. I was hoping they’d eventually implement it as I’d been testing the app out
I think they said that they technically don’t block ads. They just don’t implement them. If youtube were to somehow pack ads into the video stream, they wouldn’t go around it. Though I’m sure that in such case an adblock extension would pop up very fast.
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
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.
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.
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Please explain to me how does blocking sponsor segments harm creators?
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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.
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.
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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.
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?
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.
They get paid more if people use the affiliate links or coupon codes from the sponsored sections of the video.
I may be wrong but from what I’ve heard from some “small” content creator on YouTube the money from the sponsored talks in their video is a much bigger part of their income than money from youtube coming from the YouTube-selected ads that play before/during the video.
Also, this part do not give any money to YouTube and do not use/collect any data on you.
The point remains, all Sponsorblock does is skip the video ahead. Something most rational people do anyway even without the extension. And creators to my knowledge don’t get paid based on the number of views their sponsored sections get.
They do and they don’t.
I am not aware of any creators who get sponsorships paid in impressions. Albeit, I don’t really talk to anyone who goes hard on tiktok or instagram so there is that.
But it is not at all uncommon for a sponsorship deal to include some metrics. They want to know retention rate, how often people skip past your sponsor bits, etc. And youtube DOES record that. Many videos will have a little chart if you mouse over the tracking bar that shows the most rewatched portions.
And if you can demonstrate that people tend to actually watch your sponsored segments? You often can get a MUCH bigger check. Its why a lot of mid-tier creators will do a skit for their sponsored segment. And why the really big ones completely phone it in because they know the vast majority of their watches are people who can’t go to sleep without having Ninja talk about how he can’t be around women who aren’t his wife.
How would anybody confirm whether the sponsor ads are being watched or not?
I believe YouTube provides analytics on this to the creator which may be shared with a potential sponsor before a deal is made.
Ah TIL. Thanks for the details.
Take it with a grain of salt, as I can’t provide any sources and I’m not a YouTube content creator. I just remember some channels sharing than.
Can confirm. I upload YouTube videos and it shows me stats on which parts of the video people watch.
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.
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.
Depends on a sponsor. Some sponsors can pay crap loads of money to a big creator.
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.
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.
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).
Are they even able to see when their baked in ads get skipped over?
Probably, I’m fairly certain they get told which parts of the video get skipped and which get rewatched.
Only applies on official apps and frontends with analytics. Without them it’s just buffering the video.
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.
Just use the NewPipe + Sponsorblock fork.
I don’t think newpipe works with recommendations or leaving comments does it?
Commenting on YouTube? Gross.
correct, newpipe has no account integration be design for privacy
I wonder if one could design an extension that would do a rough recommendation algorithm locally. I use recommendations a ton, so I can’t really switch to newpipe.
FWIW I’ve found Piped (LibreTube on Android) has decent recommendations when you are inside a video. Main feed is just standard, but once you go into a video the suggestions are roughly the same in my experience.
I do too and I’ve been wondering why we would need anything else 👍
Did not know this fork exists. Thank you for enlightening my day, Internet stranger.
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.
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
The Wadsworth Constant was a thing even from the earliest days of Youtube.
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?
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.
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.
How dare you besmirch Shadow Raid Legends VPN like that!
Raid specifically pays BUCKETS
Can’t fault any content creator for needing to eat
I can only assume they’re some sort of front for a cartel because I’ve never met anyone that actually plays it.
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.
Yes but you watching the ad doesn’t make money for the creator.
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.
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.
This is such a bizarre concept to me.
Why would I want someone to convince me to buy something with a “good pitch” ?
Because I didn’t know of it before?
If you didn’t know of it, then you didn’t need or want it.
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…
I guess there are exceptions, it’s unknowable but one wonders how long it would’ve taken you to discover nebula some other way.
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
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.
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.
