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Comment by joshjhargreaves | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, I don't know how I feel about this. I tend to find that with most content creators I watch, the sponsors they pick for their videos tend to be more relevant to their audience than standard pre/midroll ads might be. I'm okay with supporting their channel typically with a sponsorship.

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I've seen a lot of the ones I watch having sponsors that are only vaguely related, such as a certain mattress manufacturer or a certain shopping cart creation site.

I don't mind the ones that relate, but the unrelated ones are very jarring.

Regardless, I almost never watch a second ad for the same product. I skip through them.

I haven't yet gotten to the point that I'd just skip them automatically, though. That's seems extreme.

The "play this awesome gacha game that I _totally_ play all the time" segments on absolutely unrelated videos is awful.

I get that they pay the creators so much money for the spots it's silly for the creators to say no, but I will always skip those segments.

So don't install the plugin and you're good to go.

Or were you considering some scenario where someone gets to decide when other people can press play, pause or fast-forward?

That is a feature I'm not interested in. Give me a media player that does what I want (as its user), not overrule that for anyone else.

I added a channel whitelisting feature just for this. Hopefully, we can encourage ethical behavior and good sponsors by rewarding those who do it right with a whitelist, like how adblock in theory can help.

- Developer

"Opt-in" doesn't work; I thought this was common knowledge

Yea, but I don't want to turn into the [Acceptable Ads Committee](https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/eyeos-toothless-acceptable-ad...)

Some are quite well done and feels less like an ad, some awful ones just play a shitty VPN clip in the worst possible way.

The reason why I made this extension was because I was sick of the deceptiveness some channels used. Some channels don't even mention they are sponsored, but just talk as if they are recommending the product.

Yes, you could say it's obvious they are sponsored, but that is only true to a regular YouTube viewer. To many outsiders, they get tricked into thinking these are actual recommendations and not ads.

I think saying that something is sponsored, then talking about it is perfectly acceptable. Trying to dodge that you are sponsored or being supported by them is very sketchy. And I especially don't like the new common practice of making hard to distinguish segues into sponsorships.

Here is what made me make this extension: https://www.reddit.com/r/kurzgesagt/comments/ca7vub/first_de...

- Developer

Agreed. Lots of times the sponsor content is creatively woven into video, providing either humor or entertainment, or both. I won't be using this.

It seems the most popular channel for this extension is Linus Tech Tips, which does not do this.

I made this for the channels that don't do that, and have whitelisted channels with good and ethical sponsorships.

- Developer

"Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend" podcast does this really well. He has totally unrelated ads like State Farm insurance and a glass printing company, but he turns them into comedy bits with self-deprecating jokes and riffing. I'm usually very sensitive to ads, but I've never felt the urge to skip any of his.

"No, those are the good guys. They're good at emotional manipulation!"

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