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Comment by dspillett | Hacker News Reader

I draw the line before sponserblock. At that point you are taking money directly from the content creators, not YT or other platforms.

I held out on blocking ads for some time, until it became impractical to avoid drive-by attacks other ways and the amount of stalking involved got _really_ creepy.

If sponsor segments irritate me enough that I'd consider sponsorblock then I choose between paying for the content directly (if a sponsor-free version is available that way) or just not consuming it (at least not from that source).

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Sponsorblock looks pretty harmless as far as affecting creators getting paid, it doesn't seem to do anything that can't be replicated by hitting your right arrow key a couple times so weird place to draw the line in my opinion. Pretty sure sponsors can't tell if people fast forwarded through the sponsored section.

YouTube allows you to see the view drop-off at every second, so the creator of the video can see people skipping the sponsor section.

I’m guessing that sponsors probably look at click through or view count. I believe sponsors that care about views will ask to see this chart in the future if they don’t ask for it now.

I am on YouTube since around 2009. I have never, ever bought something a YTer mentioned in a sponsored segment.

They get paid just for talking about the products, what's the difference if I skip the segment manually, or if a plugin does it automatically?

IMO, quality wise, sponsored segments advertise better products than the YT ads. In most cases, they are tied to the video/creator and the creator talks and advertises them because they themselves use it. They feel a lot more organic and targeted than anything the YT algo ever showed me.

Well, another problem that I have is that I watch a lot of videos from US-based creators.

For me as a european, quite a lot of physical items which are being sponsored are not available in my country, so the ads for these are essentially useless.

The rest of the ads are VPNs(which I already got), various SaaS which I have absolutely no use for or things I already know (and don't want).

Online ads are already annoying and useless to me, but sponsored segments are even worse.

At least I don't feel bad for skipping these segments because AFAIK, creators just have to integrate these segments into the videos, that's it. The advertisers can't know if I've seen the segment so the creator gets paid the same, doesn't matter if I watch or skip it.

Isn't that a contradictory argument that it's okay to "take money" from platforms but not content creators? They are both service providers with the objective to earn revenue.

However, I do not believe that blocking ads is taking money from providers. I think if your business model involves displaying ads, you must factor in the cases where consumers are not interested in said ads. Otherwise where do we draw the line? What if the consumer is letting the ad shows but not watching it? Will we mandate eye tracking? What if the consumer is mentally tuned out? Will we mandate brain implants? What if the consumer takes a principled stance of never purchasing anything they see in an ad? Will we mandate consumers mandatorily convert a certain percentage of ads that are shown to them? It's gonna delve into absurdity and a consequential threat to human well being. I wish society could just reach a common ground that it's a fundamental right that people are allowed to block ads by whatever means they see fit.

> Isn't that a contradictory argument that it's okay to "take money" from platforms but not content creators? They are both service providers with the objective to earn revenue

On just that, yes.

But at least sponsor spots are just that, payment for advertising. They are not directly part of the global stalking networks. I don't object to advertising as a way of paying for things, I object to being followed around in everything I do.

It's a grey area. YouTube, for example, pays content creators out of their subscription revenue from YouTube Premium. When I watch a video, they're receiving some of this money, even if I skip their ads.

Further, if I manually skip the ads, how is that functionally different to automatically skipping the ads? What if I turn off audio or avert my eyes? Are you arguing that I should have my eyes and ears glued to the screen when the ads are playing?

How is that taking money from the creators? They still get paid, and I don't have to watch a presentation about some garbage I'll never buy.

> How is that taking money from the creators?

Long term if no one buys the sponsorships will fall off.

> I'll never buy

Of course if you know with absolutely 100% certainty that you'll never buy or mention to others (you might not need/want a WidgitotronAsAService, but maybe someone you know asks about them later) anything ever mentioned in a sponsor spot, then no there is no loss (and I envy your clairvoyance).

I consider it a politeness to the content creators to not automatically skip the sponsor slots. I do manually ship the ones I've heard a few times already, but you never know if the next one might have some relevance. Unlike stalky ads, the sponsor slots have some chance of being relevant to what I'm thinking about while watching that particular clip.

I don't understand your argument. Me not watching the sponsors doesn't affect any of the other viewers of that video. People clearly DO support the sponsors, and that's fine. I don't and never have, not from a moral position but that I've never seen one that resonates in any way with me. When I say I skip them, I usually stick around long enough to hear the name of the product being peddled.

I understand what you're trying to say but after watching the 972658th Raid Shadow Legends ad I just mash the right arrow as soon as I sense a segue to some sponsor because the chance that there's a good product behind a YT ad is around .3% and that's just not worth my time or attention

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