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Comment by JosephRedfern | Hacker News Reader

I personally wouldn't want to blanket-drop sponsored content from the videos I watch, but this seems really nicely put together, and a version which let me exclude "sketchier" sponsors but keep everything else (or perhaps lets me skip ones I've seen before) would be great.

This comment:

> Just look at the poor leftist Youtubers

felt a little out of place, though?

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"Just look at the poor leftist Youtubers pushing NordVPN and tell me faces don't scream Stockholm syndrome" - I don't even understand what this means... I watch plenty of apolitical youtube that is sponsored by Nord (Mentour Pilot), am I missing something here?

If I were to guess I would suggest that he might be referring to the modern pro-censorship leftists and NordVPN could be seen as a work around for that censorship. I think a lot of demand for VPNs is from right-wing people who don't want their posts about climate change, vaccines, immigration etc. to be tied to their home IP address. I think the modern view is now 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' where before it was important that personal anonymity was maintained as a default even by those who don't need it so that a dissenters (those that do need it) could maintain anonymity and not have that behavior to be considered grounds for suspicion.

I'm assuming the point the author was shooting for was that there was something a bit odd about political commentators pausing their rants about corporate greed and people over profit to deliver paid pitches for a software company, with the added suggestion they tended to look awkward doing it.

But yeah, it's clumsily delivered and a random political swipe probably doesn't help people trust a browser extension...

Not a political swipe at all! I left an explanation in a comment above.

Yeah, way out of place. I was all for the copy and silly design until exactly there. Makes the thing seem like it has some bizzare agenda instead.

No agenda just a stupid joke, fixing it now! I just feel bad for some of the creators who I know hate doing this stuff.

The SponsorBlock addon lets you whitelist channels you want to support. Also has options to skip self-promotion (including like and subscribe reminders) and quiet parts of videos.

> whitelist channels you want to support

But it doesn't change anything though. Unlike ads that are paid on actual display count, a sponsored segment is paid to the content creator by the sponsor and... that's it. For content creators it literally doesn't change anything whether you watch the sponsored segment or skip it, automatically or manually.

You don't support a channel more by watching the sponsored content. I just watch it when content creators make it fun to watch.

Yeah I shoot myself in the foot here-what I meant is that those poor people are forced to support the very system they’re criticising. It’s absurd. I find it depressing and somewhat funny.

I’ll drop it because people are reading a bit too much into it! Thanks for the comments.

"Won't someone please think of the unheard internet leftists?" No group is as dominant in a space as leftists online, you're allowed to make fun of them - they'll be ok.

Worst comes to worst they'll get you fired and swatted. They'll survive though.

Nah, I wasn’t trying to make fun of anyone, regardless what side of the imaginary line in the sand they stand.

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