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”?

  • xep@kbin.social
    5·
    8 months ago

    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.

    • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      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.

          • infectoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            8 months ago

            Pretty much. I watch all the NordVPN Man ads and don’t even sign up for a 12 month discount and the first month free. I’m basically a criminal.

            Also Mullvad FTW.

    • unalivejoy@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      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.

      • Ender of Games@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        They can see the percentage of people who watched that part of the video, as part of the video analytics. This doesn’t track the user, though, at least not if you have history turned off, or are using another front end.

        • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          And I’d guess that’s done in the backend instead of the frontend. They should be able to know how many times their server steamed a part of a video.