I made SponsorBlock, and over the years working on it, I have been able to see how horrible some of the techniques people use are
Do you believe that sponsorships are worse that targeted digital advertising?
Do you believe there are any Youtubers who have acted ethically in accepting sponsorships?
> I made SponsorBlock, and over the years working on it, I have been able to see how horrible some of the techniques people use are
It seems somewhat hypocritical to pretend that SponsorBlock is an ethical reaction to bad sponsorships when the clear ethical response would be to simply not watch the content. To be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with SponsorBlock, but let's be honest. It's purpose is convenience, not any higher moral objective.
With podcasts, it seems people are now trying to get the worst of both worlds, with dynamic advertisements from a pool based on who you are + the ads are read out by the podcast creator. I can't say that either case is worse than the other, but they are bad for different reasons.
> Do you believe there are any Youtubers who have acted ethically in accepting sponsorships?
There exist some that have clear transitions, declare in the first sentence that it is a sponsor, repeat at the end that it is a sponsor, and say explicitly in the ad-read that it is not their opinion but a script. That is certainly less deceptive. But unfortunately, this is not usually consistent. Some of their videos will do it well, and some do it poorly.
> It's purpose is convenience, not any higher moral objective
With "full video" labels (https://blog.ajay.app/full-video-sponsorblock), I've started to delve into the fixing bad declarations world. Full videos don't skip anything, but just inform the viewer what to watch out for. I want to make a wiki-like system for organising more precise biases in the future as well, and allow people to know which where each opinion in a video comes from.
Another fact I'll point out is that we sometimes get complaints that certain sponsor sections are incorrect, even though they totally are correct due to them not knowing it is paid promotion. An example is dbrand, which pays many top tech people to randomly mention their name in reviews, usually without much disclosure.
> SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos.
Again, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with using SponsorBlock, but I think it's absurd to claim it's a morally positive tool.
The thing that sparked the idea was a badly disclosed sponsorship. The saving time bits are great, and that's why there's more features now than just ads, you can skip intros too. However, I did start this explicitly due to being frustrated with the state of deception in the sponsorship world, and that remains my main motivation.
In the end, the motivation is not the tool as implemented.
(I assume from your message tone that you are not a fan of paying for the content, either)
If Nebula existed when I created SponsorBlock, would I have created it? Maybe not, but I think the existence of the tool should prove that people want to avoid this stuff, and more creators should take note and provide ways to at least pay to avoid it.
And, if your ads are still deceptive, allowing a privileged few to pay to avoid them doesn't solve that issue
After all, SponsorBlock doesn't address the deception or the parasocial nature you complained about elsewhere. It just hides the ads that the creators inserted.
Given that SponsorBlock also allows users to skip the segments where users are offered ways to pay (like Patreon), it also seems especially hypocritical to suggest that.
Again, I don't think there's anything morally wrong with using SponsorBlock, but I think you're fooling yourself if you think it serves some public good. It just removes the only privacy-preserving form of advertising available to creators and let's people consume their work without the inconvenience of watching the ads that pay for it.
No, I don't believe so, abd that's the fundamental disagreement
https://giveup.ajay.app/ here's some fun satire of taking that opinion to the extreme. How dare you steal from advertiser by not following through and buying their product :)
> Sponsorships encourage deception (tricking the user into not skipping) and building up parasocial relationships with the audience to abuse their trust, the worst of the influencer world
SponsorBlock doesn't address either of these points.
If the creator is truly deceiving the user to try to get them to watch an ad or building a parasocial relationship in order to increase the chances of conversion (which is your claim), then I don't see how continuing to watch their content minus the ads is any better for the user. Of course, that doesn't really matter because SponsorBlock has a different true purpose, to remove the inconvenience of watching ads.
Once again, I don't have a problem with SponsorBlock or using SponsorBlock to avoid ads. I think you're trying to rationalise your decision to build SponsorBlock by trying to claim it serves some moral good or higher purpose. Whether that's conscious hypocrisy or internalised self-deception is another matter.
Labeling something on a timeline, or skipping it, does prevent someone from deceptively convincing you to follow through with the action they want. If you have an idea on how to fix people's attachments to parasocial relationships, I'd love to hear it, as I think it's important as well. SponsorBlock does not, and cannot, solve every problem I have with the world.