Louis Rossman/FUTO's YouTube app, GrayJay, now supports Sponsorblock... and shames you if you use it

I believe this is because sponsor segments are like traditional TV ads. They don't use trackers, they are not targeted and they respect your privacy.

Before getting Sponsorblock, I would always manually skip forward past the integrated advertisements. This tool does the exact same thing but faster and more convenient for me. My conscience is unaffected

Shame is an artificial construct that I am choosing not to opt into. Thanks for letting us know that sponsorblock is in, I'm turning it on now.

If I'm not buying the crap that sponsors them anyway then how does it affect the creator if I skip the section? I assume the success of the sponsor is based off referrals but again, I'm not buying their crap or using referral links.

Seems to me an overreaction to complain about a single checkbox suggesting that people who make YouTube videos make actual money from sponsorships where ads get them jack shit. They added Sponsorblock but just have a one-time warning, is that really big of a deal? It's informational, and if you don't like it, ignore it and move on with your day.

If they were more insistent like a popup every time you used it I could see getting upset about it.

In case anyone is wondering, here is the "shaming" that is done in the app. (images attached)

You're not being shamed anywhere in this text. You are being presented factual information. Any shame that you feel as a result of being faced with information is pretty much entirely on you.

I have no qualms turning on sponsorblock and adblockers, I support the creators that I enjoy via other means.

If you are taking issue with the "don't freeload" then I guess you perhaps feel bad being told that you're freeloading? I won't pretend to know what's going on in your own brain. But you're posting this in a piracy community so I don't imagine it should be any surprise to you that you're freeloading, lol. If ye choose to sail the seas, do it with pride, me hearty. And support small businesses, yarr.

I block all advertising myself, but sponsors I think are ok. The creator can control who they sponsor with, they can write a funny ad skit that is entertaining (the best ones I have seen are the ones by squishy boi) and the creator gets paid directly without fucking us with an algorithm.

I'm happy to watch those kinds of ads as I know the creator is getting paid from them, and e.g. YouTube isn't taking a cut.

Eh, at least they added support for it. Good for them. Still looking at this app with some skepticism but so far seems to be doing what it sets out to do.

Real sponsors pay up front, or only add an additional bonus for affiliate link sales, if a creator accepts a deal on affiliate link money only, it's their own fault. So if you always fast forward through sponsors and don't care, you might as well enable it to save the bandwidth and power.

Just use the NewPipe + Sponsorblock fork.

He’s still bitter someone Sponsorblocked his cat segment :-)

I was kind of dissapointed when I read the new pipe team was having an issue with sponsor block, but tbh their reasoning makes a lot of sense:

https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertising/

And even thought I am using the sponsor block fork now I only skip the non-music part in music videos, because I do agree that creators have to make money somehow. And while I don't love ads most of the time (sometimes they are really well made) my main issue with ads on Youtube/the wider Internet is how intrusive they are and them not respecting my privacy.

I may be wrong but from what I've heard from some "small" content creator on YouTube the money from the sponsored talks in their video is a much bigger part of their income than money from youtube coming from the YouTube-selected ads that play before/during the video.

Also, this part do not give any money to YouTube and do not use/collect any data on you.

damn y’all get all the cool shit on android :(

i keep sponsorblock on but i pretty much have it set on manual skip by default. i mostly use it for critical role (whom i also subscribe to on twitch) shows to skip the intermission or for twitch vods on youtube to skip the beginning and after parts where it's just the streamer talking to chat.

but i also don't understand how skipping in video sponsored segments loses them money like it's not a youtube thing it's a creator thing like television adverts. how would they know if it's been skipped wouldn't they already get the money to do the sponsorship before the video is posted?

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.

+1

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.

For me, terms and definitions are very important. Just like right to repair is often misrepresented to the detriment of consumers, it's important to only talk about open source if the license actually respects your freedom [1].

Open source has a lot of positive connotations and calling some project open source while only being source available feels like taking advantage of it.

It's similar to how large corporations talking about being eco friendly with their packaging whilst making the actual devices as hard to repair as possible.

You're right, the ReVanced project is open source, but the resulting app is not, since it's modifying the official YouTube app.

[1] https://opensource.org/osd/

I'm confused about your stance on ReVanced. It's about as open-source as you can get https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches

Blocking YouTube's advertising is necessary for privacy, and it punishes YouTube for their bad business practices.

But sponsors aren't underhanded like that and I feel like they're the type of thing we should really be promoting as an alternative to privacy invading ads, and hopefully a way for creators to move off of YouTube eventually.

I'm fairly certain they didn't want to include it but felt it was the only way to offer the same/better service over revanced.

I'm sure as hell happy about that. I understand the creators need their sponsors but at the same time, I cannot stand ads. Like this I'm keeping his app and frequent it more often.

Outside of his right to repair work I find most anything Rossmann gets involved in is questionable. He is a good example of someone that got popular for something they cared about and knew something about, then mistakenly got the idea that success meant they had valid opinions on other things they know nothing about.

Rossmann knows about laptop hardware repair and running a small business. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into being a knowledgeable voice in the software dev or large scale digital advertising industries.

He is just a mouthpiece for the company behind Greyjay, nothing more.

Grayjay doesn't block ads. It simply doesn't load them in the stream. There is a difference.

I think they said that they technically don't block ads. They just don't implement them. If youtube were to somehow pack ads into the video stream, they wouldn't go around it. Though I'm sure that in such case an adblock extension would pop up very fast.

Since the app has ties to creators, I get why they disapprove of sponsorblock, but... Why did they implement it if they don't like it?

How do you turn it on? I'm on Grayjay v 195 but I'm not seeing the option in settings.

Are they even able to see when their baked in ads get skipped over?

Blocking ads blocks Google revenue which trickles (or more accurately, drips) down to creators. Blocking sponsor segments blocks creator revenue directly.

If you don't care then fine, use a different app that doesn't have the warning. If there's not another app, build one. Otherwise, you now know the reason that warning exists and why it's not changing. Hopefully that makes the struggle a little easier.