It's also pretty challenging since they're not OS-level windows any more.

It's the same problem as video ad blockers and YouTube: the ads/sponsorships have just become embedded in the main stream so they're much more difficult to obviously delineate from the actual video.

SponsorBlock. Granted, doesn’t do much for my iPhone but on computers it’s a solved problem.

SponsorBlock is available on just about every type of device these days -- works perfectly on Android with YouTube ReVanced. The options on iOS are naturally a bit more limited, but apparently it's possible on a jailbroken device (or through some other slightly-janky methods on non-jailbroken devices): https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock/wiki/iOS

It works on Firefox on Android as well, as do many other FF extensions. It won't work on a fruit phone [1], the Firefox version you can get there is lobotomised because the fruit factory is afraid a full-feature browser not under their control will eat into their app store margins.

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1486487

Yeah I hope Mozilla will make a full version for the EU which is possible now. But Apple is making it as hard as possible for them, there was an article about that only recently.

Although to be fair YouTube itself has started to defeat those - they put a little white dot in the timeline when the ad finishes.

I'm not sure how they do it but I think AI could pretty easily detect current ad transitions. Especially when combined with data about which bits of the video most people skip.

I think it'll lead to sponsorships being much more integrated into videos rather than a sponsorship segment. Or possibly people will switch to much shorter segments like LTT does.

I never really understood why they want long segments anyway. Shorter ones mean I'm much more likely to actually see it.

Really, YouTube should just auto skip sponsor segments for premium users. As it is Premium isn't worth it. Because you still get bombarded with ads despite paying to stop them.

Of course it will hurt the content creators but they are already getting paid much more per view by premium customers! So showing sponsor segments as well is double dipping.

Yeah I agree, but it's understandable that YouTube are treading lightly here. It's really in their interests to auto-skip sponsor segments full stop, but that wouldn't go down well with content creators!

>It's really in their interests to auto-skip sponsor segments

But is it? Sponsor segments is view time, same as anything else.

Yeah definitely. YouTube doesn't get a cut from sponsor segments. They would much rather that the only way to make money for creators was through them.

I would not be entirely surprised if in future they launch an "official" sponsorship system where the sponsored section appears like an ad (you can't skip it without adblock/premium), they take a cut and require all videos to use it.

I bet the only reason they haven't (other than the open revolt it would cause) is that it would just push creators to blend their sponsorship into the entire video instead of having a nicely separated segment that you can easily skip.

Yeah I wish they would do that.

Another thing about the current sponsor fragments is that it obviously prompts a lot of people to install sponsorblock and that will kinda make them think: "why not go the whole way and just block ads altogether?". I do think more people would subscribe if sponsors would be blocked on premium.

Also this effect would be beneficial for both YT itself and the creators, they don't get paid anything for views from adblockers.

It would be great to see less sponsors too because there's too many youtubers selling their soul. Like LTT with their Honey app promotion, knowingly promoting malware. Or all the glossy reviewers that really are not all that impartial.

> it obviously prompts a lot of people to install sponsorblock

I would be very surprised if more than 1% of YouTube viewers use sponsorblock.

> I do think more people would subscribe if sponsors would be blocked on premium.

Definitely agree there!

> It would be great to see less sponsors

You wouldn't see that though. It's pretty clear sponsors pay waaay more than advertising. Creators would just integrate them more into the video so there's nothing to skip. Like instead of "this segue to our sponsor ComfyPants", it would be that their username in the game review is ComfyPants, and they get a skin only wearing pants, and they do the review wearing ComfyPants... you get the idea. Much worse.

I doubt sponsors pay more than advertising. After all it is advertising.

And what you describe is hidden advertising. It can also be forbidden. In many countries in Europe it is on public TV, and they have to avoid naming brands, if they show any the label has to be taped off etc.

It's just nihilism, we can put the urls on dht when we are ready.