[dcow]

I agree with you in spirit.

Here's a thought experiment, though: if you manually skip sponsor segments every single time you watch a video by dragging the scrubber, is that any different from having a piece of software do as much for you, in an automated fashion?

[dspillett]

If it is the same advert I've seen many times for one of those casual games that all look the same (battle of the tanks, tank war, waring tanks, battling tanks, fantasy tanks, tank fantasy, …) then that isn't even relevant to what I'm watching (I wonder how much they pay for a spot on an LTT vid or similar?) it'll get skipped every time. If it is something that might be relevant but I'm already aware (either I already was, or I've already seen the ad four times this week) again it'll get skipped.

The Running Is BS podcast is sponsored by a tea company: irrelevant to me as I don't drink tea at all (there is some relevance to the people making the cast, which is how the segment came about initially), hitting skip-forward-30s a couple of times each fortnight is no hardship to me. I listen enough that I perhaps should consider doing the Patreon thing, the fact that I and no doubt many others in a similar position don't do the Patreon thing is why the sponsor segment is useful to the creators.

> is that any different from having a piece of software do as much for you

The difference is that something new and potentially useful doesn't get skipped and it would automatically with sponsorblock. Hitting the right arrow key a couple of times is hardly a hardship. Before the sponsor segments on a video channel or podcast get to the point of irritation where I'd use something like sposorblock, I'll probably just start avoiding looking at that channel at all.

[dcow]

It’s not that it’s a hardship to press right a few times, it’s more that I’m trying to understand, academically, how to make a “respectful” skipping tool. Because I believe both that in-content ads are the most user respecting ads and deserve better engagement/treatment than “universally skip”, but also that users are not morally obligated to consume ads even for ad-sponsored content (is’t the advertiser’s, and only the advertiser’s, problem if users aren’t interested).

Sounds like the requirements would be: 1) it plays every new sponsorship pitch once, which you can still manually skip, and 2) it maybe asks you whether you want to skip on a per-instance level?

[dspillett]

> it plays every new sponsorship pitch once

Perhaps once in a specified amount of time. Every two weeks? Sometimes I forget things and a reminder isn't inappropriate. Spread over all channels if possible, rather than once per channel per period.

Also rather than silently skipping, perhaps a couple of seconds pause with “sponsor segment for <product> skipped” displayed, at least as a default the individual users can switch off.