I wonder how much of youtube content is hardcoded sponsor ads.

BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 134 points –

Like when the creator does their spiel for whatever sponsor.

30

That's what sponsor block is for.

You can download the entire SponsorBlock database (see https://sponsor.ajay.app/database and https://github.com/mchangrh/sb-mirror ), so it should be possible to calculate a reasonably accurate answer to OP's question.

You'd need to estimate for the videos absent from the database, of course.

Sponsorblock has an interesting stats here: https://sponsor.ajay.app/stats/

They have over 15 millions segments blocked. Not sure how many of them are ads and what's the total lengths of those ads relative to the actual video though.

Sometimes the creators do funny ways to introduce their sponsors, I really like that. For example donut, even if it's a fun skit they even place a progress bar on the bottom. It's the main reason I set sponsorblock to "notify, but don't skip the segment"

Other times instead it's the whole video to be secretly sponsored, like many unboxing channels. In that case sponsorblock should warn "error: no content found"

SponsorBlock already flags fully sponsored videos in the thumbnail.

How do you feel about creators plugging their own product…for example, when Mark Rober (YouTube celebrity, engineer) plugs Crunchlabs (his subscription/box service for STEM kits for kids)?

Or when people plug their Patreons?

well, in that case i completely hated the video. mark rober usually makes excellent videos, but the latest videos were just excuses to plug his crunchlabs subscription or that masterclass thing.

I love creators that make a skit for their sponsors. Sadly only few of them do this.

Internet historian sponsor segments are hillarious.

Harry Mack does freestyle raps about his sponsors. I think his bars about Keeps hair medication service and Nord VPN are just as entertaining as the rest of his stuff.

Depends how you define hard coded sponsors. Ad for Raid Shadow Legends or NordVpn, then quite little.

How would you count videos where Asus/Dell/HP/Milwaukee have sent hardware for review?

Untrustworthy. Real reviewers buy the product. If you are reliant on companies to send you product to review then you cannot be impartial.

“Just to be up front I was sent this product free of charge for review. No money has exchanged hands and the company doesn’t get to review my video before I upload. “

So, if you write them a bad review are they going to send you one next time?

If they make a bad product do you want more of it, even for free?

Like, reviewers get to the point where companies send them free product for review from a long period of legitimate reviews that get them a large enough audience. It's unlikely they're getting their main profits from free products sent.

Obviously you shouldn't take a single person's review as gospel anyway, but just them getting a review copy of a thing isn't a sole reason to discredit their opinion.

If the company is worthless, has no integrity, or is an idiot, no. Blacklisting an independent reviewer for a negative review says to me a company relies on dishonest shills rather than their own quality. "You didn't like that one? Here, try this one." at least takes some integrity.

Let's use the example of power tools. A reviewer is sent a tool, doesn't like it. Switch isn't very good, too heavy, motor breaks. So he produces a bad review, recommends against it. A shit company tries to prevent this guy from talking about them again. A good company says "Hey, will you try our new and improved version?" A company that takes their Ls and even listens and responds to criticism is worth paying for.

I more meant if you require companies to send you goods to review for your business to work, then you can't be impartial.

As long as I have seen a reviewer shit on a free product at some point, I'm fine with it. Otherwise I agree.

Sponsor Block just warns you if a video is an ad wholesale. So, logically, count the entire video.

Ironic that this is posted by "barqs has bite" lol. But yes I have wondered the same thing. I also wonder how much a certain sponsor influence the video topic. Like if you're sponsored by Nord VPN, are you more likely to do a video on Internet privacy or security?

I also wonder how much a certain sponsor influence the video topic

Literally anything can influence the creator. I watch Max Miller's Tasting History, and he's unrepentant that he chooses certain foods to go with wine or coffee from his sponsors. But, he also makes entertaining history pieces to go with it, and that's what I'm there for.

Jon Townsend will happily sell you reproduction kitchen equipment from his own store, which is heavily featured in the videos.

At the end of the day, creators have to get paid somehow. Sure, some creators are doing it for free because they have a day job, or whatever, but even then you can be pretty sure they won't do anything to jeopardize their paycheck.

I think the most we can hope for is that creators tell us when they are are influenced by advertising.

I posit that people who really know about internet privacy and security are the least likely to let themselves be sponsored by Nord VPN.