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

Seriously this was very surprising. I've been experimenting with GrayJay since it was announced and I largely think it's a pretty sweet app. 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. Plus, I like the general design and philosophy of the app.

I updated the YouTube backend recently and to my surprise and delight they had added support for SponsorBlock. However, when I went to enable it, it warned me "turning this on harms creators" and made me click a box before I could continue.

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. Are you seriously gonna tell me that even without Sponsorblock, if I skip ahead past the sponsored ad read in a video, that I'm "harming the creator"?

189 comments

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.
- They don’t use trackers, they are not targeted and they respect your privacy.
  In that case it won't matter to anyone that I skipped them.
  
  As I've mentioned in another thread, I believe YouTube provides analytics on this (hence the "most replayed" parts for some videos), and I'm certain I've seen some creators mention sposors requiring that information before a deal is made. So it may really hurt some small youtubers that can't rely on merchandise sales.
  That said, I personally use sponsorblock as I don't feel like wasting my life on nordvpn ads, but I have to admit sponsor segments are a whole lot better than regular YouTube ads.
  Edit: And as I far as I know they pay much better than regular ads.
  
  They don’t use trackers,
  Well, they can see whether you watched them or not. So technically still tracked. At least in the official youtube app.
- They don't respect my attention and time, thought
  
  I mean, the person making the video you are watching respected your time to the point they put in 10-100x the amount of time it takes you to watch that video to make it.
  And the sponsor ad is how they afford said time commitment.
  
  I completely agree with you, and that's the reason I block them as well. I was just trying to give an explaination for the app's behaviour.
  
  Skip it all you want but don't act like it's such a terrible inconvenience. Creating high quality content is a full time job and people gotta eat
- I don't care for those, either.
  
  I skipped over therlm for years before using sponsorblock anyway.
  
  If that was their reasoning, they should say that rather than vaccuously claiming that it "harms creators"
- It's also under control of what the creator placed in the video. Youtube can insert commercials into your video, even if you chose not to monetize it.
- You are right! I used to hate on sponsors but now I understand that they are way better than targeted ads.
- On one hand true, on the other, a lot of those sponsorships advertise dubious things at best. I love the channels that just shill their own merch, but being entirely fair, you need to be at a certain revenue threshold to afford making said merch.
  The problem with those, 3rd party sponsorships is that they're usually just either mobile games, F2P(P2W) MMOs, overpriced basic products or software advertised in the FUD way. Sorry, I don't care for Raid Shadow Legends, War Thunder, Manscaped or NordVPN. Especially the last one and the ones like it grind my gears because the sponsorships for that kind of product are borderline misinformation.
  All of them, in some way, can be considered somewhat predatory. I'd rather buy a silly hat or a plushie, thank you very much.
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
- Precisely! The sponsors have to be aware that some subset of the audiences watching the sponsorees will skip ahead anyway. They can't seriously believe that they are entitled to our attention.
  
  They are aware of it I guess, but probably don't deal with the issue in an effective way.
  There's a French channel I look at, they make sponsor sequences as well but I don't skip them because they make those in such a bizarre, ridiculous and remotely funny way I'm even curious to see how bad the sponsor sequence is gonna be.
  They alone are the only reason why I set up my sponsorblock to not skip sponsor sequences, but to skip everything else
  
  The Wadsworth Constant was a thing even from the earliest days of Youtube.
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.
- Yeah I agree, I just thought it was funny... Not "haha funny" but a bit jarring
- Shame is a mismatch between ego and ego-ideal, whereas guilt is a mismatch between ego and super-ego. The ego-ideal in shame does depend on social norms. But that is by no means “artificial”.
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.
- Precisely. Basically every company that markets themselves using YouTube sponsorships is a scam anyway.
  
  Nah, I watch a lot of videos about cars and most sponsors are legitimate businesses and some that I've bought from before.
  VPNs and apps on the other hand...
  
  That's a bit of a blanket statement. The way people talk about ads and sponsorships makes it sound like you want the people making the videos you are watching to fail and stop making videos. Or do you contribute to the channels you watch another way to ensure they can keep making money ?
- Exactly, I wouldn’t be buying anything sponsored anyway, and I’d just skip ahead myself if SponsorBlock didn’t exist.
- Same for me, and it's not even just about sponsors as there are many other categories. How does it help the creators to tell me for the umpteenth time to subscribe or something about a bell, when I don't even have a google account?
  Sponsorblock is a wonder, I wouldn't watch certain channels without it anymore.
- I think it depends on the deal they have made. If YouTubers only get paid when someone actually buys a product, then NordVPN pays cents to each Youtuber
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.
- It's not a big deal, just something I thought was odd. I'm not gonna claim checking a box is ruining my life or anything.
  
  Yeah. I use NewPipe myself just to be able to enjoy videos with my screen off, that Youtube has locked behind a subscription for no good reason.
  That said Rossman is someone who sticks to his principles and the FUTO group is an extension of those principles. At heart he's a New York businessman so he knows that people need money to live, but he also isn't trying to stop people to do what they like with tech that they supposedly have purchased.
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.
- Sponsorblock does not harm creators. Youtube has no method of detecting when a sponsored segment is skipped, so the creator still gets their sponsorship money. A person who is using sponsorblock is extremely unlikely to use the sponsored products even if they did watch the ad, so the creator isn't losing out on any affiliate money either.
  
  YouTube absolutely can see which parts of videos people are actually engaging with. So can creators. And sponsors can request engagement metrics as part of their sponsorship deals.
  Advertisers care about impressions and engagement. A person simply watching a sponsored segment is an impression. If people's impression metrics for sponsored segments start dropping, they become less attractive to sponsors as they knew they're going to get fewer impressions as part of the deal.
  It may, or may not, be a very small impact but it is an impact nonetheless.
  If nobody is watching sponsored segments (which we've established: YouTube itsself, creators, and sponsors can track) then companies don't have any incentive to sponsor videos, and creators no longer get revenue from sponsorships. Sure, this is a very end of the line example, because there's always going to be someone who doesn't have sponsorblock installed and can't be bothered to skip the segment.
  
  YouTube gets metrics on which parts of videos are being played. You can see this in the player where it'll display things like "most played segment" on the timeline.
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.
- But scammy sponsors are very common. Most of the promoted products are just trash because the company behind them puts way too much money in advertisement.
  
  How dare you besmirch Shadow Raid Legends VPN like that!
- Yes but you watching the ad doesn't make money for the creator.
  
  Ot does if its a good ad / sales pitch and I actually buy the product which is not gonna happen if it is automatically skipped.
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.
- Skipping sponsors automatically means you definitely won't be influenced by the marketing, so it hurts the creator because the sponsor might not work with them again because of low sales impact.
  Anyway, I'll continue to use NewPipe x SponsorBlock and the Firefox addon.
  
  Do these particular advertisers asks the influencers to show their statistics?
  I mean, wouldn't the creator have to take a screenshot and send that info in? How do the advertisers even know people are skipping through sponsored segments?
  Also I've never understood. I'm not going to buy a subscription service because someone I watch is offering it. If I want it I'm going to buy it regardless whether I've seen its ad or not, and the creators are just offering a discount code that can help them as well.
  Lost views is not lost sales. That's just stupid.
Just use the NewPipe + Sponsorblock fork.
- I do too and I've been wondering why we would need anything else 👍
- Did not know this fork exists. Thank you for enlightening my day, Internet stranger.
- I don't think newpipe works with recommendations or leaving comments does it?
  
  Commenting on YouTube? Gross.
  
  correct, newpipe has no account integration be design for privacy
He’s still bitter someone Sponsorblocked his cat segment :-)
- That's unironically the reason I don't use Sponsorblock, I don't have any control over what people choose to mark as sponsored, what if they make me skip important content like cat segments?
  
  Sponsorblock has categories and you can choose which to skip.
  
  You also don't have to set it up to skip automatically, it will play through with a popup option to skip.
damn y’all get all the cool shit on android :(
- Piped works on iOS. Invidious perhaps as well?
  
  Piped works mediocre at best and the quality settings and buffer is finicky depending on your settings. It’s not worth the hassle imo because it doesn’t even have Sponsorblock. Sadly on iOS I usually just stick to default YouTube app mostly with no Sponsorblock. But soon I want to try some of the modified youtube apps from Altstore.
  On Android TV on my sony bedroom tv I recently switched from the default YouTube app to Smarttube which is GOAT tbh I had no idea what I was missing. I wish I could get that but on iOS yaknow?
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.
- Well they won't make any money off you watching them on NewPipe because the way it parses videos doesn't register views or watched timestamps, the things that sponsors take into account when paying creators.
  It's why their argument is garbage, because they designed NewPipe the way they did for the purpose of privacy, which also defeats any method of making money through analytics yet they think Sponsorblock in this case stops them from making money, as if they could make money off NewPipe users at all in the first place.
- How sure are you that your view through NewPipe is getting counted on YouTube statistics so that the channel is getting a proper measure of reach?
  Because I am not so sure the view is being counted, and much less the (not)viewing of the sponsorblock segment.
  
  Views don't get counted on Newpipe and if they do somehow it's not accurate, as in it won't count watch-time or parts of the video watched, the way it parses the video these analytics don't get sent.
  
  I know my klick on the link is counted if I am interested in the product they are selling.
  
  It's still loading the page internally to extract the video link. I don't think newpipe after that looks different than say a smart tv,. So it's up to YouTube to do the counting.
- There's no reason in watching the sponsors through NewPipe, because the view doesn't count, especially segment-based view.
  The YouTube channel (and their sponsor) will never detect that you actually watched the sponsor. So, why bother watching it in the first place?
- If you really want to support someone on YouTube something like patreon is the way to go. Sponsored videos are life draining and a lot of extra work for paultry pay. But a legion of patreon subscribers can set someone up for a comfortable income from actually making things you want to see.
  
  Depends on a sponsor. Some sponsors can pay crap loads of money to a big creator.
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.
- The point remains, all Sponsorblock does is skip the video ahead. Something most rational people do anyway even without the extension. And creators to my knowledge don't get paid based on the number of views their sponsored sections get.
  
  They do and they don't.
  I am not aware of any creators who get sponsorships paid in impressions. Albeit, I don't really talk to anyone who goes hard on tiktok or instagram so there is that.
  But it is not at all uncommon for a sponsorship deal to include some metrics. They want to know retention rate, how often people skip past your sponsor bits, etc. And youtube DOES record that. Many videos will have a little chart if you mouse over the tracking bar that shows the most rewatched portions.
  And if you can demonstrate that people tend to actually watch your sponsored segments? You often can get a MUCH bigger check. Its why a lot of mid-tier creators will do a skit for their sponsored segment. And why the really big ones completely phone it in because they know the vast majority of their watches are people who can't go to sleep without having Ninja talk about how he can't be around women who aren't his wife.
- How would anybody confirm whether the sponsor ads are being watched or not?
  
  I believe YouTube provides analytics on this to the creator which may be shared with a potential sponsor before a deal is made.
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?
- Youtube tracks how much of a video each person watches. These metrics are used by youtubers to strike deals with sponsors.
  The amount of money the sponsor pays will be based on how many views the sponsor's message part of the video gets.
- They get paid more if people use the affiliate links or coupon codes from the sponsored sections of the video.
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/
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 guess there's a moral reason behind it.
  YouTube is a behemoth of a company so you'd expect most of the ads money to go to the creators but you can be sure it's not.
  They also demonetize videos for stupid reasons more and more, and they use their quasi monopole on the video hosting to push ads down our throats in many ways with less and less control over the type, placement or duration of the ads they greenlight because what are we gonna do? Go on vimeo or dailymotion?
  On the other hand, sponsors pay the creators directly or through affiliated links, they work even if the video is demonetized, creators can decide whether or not they agree with the sponsor content and remain somewhat in control of how the sponsor sequence is gonna be in their video since they're the ones making them.
  Morally, you can decide you hate YouTube and its ads while still wanting to support the creators (or not) but all users are not on the same level of technological knowledge and might not know what sponsorblock is gonna block exactly (despite the name) or how to set it up.
  For those users, I think it's not a bad idea to have such a warning/opt-out step in the setup process.
  
  This ignores the fact that these apps don't have the functionality to tell YouTube a video or segment of a video has been watched, therefore they literally can't make money off these users period, it's just the way these clients work, they don't send analytics data to YouTube, so they don't count views. It's as if the person paused the video, let it buffer all the way then clicked off without watching.
  People can argue semantics about watching or not watching or what it means philosophically but in the end the views aren't counted by the software on these apps, it doesn't matter how much or how long you watch something it just doesn't count the view, because they never receive any tracking data. So in that regard there really is no sense in shaming SponsorBlock usage, if it seems like a problem you shouldn't be using these apps in the first place because they defeat the money-making part of the segments in and of themselves.
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.
- A lot of sponsors are very exploitative companies in their own right, and I don't owe them my time or attention.
  
  The point is that YouTubers pay for that with their own reputation, if I followed a YouTuber that promoted exploitative companies I would stop following that YouTuber - why would you want to watch their content anyway?
  
  Raid: Shadow Legends anyone?
I'm confused about your stance on ReVanced. It's about as open-source as you can get https://github.com/revanced/revanced-patches
- With ReVanced there is a core underlying app being patched which is not OSS. With GrayJay, the source of the whole thing is source-available
  
  I understand that and wouldn't have commented if you said that. Instead you said that, quote, ReVanced, end quote, is not open source.
- no it's not. the modifications are open source, but the base client is the same old closed source Youtube app.
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.
Grayjay doesn't block ads. It simply doesn't load them in the stream. There is a difference.
- Grayjay also doesn't send analytics data back to YouTube, so watching the sponsor or skipping it look identical to YouTube's servers. One can't make the argument that you are supporting creators by watching their sponsors if the sponsors have no way to know that the sponsor part of the video was watched.
  
  As far as I'm aware, creator sponsorships rarely care about whether or not you watch the segments, but about how many people follow the link or whatnot. So you could make the argument that sponsorblock makes you never follow the links, but that really assumes you would otherwise, which...
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.
- I'm inclined to agree. I respect the work he's done for R2R, but I find his videos on New York commercial real estate to be incredibly cringe. Nonetheless I think GrayJay is a decent YouTube frontend and will probably continue using it until it gives me a reason to stop or until something I prefer comes along.
- So he's basically Elon Musk.
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?
- Certainly there was big demand for it. I was hoping they'd eventually implement it as I'd been testing the app out
- I get why they disapprove of sponsorblock
  The app strips analytics and watch data preventing views from being counted. So the argument doesn't logically make sense. They're trying to make a moral argument out of something that doesn't and can't have any impact because the data used to justify watch-time and engagement isn't provided.
How do you turn it on? I'm on Grayjay v 195 but I'm not seeing the option in settings.
- You have to go first to "sources" and then it's in the YouTube options
Are they even able to see when their baked in ads get skipped over?
- Kinda. YouTube has stats about which times of a video are watched more proportionally for a single view. You can ironically usually use this data to see when a sponsor spot ends (to skip to it) since there will be a peak in the watch time curve.
- Probably, I'm fairly certain they get told which parts of the video get skipped and which get rewatched.
  
  Only applies on official apps and frontends with analytics. Without them it's just buffering the video.
- Please explain to me how does blocking sponsor segments harm creators?

189 comments