Users who block ads often justify their "free lunch" because of the nefarious things that advertisers do - namely tracking and being a resource hog in their device. Sponsored segments on YouTube do neither of these. Also, YouTube creators who rely on sponsorships are often de-funded due to some pretty sketchy YouTube decisions, or just plain underpaid.
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."
I get it, but I do think there's a difference between a billboard outside, or bright flashing adverts plastered over a city, vs a sponsor segment from a creator whose content I regularly consume in a video I explicitly choose to watch.
My reason is the ethics of deceptiveness. I prefer clearly labeled ads over sponsorships any day.
I hope the whitelisting feature allows people to whitelist those who have ethical sponsors, to encourage them.
Also, other than the vessel sponsorship, I've never clicked on a sponsored video's referral link. So, they won't be losing out on any money from me.
Here is my message from a previous comment:
The reason why I made this extension was because I was sick of the deceptiveness some channels used. Some channels don't even mention they are sponsored, but just talk as if they are recommending the product.
Yes, you could say it's obvious they are sponsored, but that is only true to a regular YouTube viewer. To many outsiders, they get tricked into thinking these are actual recommendations and not ads.
I think saying that something is sponsored, then talking about it is perfectly acceptable. Trying to dodge that you are sponsored or being supported by them is very sketchy. And I especially don't like the new common practice of making hard to distinguish segues into sponsorships.
At their core, ads are a form of psychological manipulation. Subjecting yourself to this manipulation just because you feel guilty about getting a "free lunch" is absurd. Tracking and resource usage are also bad, but they're not the root of the problem.
Pick a less harmful way of funding content creators, like direct donation.
Time is the most precious resource. Don't let it get taken away from you.
You conveniently forgot to mention advertising such as [1]. This crap is even done to children. Today I wanted to let my daughter view a YouTube vid, and she got a commercial first. Children are not allowed to be targeted to see commercials in my jurisdiction.
IP legalities notwithstanding, the moral defense in my mind is when creators don't have any mechanism for a direct revenue stream. It's one thing to not pay and skip ads; but if ads are the only way to support the creator, I hate being forced to "pay" with time (and poisoning my brain with faux-enthused marketing copy). In some cases, creators have a Patreon/etc, but supporters are still forced to see the same ads as everyone else.
In my mind, ad blocking tools should be using a revenue-sharing model (in the range of 90/10), that gives creators with an existing ad-supported model a low-effort secondary income stream. Even if entirely voluntary/opt-in, it seems like a win-win.
Also worth noting: one of the most successful podcasters/YouTubers, Joe Rogan, has a unique ad model: sponsor reads are front-loaded and designed to be easy to skip, with a short sponsor recap at the end. Perhaps that only works when you have millions of followers, but it demonstrates that sponsors aren't necessarily turned off by some percentage of listeners/viewers skipping ads.
I think you're going to discover something very quickly: it was never about any of that stuff. Everyone who believed that has trouble running companies that sell solutions to that.
