Speaking of SponsorBlock? Does it affect the YouTuber revenue stream. Sponsors are not YouTube and not the owner of the video. They probably don't know the audience of the sponsored segment. It may affect the number of clicks on affiliate links, but I guess SponsorBlock users don't click much anyways.
This is super cool, but there's enough YouTube enhancer extensions now that I'm starting to wish someone would build a standalone browser-wrapper YouTube client that has them all baked in to help keep extension load in my main browser down.
yeah or maybe just combine the extensions into one. Like I love the Return YouTube Dislike and it would be great if these two were merged together. Is it rare for open-source extensions like these to merge?
Looks like youtube users are fighting hard to improve experience of the site and keep using it while youtube itself is working hard to make it impossible to use.
Interesting dynamics. I wander where it would lead.
And what about video recommendations? my youtube just dumbing down the choice and pushes me to see the same things. It just literally blocking the ability to see something else by reducing categories to choose from. The feeling is that you should fight to see something new outside the bubble and chances to win this fight are minimal. YT just feed you the same shit and insist on it. How idiotic is that.
I just open the first page . Scroll it to the end and there is nothing interesting to see but you can’t scroll more. I think that is the essence of their ‘great’ optimisation.
Excellent idea, but I'm conflicted about using it. I see the sensationalism as additional information about a video, and I do use it when choosing to avoid one, or even to ban the whole channel from the suggestions.
This looks like a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, many websites that started out as social-networks have turned into places of “creators” seeking attention to make money on ads. Because of a bad incentive structure. It seems Twitter is now heading this direction as well. This extension might help to bring a bit of sanity back to the web. I also enjoy using the SponsorBlock extension made by the same guy.
Has there been any research in the area of psychology exploring why these "clickbaity" thumbnails actually result in increased revenue/higher click-through rates?
I find them (and the often incredibly exaggerated fake-emotional faces) pretty off-putting, personally.
I don't know of any real research but I've heard YouTubers say that they don't like sponging it but there's a notable change in views with them. They have pretty good view and watch time analytics from what I can tell.
Now that LLMs can summarise videos (I'm guessing it's probably using the srt files) wouldn't it be easier to generate the default better title using that as well
I use SmartTube on my FireTV and honestly wouldn’t watch YouTube without it. Built in Adblock, Sponsor block, video speed control, hiding shorts, etc
On my iPhone I use uYou+ for the same reason. Honestly it’s so stupid because I would happily pay Google the $10/month if they got rid of those stupid shorts. The regular ads are the least annoying part of YouTube.
These days I guess a google tv chromecast would be a good enough replacement for roku except I happen to use the headphone jack in the remote allllll the time, and nothing else has that that I know of.
From the Firefox addon store:
> DeArrow is a browser extension for YouTube for reducing sensationalism, misleading titles and aggressive thumbnails. DeArrow works by formatting all titles, and replacing thumbnails with screenshots at specific timestamps.
> No more dealing with clickbait, arrows, or annoying faces.
> Users can submit better titles and thumbnails for each video and vote on them.
> replacing thumbnails with screenshots at specific timestamps
so in other words bringing YouTube back to the better. I think there was a point in time in the past where creators were not able to upload custom thumbnails and instead they could only use the select thumbnail from time feature or perhaps even the thumbnail was automatically chosen. I don't quite remember.
It's funny because I have actually found that making good thumbnails really is challenging. I run a PeerTube instance of my own where I host some videos and in general even though I tried to put some effort into making useful thumbnails by hand I think my handmade thumbnails are not very good and it's better to just use some frame from the video itself as thumbnail.
I remember at one point it used the thumbnail that was at exactly 50% of the video. So some creators would cut their videos to intentionally select a specific frame.
I don't think I would have clicked on a video titled "Testing Bulding Techniques by Simulating an Earthquake Using a Shake Table", but I did click the original "Shake tables are way more complex than I thought" from Tom Scott.
If clickbaiting didn't work, people wouldn't do it.
A much needed extension, so many creators give shit titles for their videos. Sometimes they produce interesting content, but it's hard to know if the video is worth checking out without a clear explanation of what to expect from the title.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/