I just learned here about Brave browser and it playing Youtube videos without ads.
It was remarkable when I tried it, but several people I follow do very nice presentations that take a fair amount of time and trouble.
Without watching the ad, or at least watching until the “Skip Ads” comes up, how do these producers make any money to pay for their effort? Granted, some producers are extremely well compensated, but so many are not.
Not watching the ad takes money out of their pocket, I would guess. Correct me if I am wrong.
If you watch videos with Brave aren’t you guilty of causing the demise of videos produced by individuals just trying to make a buck on a side job?
Myself, I feel sheepish stealing their time and effort. I went back to my old standby browser and pay the price that seems to toss a few coins in the producers hat.
I would assume in addition to income from ads at the beginning/end of the video, they also generate income from monetizing their videos, referral links to Amazon for things they show in the video, them promoting a product or website (think: Brilliant/Audible/KiwiCo etc).
So if you don’t want to watch the ads, maybe look in the description below to see if they have any referral links for things you’d want to buy or a donation box or even a link to a Patreon site where you can toss them a few bucks each month.
Also, judging on how hard all these content creators push for it, I’m guessing if you subscribe to their channel, click the like button, comment on the video and share it on other platforms, that probably also helps them generate income.
Also, just to be clear, and it’s mostly semantics, but skipping an ad doesn’t take money out of their pocket. It’s not that they have to pay some money to youtube each time someone skips an ad. They just generate a little less.
I pay for YouTube Premium and I see no ads from YouTube, for $15/mo.
However, I see tons of what I consider spam anyway. Every time someone is telling me to “smash the like button” and “ring the bell”. Every time someone is telling me about Brilliant or Square Space. Every time someone is telling me about their Patreon site.
I see the annoying “subscribe/like/ring the bell” nonsense to be a necessary evil, a part of a global “Prisoner’s Dilemma” where it would be possible for everyone to stop begging for likes and subscribes and let people choose on their own, but any channel that decided to “cheat” and ask for subscribes would instantly have a leg up on everyone else.
I wish YouTube would prohibit asking for subscribes and likes.
Everything else is more of a mild annoyance (I am paying for no ads, so why does your content contain an ad?), but I can choose what to watch and what not to watch.
I presume the regular YouTube ads help content creators keep the lights on, but the real money is in the other ads, affiliate links, and Patreon.
(ETA: I realized that this is more of a mini rant than an answer to the OP. Sorry!)
Oh, and YouTube does pay most creators anywhere near enough to keep their lights on. No one who goes fulltime with it just uses YouTube’s support. They need at least Patreon, and usually in-video sponsorships (where the creator decides who to support, which correlates to them offering a lot more money).
The way I justify adblock by the fact that the creators get much less money. I get them 1000s of times more by supporting them on Patreon. But there I can also choose to support those (1) that I get the most out of and (2) which need the money more.
Sponsorblock I justify by the fact that it does not decrease the money they get, AFAIK. But, even if it did, I’m still pretty sure my $1/month is more than they get for me merely watching a sponsorship plug.
As for Brave, here’s how that browser works. Brave blocks all ads. But it also serves its own. Creators can sign on with Brave to get a cut of those ads. Otherwise, they’ll get nothing from the ads that get blocked.
I’m not a huge fan. I just use uBlock Origin, which blocks ads without any weird deals. And, as I said above, I pay creators (including videos producers) on Patreon. They get more from me that way than they would from me allowing ads.
I also use the Sponsorblock addon I mentioned above. You’ll want to tweak the settings, as it can block things you may not want blocked.
On Android, I use YouTube Vanced, which has both adblock and Sponsorblock built in. I just generally do not permit ads.