

YouTubeSkip - talhof8
http://www.youtubeskip.com/
Saw this on Quora and thought it&#x27;s worth sharing.
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spindritf
Doesn't AdBlock already handle YouTube? I haven't seen an ad before video in
quite a while.

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sdfjkl
I haven't either and was wondering if it was that or Glimmerblocker. If I did
see video ads, I'd rather just close the tab than suffer through them.

That is by the way in everyone's best interest, especially the advertisers.
Making me watch some ad will only make me dislike your brand.

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netrus
Well, as you apparently continue to use Youtube, it's not in their best
interest.

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sdfjkl
That's a problem they will need to solve, not I. My problem (ads) is solved by
blocking them. I know for a fact that there are ways to monetize content that
do work on me, advertising is just not one of them.

To name just one example, Google certainly has the means to implement a micro-
payment system where each click on the thumbs up/like button deducts a small
amount of money, assigns it to the uploader's account and keeps a percentage
of that for their own hosting expenses. Let's call it Google Flattr.

Perhaps more people using ad-blockers would encourage such (in my opinion)
positive developments. Until then, I'll enjoy my content without
advertisements while you pay for it by getting your time wasted with ads and
your brain crammed full of desires to buy shit you don't need.

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StavrosK
> That's a problem they will need to solve, not I. My problem (ads) is solved
> by blocking them.

"People being easy to mug is a problem they will need to solve, not I. My
problem (getting money) is solved by mugging them."

If everyone is looking out for their best interest without thinking about the
community in general, things won't function very well overall. If everyone has
the same opinion as you and blocks all YouTube ads, it might lead to a future
where we have no YouTube. Just sayin'.

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sdfjkl
Not at all the same as mugging people. Better comparison: Free candy.

YouTube is a bowl of free candy sitting in a public place with a big "free
candy" sign posted next to it. Each candy has a flyer for some product
attached to it. You take the flyer and the candy. You might throw it away
later, or not even read it, but you take it. I just pry off the candy and
leave the flyer there.

If enough people do that, perhaps we will have a future where there is no free
candy. Or no flyers. Or really strong glue so you can't pry them off. Or the
stuff on the flyer gets printed in tiny letters on the candy itself.

We will however not end up with a future where there is no candy, because
people still want candy, even if it's not free. Just perhaps not as much.

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StavrosK
The mugging example was more to illustrate how you need to optimize for
society, rather than yourself, in order to keep things working harmoniously.

When it comes to YouTube videos specifically, your analogy is fair, I agree.

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DanBC
If you cannot let the ads run you shouldn't watch the video.

I understand that people hate ads, and that having a method to pay for content
would be better than ads, but we don't have that micropayment yet, so we're
stuck with ads at the moment.

If you hate ads you should refuse to use any site that displays ads, rather
than use the site but block the ads.

If any YouTubers are reading: It'd be great if there was someway to provide
feedback on ads. Yes, I realise this would be hell for anyone reading the
feedback. But when I go to watch a ten minute video and there's a 4 minute ad,
or there's an unskippable 30 second ad that has no interest for me, or there's
no way to opt out of future ads from a company that has no interest to me
("Please stop showing me ads from Jakamo").

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icebraining
If we all refused to watch ads, they'd have to find alternative solutions; we
might already have micropayments by now if it weren't for the people who watch
ads.

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DanBC
You might have a point if you'd said you refused to watch the content and told
them it was because of ads.

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icebraining
How so? You think Google isn't measuring how many people block ads?

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andrewbaron
Seems like this kind of scenario is inevitable. There are also browser
extensions for skipping, like Magic Actions for YouTube.

Advertising values are constantly being devalued. It would be nice if there
was a way to move beyond advertising on the web as the primary business model.
Wikipedia is the only top 10 site on the net that does not rely on
advertising.

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noinput
So we're supposed to use this site to skip YouTube ads, and in exchange we're
presented with the website's ads. Right.

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gurumeditation
Least you get your video faster, YouTubes advertising is much more invasive
and irritating

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CaveTech
In how many other places can you pick and choose the terms of your agreement
like we constantly do with online services? It's not really up to us to say,
"well your ads are annoying! I still need your service though."

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petercooper
See, my first thought on seeing this URL was that it'd be a site that skipped
to the most interesting part of a video first. So many videos on YouTube have
comments like "to get to the good part/skip the waffling, go to 00:47" or
whatever ;-)

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RobotCaleb
It's known as the Wadsworth Constant. Based on some dude named Wadsworth on
reddit[0].

Apparently pressing 3 with the youtube player selected will jump to 30%.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/yxfpC.png](http://i.imgur.com/yxfpC.png)

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CaveTech
Better yet, add &wadsworth=1 to the query string of any youtube URL :)

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duncans
Kind of surprised there wasn't a bookmarklet. Here you go:

    
    
        javascript:if(/youtube\.com\/watch\?v=([^&]+)/.test(location)){location='http://www.youtubeskip.com/watch?v='+RegExp.$1;}

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tehwebguy
I didn't realize you could use RegExp.$1 ( .. $n) until just now. Thanks!

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nticompass
You _can_ , but it's highly suggested you don't. First off, it's a deprecated
property. Second, RegExp.$1 is the 1st match of the last RegExp ran. No matter
where in your page it was ran. Extensions, events, functions, wherever. In
this case, it _should_ be safe, but don't ever actually use it on your page.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Deprecated_and_obsolete_features)

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talles
I'm not against ads in a general way, but forcing me to see an advertisement
before letting me access the content, oh that pisses me off.

Looks like a great service, easier to remember and apply it (just typing
'skip' on the url, awesome).

I used to use the URL
[http://youtube.com/v/[video](http://youtube.com/v/\[video) id]. Dunno if
still works, but it didn't displayed those 5 second ads plus would still play
a video that requires login even if you are not.

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sumit_psp
I see people are asking why build a website. Maybe they want to build a
userbase and expand to other skips too(such as hulu skip).

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techaddict009
Isn't it against the TOS of youtube ?

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JackpotDen
Isn't what google does against human rights?

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Huma...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_12)

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nticompass
YouTube has ads? I use AdBlock (not AdBlock plus) and I don't see ads before
YouTube videos.

Also, when I have seen ads, they are like 15 seconds long, or if they are
longer, you're given a "skip" button. Are you _seriously_ that impatient that
you can't wait 10 seconds?

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gingerjoos
ViewTube[1] is a greasemonkey script which allows you to play the HTML5
versions of youtube videos. So this lets you skip ads too

[1]
[http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011)

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Jugurtha
Aside from the argument of whether or not to block ads, there are extensions
to that, why build a website?

Can this website take a load as big as Youtube's ? I doubt so.

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talhof8
Saw this on Quora and thought it's worth sharing. I've no idea who's behind
it.

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iMark
Surely YouTube's lawyer-sense must be tingling.

