The NewPipe project recently had a few debates on advertising, its ethics and how Team NewPipe decides whether or not a certain form of advertising is acceptable. In this article, we present our position on advertising in general, show the difference between ethical and unethical advertising, and explain why we do not intend to support technologies like SponsorBlock.
      • ster
        43·
        3 years ago

        No they didn’t. Not bothering to implement it because you don’t believe it’s important? Fine. Throwing away the work someone else has done for you? Pathetic.

          • ster
            51·
            3 years ago

            Sure, it’s up to them at the end of the day, but I can still explain why I think it’s a terrible decision

              • ster
                11·
                3 years ago

                Because it means there will be a fork, which will divide the development of the app in two and waste developers’ time.

    • Democracy
      61·
      3 years ago

      You’re right on point. Don’t watch YouTube. Problem Solved

    • fleurc
      41·
      3 years ago

      Not immoral, but just… Not supporting monetarily anyone. No ads on videos, skipping promos, no YT Premium. Simply not helping anyone’s pockets

  • ster
    101·
    3 years ago

    They can have their beliefs, but once it’s available I’ll be switching straight over to the sponsorblock-enabled version thank you very much

  • Binzy_Boi
    91·
    3 years ago

    Unfortunate. I really wish that content creators would create pages on Patreon or Liberapay and just see how many people would financially support their content. If the Patreon model works in keeping political commentary and tech-focussed channels up, I don’t see how it would be any different for channels making other kinds of content.

    My opinion on Sponsorblock is mixed. I like the idea that content creators have the freedom to choose who they can partner with, but at the same time I really hate having to see companies like Hello Fresh all the time knowing how they treat their workers, or other sponsors like GFuel where it takes a stupid amount of effort to get them to stop sponsoring terrible people.

      • angarabebesi
        3·
        3 years ago

        I don’t have anything against sponsorship, as long as the relationship is transparent to the viewers and does not impact the content. These people have to pay their bills somehow.

  • adrianmalacoda
    8·
    3 years ago

    I don’t agree with this position but I also don’t agree with the attacks against them for having this position. It’s not “pathetic” that they don’t implement features you want. The point of free (libre) software is that you don’t have to share the position of the upstream developers, as you can make a fork that has the features you want. That is what has happened with NewPipe.

  • ster
    93·
    3 years ago

    Worst of all, driving people away from official releases puts them more at risk of downloading malware, and wastes the time of developers. By all means turn it off by default, but refusing to include a feature IS an anti-feature.

    • ster
      3·
      3 years ago

      Why not include a perfectly useful feature into an open source app? This just creates unnecessary division. By all means turn it off by default and hide the enable in settings, but don’t just try to throw away someone’s hard work.

        • ster
          1·
          3 years ago

          If people don’t want it, it should be possible to disable. It should probably be disabled by default.

  • Whom
    105·
    3 years ago

    Oh jeez that’s a shame. It at least makes me feel better about not being on Android anymore…I missed NewPipe, but if it holds a weak stance like that as a project then I’d rather use something better anyway.

    There is no ethical advertising.

    • fleurc
      111·
      3 years ago

      As the reply here said: The absolute statement is completely wrong, since hearing of a product from someone else, even a friend, is advertising. Talking positevely about a movie, tv show can be seen as advertising that show. Seeing an ad that is not targeted is also ok. And finally people need to eat and earn money on the internet, either you sell a product (which needs advertising) or you are the person who does that promo or advert. Not everyone can live off Of Patreon or Donations.

      • Whom
        114·
        3 years ago

        And finally people need to eat and earn money on the internet, either you sell a product (which needs advertising) or you are the person who does that promo or advert.

        Ignoring the nitpicking of what “advertising” means, no they don’t. The internet doesn’t have to be an avenue for people to make money. You may prefer that to be the case, but it is not an absolute requirement. Personally, I would prefer this ad-driven web collapse entirely so that the only web pages are small sustainable passion projects.

    • jokeyrhyme
      81·
      3 years ago

      I disagree with the absolute statement there

      Advertising that sticks to accurate facts (free of exaggeration and lies), and is displayed only based on what you’re currently looking at (not a profile created from your past behaviour) seems pretty ethical to me

      • ster
        4·
        3 years ago

        When we read the news, we care not just about accuracy but relevance. It’s no good presenting a bunch of true facts and reporting nothing about the most important issues of our time. In fact, doing so is misinforming people.

        Advertising is the same. Just because a company has the most money doesn’t mean their products are deserving of our brain space.

        • jokeyrhyme
          3·
          3 years ago

          What you’re referring to is a “lie by omission”, which is a form of lying, which I believe I already covered

      • ster
        31·
        3 years ago

        Advertising is inherently biased. What you describe, “not made or paid by the seller” is NOT advertising.

        Imagine I came to you and say “would you like this sandwich?”. You might take it, if you felt hungry or liked the filling. Now imagine I come up to you and say “I’ll pay you 100 (insert currency) to eat this sandwich”. Suddenly, the sandwich becomes decidedly less appealling…

        The sandwich is advertising, and eating it is exposing it to your brain. If it were really beneficial to you, no one would be getting paid.

          • ster
            2·
            3 years ago

            Advertising is by definition sponsored. If I tell you I think a product is good, and I’m not getting paid, that’s just called advice.

    • kixik
      2·
      3 years ago

      I read freetube could be installed through flatpak, or similar, on pine64, though I don’t know if freetube adapts well to a phone form factor. A QML/Qt newpipe like front end sounds missing on mobile gnu+linux, :(

    • ster
      21·
      3 years ago

      It’s nothing to do with capitalism. Marketing is not an area unique to capitalist economies.

  • Tiuku@sopuli.xyz
    2·
    3 years ago

    I would be down for donating to content creators on Liberapay. The only thing I’m worried about is the legal status of “free videos”. To my knowledge most creators aren’t licensing their videos with CC etc. What rights do you actually hold over a youtube video for example?