What's peoples opinion on the new clickbait removing extensions? Does LTT support it?

[MrBubbIes]

The creator of SponsorBlock has recently released a new extension which attempts to remove clickbait. 
LTT made a video 6 years ago talking about the change to "cancerous thumbnails".

I would love the communities opinion and from LLT on what this extension is attempting to do.

(How it works: Titles are user submitted and thumbnails picked by users from a frame in the video)

[crazzp]

My opinion: I always wondered why people want a literal summary of the video in the title? It's like asking a book author to summarise a novel within the title. The title is what captures people's interest to read/watch. If I already know what's gonna happen in the book/video, why would I still wanna read/watch it? 

[manikyath]

the "clicky" thumbnails in the way most channels do it dont bother me at all.

 

as for what the plugin does... from your description it sounds like a manual process? that sounds like a lot of wasted effort to have a very small impact on the overal youtube experience.

[IkeaGnome]

This finally got me to install sponsor block and the title extension.

Still not really using it to skip ads. 

53 minutes ago, manikyath said:

from your description it sounds like a manual process? that sounds like a lot of wasted effort to have a very small impact on the overal youtube experience.

It is manual, but it seems like people are doing a lot to put it on as many videos as they can. Here's a snip from a guy I work with. Under 800 subs, but even all his videos are redone. I doubt someone went through and redid his videos. I also found someone I subbed to a long time ago. 1 video upload, 7 years ago and it was DeArrowed.

Spoiler

W/o Dearrow

With Dearrow.

 

[manikyath]

9 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

This finally got me to install sponsor block and the title extension.

Still not really using it to skip ads. 

It is manual, but it seems like people are doing a lot to put it on as many videos as they can. Here's a snip from a guy I work with. Under 800 subs, but even all his videos are redone. I doubt someone went through and redid his videos. I also found someone I subbed to a long time ago. 1 video upload, 7 years ago and it was DeArrowed.

 

you know.. it might just be me.. but i greatly prefer the original thumbnails in your example.

not saying the plugin is useless, but it feels more like an "opinion piece"...

[IkeaGnome]

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

you know.. it might just be me.. but i greatly prefer the original thumbnails in your example.

not saying the plugin is useless, but it feels more like an "opinion piece"...

And I think that's where the manual part comes in. You can vote for a different part of the video to be the thumbnail. Since someone hadn't set one for their most recent video and it was automatically generated, I was able to change the thumbnail that shows up. The one from 17:29 was me seeing if it would change if I moved my vote. Seems automatic, but manually over ridable. 

 

Edit: We changed the thumbnail that auto shows up for the LTT video referenced by OP.

[Avocado Diaboli]

4 hours ago, crazzp said:

My opinion: I always wondered why people want a literal summary of the video in the title? It's like asking a book author to summarise a novel within the title. The title is what captures people's interest to read/watch. If I already know what's gonna happen in the book/video, why would I still wanna read/watch it? 

So you don't watch movies after you've seen the trailers? You don't read books after you've read what they're about on the back? You don't play games after a reviewer summarizes what to expect? Seriously, worst take imaginable. But humor me, how does the replacement title sum up the video to the point where you'd no longer felt like watching it?

[Erioch]

I haven't tried it but I don't watch clickbait videos anyway.  I'm sure they're going to do it because he says it works.

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, crazzp said:

My opinion: I always wondered why people want a literal summary of the video in the title? It's like asking a book author to summarise a novel within the title. The title is what captures people's interest to read/watch. If I already know what's gonna happen in the book/video, why would I still wanna read/watch it? 

the example given isn't really a summary of the video though, it just tells you the general topic. On the other hand substituting the thumbnail with a frame from the video seems kind of pointless...

[MrBubbIes]

Thanks for the responses, this was really interesting to read!

The response are really different from the responses I got when posting the same question to r/LinusTechTips.
 

I am guessing the average age of users here is a bit older and most people here have been on YouTube since the early days.
In the video I linked to Linus is talking to the audience they had 6 years ago (many people who I'm guessing are still here).

At that time the YouTube community culture was adamantly against the practice of clickbait titles and Thumbnails. 

 

The responses I got on Reddit (I'm guessing) is from newer generations.

People who have always lived with YouTube clickbait thumbnails being the norm.

For them the idea of removing flashy thumbnails was received (surprisingly for me) pretty negatively.  

 

 

Unfortunately my comment with the question I had got downvoted to the bottom
so almost none of the comments have proper context to what I was actually asking about.

(normal reddit experience I guess)

 

I'm not even sure if people understand the perspective I am coming at.
It seems they think I personally hate LTT for being forced by the YouTube system to use clickbait thumbnails?

 

 

Just some interesting observations I had.
Did not know this would be such a divisive topic, but there you go! 

[Stahlmann]

16 hours ago, manikyath said:

you know.. it might just be me.. but i greatly prefer the original thumbnails in your example.

not saying the plugin is useless, but it feels more like an "opinion piece"...

Overall i agree. Maybe i've just gotten used to it or LTT has gotten better at it, but pretty much any tumbnail and title recently made it pretty clear what the video was about. For the creators i personally watch it's not needed. Cool plugin though. And i'm very happy with how sponsorblock works.

 

The most recent examples:

[Mihle]

I rather keep the thumbnails but have better more descriptive titles.

[Mark Kaine]

On 7/9/2023 at 5:05 PM, crazzp said:

My opinion: I always wondered why people want a literal summary of the video in the title? It's like asking a book author to summarise a novel within the title. The title is what captures people's interest to read/watch. If I already know what's gonna happen in the book/video, why would I still wanna read/watch it? 

because the problem with clickbait titles is there are too many of them and they're usually not worth watching (if your video would be interesting you didn't need a clickbait title to begin with)

Therfore they get blocked on sight,  bold strategy but if it works for them, good for them ig  

[Mark Kaine]

On 7/10/2023 at 11:02 AM, Mihle said:

I rather keep the thumbnails but have better more descriptive titles.

true i don't really mind the thumbnails even though random arrows usually means poor content.  still with a descriptive title i would be more likely to click on it

[Stahlmann]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

because the problem with clickbait titles is there are too many of them and they're usually not worth watching (if your video would be interesting you didn't need a clickbait title to begin with)

Therfore they get blocked on sight,  bold strategy but if it works for them, good for them ig  

They have to play the game to get the views they want and need. At this point they're such a huge company that they can't just ignore simple improvement like clickbait that result in more revenue. This is one of these "for every person that hates it, there are 1000 people who don't care" situations. This is why practically any big youtuber is doing it. Not playing this game is deliberately putting yourself at a disadvantage. But like i said, LTT has had worse titles and thumbnails. These days i think they have found a good balance between descriptive and clickbait.

[darwin006]

On 7/9/2023 at 9:04 AM, IkeaGnome said:

This finally got me to install sponsor block and the title extension.

Still not really using it to skip ads. 

It is manual, but it seems like people are doing a lot to put it on as many videos as they can. Here's a snip from a guy I work with. Under 800 subs, but even all his videos are redone. I doubt someone went through and redid his videos. I also found someone I subbed to a long time ago. 1 video upload, 7 years ago and it was DeArrowed.

  Reveal hidden contents

W/o Dearrow

With Dearrow.

 

I just started using the DeArrow extension because of this post and it is life changing! On the LTT channel it changes every title and thumbnail to exactually what I would want it to be.

[Guest]

i personally kinda dont care, in the end its your choice if you want to click on the video and watch through it or not. if the video has clickbait title and thumbnail in any channel i'll try watching it first, if i dont like i just click of. while on the other end if the channel doesnt have clickbait title and thumbnail i probably didnt click it unless im interested in the topic. so i get why they do clickbait.

[Mark Kaine]

On 7/15/2023 at 5:02 AM, Chris2002 said:

personally kinda dont care, in the end its your choice if you want to click on the video and watch through it or not.

sure, but when experience tells u that videos with clear clickbait titles, or "shocking" in the title or random red arrows are usually not worth watching you eventually stop clicking on them.

 

On 7/15/2023 at 5:02 AM, Chris2002 said:

while on the other end if the channel doesnt have clickbait title and thumbnail i probably didnt click it unless im interested in the topic

cannot relate, especially the last part, *why* would you watch a video in which topic you aren't interested in?

 

like for me I'll give it a go if the title/topic interests me, if its non descriptive aka clickbait there's a very low chance for me to click on it (i mean i will, but only the little cross that will block the channel forever,  extensions FTW!)

[Chris_UK]

For me it’s not an issue, but with caveats.

 

if I already am a watcher of a particular YouTuber the clickbait titles don’t put me off.

 

However if I’m looking for something on YT I will actively skip over clickbait titles and images from creators I don’t know 

[4uffin]

On 7/9/2023 at 8:42 AM, MrBubbIes said:

The creator of SponsorBlock has recently released a new extension which attempts to remove clickbait. 
LTT made a video 6 years ago talking about the change to "cancerous thumbnails".

I would love the communities opinion and from LLT on what this extension is attempting to do.

(How it works: Titles are user submitted and thumbnails picked by users from a frame in the video)

Do you by any chance have a link to the extension? I really like how basic and straight forward the after result is lmao.