this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
243 points (100.0% liked)

Free and Open Source Software

18020 readers
8 users here now

If it's free and open source and it's also software, it can be discussed here. Subcommunity of Technology.


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The creators of SponsorBlock did it again, now we can crowdsource better titles and thumbnails as well. I just tried it with LinusTechTips who is a worst offender when it comes to clickbait and its really great.

Compare without DeArrow

and with the extension

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This extension is free, forever, for anyone who installs it during the beta. Yes, that means there will be a paywall for new users only in the future, but I promise that there will still be a way to for people to get free access. Of course the extension will always remain fully open source, with a publicly downloadable database, just like SponsorBlock.

I'm a bit confused what this means / will mean. A paywall but also still alternative free access?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Where are you quoting this from? I could not find any information about a paywall.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

mh, I can't find it anymore either. Pretty sure it was on the website, on the main page. Maybe it changed? Maybe it's now considered t obe out of beta?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm seeing it right now on the extension's welcoming page right after install

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes, I also found it here. I have asked the developers for clarification.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I was also very unnerved to see this pop up for me today. Considering the extension is also basically just a ripoff of Clickbait Remover for Youtube, this really rubs me the wrong way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

DeArrow is in no way meant to be a rip off of "clickbait remover". It uses a completely different methods to retrieve thumbnails, using a thumbnail generation system instead of relying on "auto generated" thumbnails by YouTube.

You are right though that it is kind of made as that extension taken to the extreme.

I'd also like to clarify that the developer of "clickbait remover" contacted me and is very happy about my work. They also wished me luck on my soft-paywall plan.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hi. What is the monetization plan for this addon exactly, and how much is it going to cost? If the addon is open source and the API hits are free, where does my money come in?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It will be similar to how the SponsorBlock "chapters" feature was handled, except also having a system for some people to get free access as well (most likely after waiting some time, or going through some queue of people wanting free access)

Chapters on SponsorBlock are now free, but on release, were behind a paywall on the extension only. It's simply a boolean that changes client side that enabled the functionality, so adds no privacy implications that an authenticated API would. The API is still free for others to implement with, such as on alternative clients, and in theory you could build the extension with the check commented out of course.

It'll most likely be priced the same as chapters was (5$) with past donators automatically getting free access. But I might choose a lower price too depending on how it goes.

So it'll just be a client side flag on the extension itself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

The plan for a alternative free access will most likely involve some form of waiting period or queue plus a sharing system. The code will also remain open source meaning there will always be a way :P