>>725236972
>I had an idea for an extension where whenever an ad plays, the media player is hidden, audio muted and the skip button is automatically pressed. I don't mind the time loss itself because I usually have youtube in the background, but ads that play for 4+ minutes if you don't skip it seriously piss me off. A tool like this would still give revenue to whatever channel, and I see no evil. It's also on the user end so it can't be moderated. Is this possible?
Yes, i've thought about that too. It is definitely possible but would be some effort especially to make it non-clunky. Unfortunately they have so much shit now on the client side that monitors you to help them monetize you. Some sites will pause the ad if you do things like unfocus the window. You would need to fake a lot of things out.
Better option would have be to have a client that sits through all the ads and downloads/records the video then you just watch with no interruptions and it could be sitting through the ads for the next video while you are watching.