I can imagine a plugin system that gets submissions of hashes of specific frames - or just entire frames - when users play them, then checks those frames to detect which parts of the video are unique vs common, then automatically requests new frames to narrow down the timestamps and carve out the additions.

Probably wouldn't take more than a handful of views across the entire network to get a pretty solid ad removal system. Even better it wouldn't even rely on user input, which itself is already pretty fast. I have never encountered even the newest video that wasn't already in the sponsorblock system.

Honestly this sounds like a fun project, I imagine it wouldn't take the heroes that develop things like sponsorblock very long to figure it out. Plus they have spite on their side.

Edit: actually, rather than rely on randomised frame checks to find the collisions, have the clients submit frames then send frames out and ask clients to see if those frames appear in their videos. Then you very quickly determine which frames are unique.

yeah, i realized it later. i don't see normal ads, forgot they're injected randomly. still a great plugin