Yeah, I remember that. Specifically what I remember is a discussion on reddit about how a lot of youtube videos have useless stuff in the first ~30% and someone who joined the comments -- wadsworth -- also happened to work at youtube. Apparently with enough freedom to have an extra parameter check deployed to production. Probably around 2012. The parameter I remember was wadsworth=1.

Edit: Got the story wrong. Wadsworth was just a commenter with an opinion and someone who worked at youtube had a sense of humor.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_...

Wadsworth's constant lives on in spirit via SponsorBlock blocking all the intro BS and allowing users to set a timestamp as a highlight with a button to skip to said highlight. I use that feature all the time.

Yes, this was possible before but doesn't seem like it works now.

Post on reddit by person who added this feature: https://old.reddit.com/r/wadsworth/comments/l461y/today_i_ma...

What a coincidence I was thinking about this feature just a couple of days ago and couldn’t remember the name of the Wadsworth Constant.