this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 321 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (15 children)

Whatever happens on my browser is client side, which is hardware and software I own. I can make what I own do what I want. It's a right.

It's like Google saying that I can't skim a magazine in my home, and that I must read the ads. Google can do what they want server-side, and I'll do what I want client-side.

[–] [email protected] 101 points 11 months ago (6 children)

They're not saying you can't have an adblocker. They're saying their software will try not to serve you their data if you do, or at least make it inconvenient.

You have a right to your computer. You do not have a right to their service.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's exactly what I said, yeah

[–] [email protected] 71 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Me after reading the 1st comment: "OK. True. Fair." Me after reading the 2nd comment: "OK. True. Fair." Me after reading the 3rd comment: "OK. Also true. Also fair."

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (14 children)

Me reading you:

Fourth gosh darn level of agree

I’ll never disable my PiHole or turn off ublock tho

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

There was a rabbi arbitrating a dispute between neighbours. One of them complained that the other one gathers apples that fall off his apple tree and into the other neighbour's garden. "Those are my apples grown on my tree. He's stealing them!"

"You're right," says the rabbi. But the other neighbour counters.

"But the branches of the tree are above my property. If he doesn't want them to fall on my garden, he can cut off the branch. But he lets them fall into my garden making them my apples."

"You're right," says the rabbi and adjourns the diapute to be able to think about it. He's at his wit's end and tells the whole story to his wife when he gets home.

"That doesn't make sense. They can't both be right."

"You're right."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, you don't have a right to it. If they want to they can put the entire site being a subscriber paywall. That's their call. But until they do that i will continue to access the site with my adblocked browser.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 11 months ago (11 children)

And as a service provider, they can choose to degrade your experience. It goes both ways.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 11 months ago (10 children)

Except they want to send you videos. The power is with you, the viewer. Without you, advertisers will have no reason for buying ads. Google can't collect your data either. Realise that you have this power. Youtube is not like electricity or clean water. We can live without it if push comes to the shove.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, what they want is to make money off of you, be it through metadata or through advertising. It's just that sending you videos happens to be the model which they use to get the metadata or advertising income.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (6 children)

They don't want to send us videos, they want to serve us ads and annoy us into buying Youtube Premium, which someone using adblocker won't see, or need. From their point of view they would win either way - if they successfully block adblockers it either converts us into ad watchers, premium subscribers, or we fuck off and stop using their bandwidth.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

Google can do what they want server-side

Sure, like not sending you videos. 🤔

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[–] [email protected] 164 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Remember when every billionaire apologist was telling us how no one would do shit like this when net neutrality was being gutted?

[–] [email protected] 101 points 11 months ago (9 children)

This has nothing to do with net neutrality. Google is not an ISP. With or without net neutrality, Google could fuck with YouTube users.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 11 months ago

Technically false. Google is an ISP. But they aren't using their position as an ISP to slow down traffic or fast track other traffic in this instance so no it has nothing to do with net neutrality.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Not just YouTube. Now I have to say I'm not a robot when searching from my phone because I dare use a VPN that's not theirs.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I still remember Ajit Pai's dumbass teeth as he smugly insisted that you'll still be able to "'gram' your food" before covering a Chipotle bowl in a mountain of flaming hot Cheetos and an ocean of Sriracha. And that was one of the least irritating moments of that video. That whole fucking video was basically "you can still waste time with your bread, circuses, and creature comforts, you fucking peasants, now shut up and let the corporations do their thing" while ignoring every legitimate criticism of the decision to gut NN.

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[–] [email protected] 139 points 11 months ago (4 children)

This is a good time to make aware about an amazing privacy-centric & user-friendly alternative - Peertube. It is not a big network as of now but the benefits it provides over YouTube are large - it is a part of the fediverse. Of course, only through increasing participation will the network become bigger.

If you still wish to use YouTube, you can try third party front ends like Invidious or Piped on the browser; NewPipe(Also is a front end for Soundcloud, media.ccc.de, Peertube & Bandcamp) or LibreTube on Android.

If you only browse YT Music, you can try HyperPipe in the browser. There are many apps for it available on F-Droid, an alternative app store for Android. My personal pick is ViMusic.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Peertube is a great platform. And it has its uses. But it will never compete with YouTube - YouTube's business model actively incentivises and pays people to post media to their platform.

Peertube is more likely to be to be the opposite - donation run, and given videos are exponentially more expensive to host, it's highly unlikely that creators will receive any compensation for their work. In fact it's more likely theyl be in the list of people donating to the platform (or they'll own the platform outright)

While this might be fine if a creator makes the majority of its money elsewhere, via patreon or sponsors or whatever, it's not going to work out for any aspiring or up and coming YouTube who has yet to become big enough to start diversifying their income base.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I feel like people mistake YouTube for a video hosting solution.

But that's not the point.

  • YouTube a huge archive of content that accumulated over the past 17 years.
  • YouTube is a content suggestion machine. Discoverability is a key aspect.
  • YouTube sets an incentive by allowing people to monetize their content.
  • ...

So, if the only thing you're looking for is a video hosting solution, then, yes, PeerTube might be an alternative. In the same way uploading videos to your own webspace would be, and Vimeo also still exists.

But for all the other stuff, YT is, unfortunately, unmatched, and probably will be for a while ...

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Well that's only fair.

It already made it worse for non-adblock users.

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[–] namingthingsiseasy 125 points 11 months ago (3 children)

However bad they may make it, it can't possibly be worse than it is for non-adblock users.

But hey, if they want to torpedo their own services, have at it. It's not like they have a reputation for it or anything....

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (28 children)

i am more worried about the old videos wipe thats coming soon

Sooo many peoples uploaded memories and documentaries are going to becone lost forever

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

Wait, what?

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 11 months ago (9 children)

I don't know why they think this change is going to get anyone to switch.

5 seconds of nothing is still way better than a minute-long ad

[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (15 children)

They want to sell their Premium subscription. They want you to compare 5 seconds of nothing versus "0" seconds of nothing. That being said, I think uBlock Origin with up-to-date filter lists completely eliminated this delay for me.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

At work, we can't log into personal accounts. And my job isn't going to buy YouTube premium. So now any video tutorials on YouTube is getting impossible to watch.

This has now triggered a bunch of lazy developers into action in my entire company. Even our internal newsletters are explaining how to use adblock.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 11 months ago (18 children)

Fuck Google and YouTube, but the title is misleading, and it's an article from three weeks ago. I'm quite surprised that this post is so upvoted, and nobody else flagged this before.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

By doing that you're wasting bandwidth on all the CDNs that hosts ALL your filter lists. Updating the Quick fixes list should be enough. (Which updates every 5 hours automatically on uBO 1.54).

How to manually update Quick Fixes (Manual updates push back automatic updates.)

  • Click 🛡️ uBO's icon
  • the ⚙ Dashboard button
  • the Filter lists pane
  • the 🕘 clock icon next to the uBlock filters – Quick fixes list
  • the 🔃 Update now button.
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[–] [email protected] 64 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Are they, though? I’ve been using Firefox and uBlock Origin for years and I’ve not had an issue other than needing to manually update my filters three times since this started.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago

Yeah, however "worse" it is for adblock users, it can't compare to how awful the ads are.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (9 children)

And freetube is making it so much better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Something I didn't even realize I wanted was to not have some eyeball-pulling algorithm recommending things to me. It's lovely.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (10 children)

Weren't adblocker-blockers judged going against gdpr?

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I mean they've also consistently been making YouTube worse for everyone not using Adblock, so it's only fair.

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[–] onlinepersona 32 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Great, I'll use it less if that's the case 🤷

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago

We'll still figure out ways to get around ads. So suck it Google.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

By the looks of these default recommended videos, Youtube is great for bigots and authright traitors.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (12 children)

As a premium subscriber, it's definitely gotten worse for me over the last month. Whatever they're doing on the back end, it's pretty terrible.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure what the hell is going on at YouTube but I've noticed a significant drop in decent videos being recommended, and a huge uptick in videos I've already seen showing up at the front of the feed. Probs gonna drop it when the price picks up and just go to nebula.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Long time family premium user (household of parents and kids). Anything Youtube do to preserve their revenue within reason doesn't bother me too much as long as they don't reduce the split with quality creators. If they were successful with all this bullshit perhaps they wouldn't have needed to notify me that subs are almost doubling next year. My guess is all they are doing is fucking things up for everyone. It is only going to get worse if their premium subscription base reduces. They should be pricing premium as an alternative to ad-blockers but instead they are pushing people including premium subscribers towards ad-blockers.

I already have ad-blockers and apps for circumventing youtube ads. Not using them in favour of a fairly priced (to me) subscription was a choice but sadly one Google seems to be discouraging.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (12 children)

WHAT?! I didn't believe it for a second when the whole planet immediately noticed at the same time!

But then again, they DID admit it. Which means they have nothing to hide! And that's transparent, and bold. We should reward companies for doing the right thing. Not only criticize them when they didn't do wrong!

Tinkle Fingerent!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

*Laughs with RSS feeds, Invidious redirects, Newpipe and Sponsorblock.

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