Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don't get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a "You're using an Ad Blocker" overlay on videos. I'd use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn't have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this.
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can't view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
Serving 4k video is not free.
If you refuse to pay for Premium and refuse to be served ads, what do you expect to happen? You're a freeloader.
How can I be A freeloader if I actively contribute to YouTube's downfall? I am a menace.
Do you have any idea the amount of money they get from data harvesting your usage?
They are tripple dipping and acting like a niche browser extension is enough to have an effect on the most powerful company in history.
This, if anyone should be it is the person who upload the video, not the one watching. In addition the percentage of people using these ad blocker is mostly likely is so small but they are gready.
While in general it is a free market, If they want to force ad, no one is forcing people to keep using their services, people have the right to complain about the change and push for it to revert.
The issue generally isn't ads, it's the frequency, targeted nature/data mining, and how invasive they are.
The more shitty it is to use your site, the more people use ad block. This is a problem youtube is complicit in.
And most people aren't using 4k to begin with.
If you provide them content then you aren’t a freeloader
YouTube is a hobby site, not a profit site. The problem is that they host the content, it should be peer based. Once they figure that out then their costs will go down
I'd rather be a freeloader than a grifter and data scraper. Besides, I don't care fkr 4k videos. 480p is fine for my needs.
Nah, they still have my data to sell.
I couldn't care less. I will block every advertisement in every form that is within my ability to block. If that causes the failure of Youtube, Google and the fall of western civilization in the process, so be it.