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.

  • wildgingerEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Not a source I can cite without risking a friends job, which isnt worth an internet argument.

    Alphabet wants youtube making profit, obviously, but they are a data selling business. They didnt buy youtube up because they wanted a cut of their ad market. They shunt data upstream like its their primary job. And from my understanding? Thats exactly how youtube is viewed internally.

    So, yeah, Im not really pressed about ad blockers. The company has no funding issues.

    • Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.netEnglish
      12·
      9 months ago

      so… you were calling me ignorant because of info youve gathered from a friend? lol …

      yeah, lets not waste anymore of our time here. have a good day.

      • wildgingerEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Did I call you ignorant, at all?

        Yeah if you need to invent things Ive said, maybe its best you stop here.

        Especially since you apparently have no issue citing your personal insider info, but are incensed that I shared my own with you.

          • wildgingerEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            Oh sorry, were you willing to show me your companies internal pricing and expense reports?

            Where I work thats insanely confidential and not even remotely public, and sharing it would get me sued into homelessness. Would get something similar for my buddy, I am sure.

            My bad, I didnt realize your were gung ho to pass around internal documents.