YT's push into ad-blocker blocking did the same for me that Reddit's API change did, that being it was enough of a push for me to stop using their platform. In Reddit's case, I get my fix from Lemmy and in YT's case, I use Freetube to watch videos. In both cases, I'm sure they're not losing money in my absence but I do feel better not giving them the data that I used to.
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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My computer, my freedom!
I can do whatever I want.
Serious question: YouTube is a business and owned by a public corporation and not a FOSS so they can dictate how they want to run their platform. They want to run ads and blacklist ad blockers running on their platform. They have created a premium subscription for those who don't want ads. I understand the public outrage, of course. My question is why can't they do what they want with their own platform? I guess I'm finding it hard to see a different perspective. FYI, I'm in the process of distancing myself from Google services as much as possible.
People should always be able to control what their hardware does. Google go beyond selling goods/services when they control how using the internet works with changes to the web browser (that most people use). Google could just paywall all their content but they want to dictate their cake and eat it.
Because corporations and businesses are still bound to the law of the country they offer their services in.
Just because some hillbilly bar in Kansas allows minors to smoke and drink doesn't mean that's legal because it's their place.
When I visit the YouTube site, all that happens is their server sends data to my browser that it requested. What I/my browser do with that data (especially how and whether to display parts of the site) is up to me.
edit: Of course, they can try to forbid this via ToS but afaik nothing more than that.
I use ad blocker, and I think it's fine if YouTube wants to try to stop it.
Buteventually someone will find a workaround for their efforts to stop it.
It's a never ending game of cat and mouse.
Personally I wouldn't mind paying for YouTube premium. As a matter of fact I did in the past. But it's priced at least twice as high as I'm willing to pay. Perhaps if they had full premium with YouTube music at the current too high price, and then a "premium lite" that was simply no ads and but no YouTube music either at half or less the full price. Personally I just don't want ads, I don't want to over pay for a music service I dont want, just because I don't want ads in the unrelated video portion of youtube.
Currently I feel like they are bullying me into buying a service I don't want, by interfering with a service that I do want. Which is honestly what I suspect is at the root of this current push against ad blockers in the first place. It's not about the video service in any meaningful way, I suspect they are trying to leverage their video dominance to bolster their music subscribership. This seems antisocial enough for me to have no ethical concerns about attempting to circumvent their ads.
I don't know, seems kind of trivial to say that you're tracking if they're watching videos or not rather than your tracking if they're running a piece of software. I wonder if in the end game they don't just start wrapping their videos in DRM.
They’ll do what twitch did and embed the ads into the video stream so you can’t block them without blocking the video itself
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Interview Last week, privacy advocate (and very occasional Reg columnist) Alexander Hanff filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) decrying YouTube's deployment of JavaScript code to detect the use of ad blocking extensions by website visitors.
YouTube's open hostility to ad blockers coincides with the recent trial deployment of a popup notice presented to web users who visit the site with an ad-blocking extension in their browser – messaging tested on a limited audience at least as far back as May.
"In early 2016 I wrote to the European Commission requesting a formal legal clarification over the application of Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC) and whether or not consent would be required for all access to or storage of information on an end user's device which was not strictly necessary," Hanff told The Register.
"Specifically whether the deployment of scripts or other technologies to detect an ad blocker would require consent (as it is not strictly necessary for the provision of the requested service and is purely for the interests of the publisher).
Hanff disagrees, and maintains that "The Commission and the legislators have been very clear that any access to a user's terminal equipment which is not strictly necessary for the provision of a requested service, requires consent.
"This is also bound by CJEU Case C-673/17 (Planet49) from October 2019 which all Member States are legally obligated to comply with, under the [Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union] – there is no room for deviation on this issue," he elaborated.
The original article contains 1,030 words, the summary contains 258 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
It was high time.