- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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And since they made so much while people are effectively using adblocker, there’s no need to fight them back, right?
Right?
It’s not about making money, it’s about making all the money. Stock holders will pressure to fire the guy that does that.
It’s not about making money, it’s about making all the money.
It’s probably also about sending a message.
Can’t say I’ve seen them.
what ads? taps ublock and firefox android
I can’t cope with the shitty translate on Firefox mobile, I live in a non English country and it’s driving me insane
Swedish is fine
Eww
Just get another translate extension.
Suggestions?
Deepl.
Why not just switch it to English? I’m from non English country as well, most my apps are in English
He probably means the website translation function. Very useful for translating local websites, that aren’t available in english, if you don’t speak the language or not fluent enough
Because most websites are not English and every single time I want to translate a site, I have to use a drop down list to select English as the language to translate to.
Why don’t you use the TWP extension? It includes even a DeepL option besides Google Translate and Yandex.
Well over 50% of the sites on the internet are English so it is the most prominent language on the net.
oh not the menu translation, but the local website translation. well I’m happy if that’s your worst problem
btw, translation to english will almost always work the best, with any kind of service
I use the Firefox extension Immersive Translate exactly for this reason. Hasn’t failed me yet.
Thank you, I’ll give it a try.
Pro-tip: Watch youtube on firefox/etc with a bunch of ad blockers. No ads.
It really is a pro tip, when installing more than one ad blocker is just gonna make for a worse experience, never mind the fact that it’s going to make the ad blcokers themselves actually not work the way they’re supposed to.
Ublock origin is enough :p
Sponsor block is a nice extra though
I just avoid channels with annoying sponsor segments, that has been a pretty good filter which also largely avoids clickbaity titles, since they seem to go hand in hand.
Use the Brave browser and you won’t get any ads. Glorious.
Ublock Origin + Firefox fork :3
Also a good option, but I like that Brave’s native adblocker works better without addons.
Then you only have to endure the ignominy of using a browser from a homophobic anti-vaxxer
A bad person can create a good product. It’s that simple.
Also, I love that you’re self-righteously typing this out on a computer produced by slave labor, likely involving kids.
You’re better than me for sure.
A bad person can create a good product sure, doesn’t mean we need to support it.
I don’t even think he’s that bad. The worst thing he did was create JavaScript, which is largely fixed now, and the second worst is donate to an anti-LGBT group with his own money. As CEO of Mozilla, he led a very diverse group, diverse enough to kick him out once they found out about his donation.
I personally wish he was back at Mozilla instead of the nonsense leaders they’ve had since he left. I certainly don’t agree with his political views, but he built a great organization and I think Mozilla would be in a better place with him at the helm.
I don’t use Brave as my main browser because I think Firefox is still worth supporting as an independent browser engine, but Brave is my backup if I need a chromium browser.
There’s no slave labor (nor children) involved in producing an iPhone. Unless you completely twist the meaning of the word “slave“ to mean something completely different than what it really means. Of course, unless you have proof that child slaves built my iPhone. I’m pretty sure you don’t.
As for criticizing self-righteousness, what the hell do you call your entire comment but self-righteous whataboutim?
A bad person can create a good product. It’s that simple.
It’s really not, though. Using their “good product“ ends up supporting the bad person. Most people aren’t OK with that.
Not OP, but your smart phone may not have been assembled with child labor, but some of the components/minerals used in its construction have been tied to child labor in the past.
Most people aren’t OK with that.
What evidence can you provide to support this, or is this simply your opinion?
What evidence can you provide to support this, or is this simply your opinion?
You first
Yeah that’s not how this works.
It’s really not, though. Using their “good product“ ends up supporting the bad person. Most people aren’t OK with that.
You made a statement, not I. Either you have evidence that most aren’t OK with that, or you don’t.
Do you have amnesia? Because you definitely made a claim without providing evidence.
Not OP, but your smart phone may not have been assembled with child labor, but some of the components/minerals used in its construction have been tied to child labor in the past.
So go on then. Provide that evidence.
Of course, we’re not discussing iPhones of the past. The matter under discussion is specifically the phone I have now. Nice try with that strawman.
So go on. Provide evidence for your claim. And try to do it without any more logical fallacies. Other than the whataboutism that you wrote in here on, by the way.
Edit: trolls get blocked. I’m sure you’ll find some way to blame me for that too.
Whilst enduring YouTube
It’s far more bearable without ads. Which can be blocked with most ad blockers in pretty much any other browser.
I keep brave around pretty much just for this, because it’s the easiest and most effective way on MacOS and iOS. And yet they still seem to be getting through sometimes lately.
The easiest and most effective way on macOS and iOS is to use the AdGuard extension for Safari. Or the U block origin extension in Firefox.
Neither come with the shame of using a browser developed by a homophobic anti-vaxxer.
Are you speaking from experience? Because I am. And those don’t work. This is right now, on iOS 18.3 on my iPhone 16 Pro.
You need Vinegar as well.
They worked fine for me, but I don’t have all of those other extensions. AdGuard blocks all the ads on my device, including ads in YouTube videos.
Perhaps you should tweak your settings?
Never use a browser that aggressively advertise itself.
Yup, it’s my backup if I need a chromium browser for something. I just don’t engage with the BAT nonsense and it’s about as good as a chromium browser can get IMO.
Firefox w/ uBlock Origin is my main though, mostly because I want to support independent browser engines.
EDIT: Not reading any of the replies, so enjoy your circle jerk.
That’s what I do as well when mozillatards begin questioning my browser choice, thinking they’re much better person than I am. Hope they enjoy their dying browser.
What youtube ads, I haven’t seen one in years, fortunately.
Me neither, as I don’t use YouTube at all.
I have to see them at school all the time, because our teacher’s don’t bother installing adblockers.
@RobotZap10000 @Viri4thus you should teach the teacher…
Are you blocked from installing browser extensions?
You should teach your teachers.
teacher’s
Now I’m doubly disappointed in your teachers.
Woopsie! That’s what 7 years of Dutch grammar does to you.
Mine is capitalising everything because of German.
At least German is consistent, unlike English where every so-called “rule” nearly has more exceptions than places it applies. As a native speaker I’m always amazed that anyone manages to learn our train wreck of a language.
English has its pitfalls, but is in many ways incredibly simple.
Plus it’s everywhere, and the best way to learn a language is to use it.
Dutch is way worse than English regarding inconsistencies it’s not even funny.
Sadly Dutch is adapting to make some thing “proper” Dutch which where never proper Dutch and sound wrong to every native Dutch speaker. Like “groter als jij” instead of “groter dan jij”.
I’m not sure what you mean here. As far as spelling goes, Dutch is far more consistent than English.
You’re mentioning some none-standard Dutch which is often perceived as incorrect (and it is indeed according to the rules of the standard language norm). Yet, if you were correct in your claim that ‘groter als jij’ was ‘never proper Dutch and sound[s] wrong to every native Dutch speaker’, no native Dutch speaker would ever use ‘groter als jij’. Native Dutch speakers do this often, though, and have been doing it at least since the seventeenth century (eg. this quote from 1670: ‘Zy [de vrucht ”Peci”] is niet veel groter als een kastanie …, vol sap en aengenaem van smaek: herder dan een gemeine appel, en een weinig zuurachtig,’ - ‘It [the fruit “Peci”] is not much bigger than a chestnut …, full of juice and pleasantly tasting: harder than a common apple, and a bit sourish,’).
Sorry to have gone so off-topic here, though.
Same. We should all collectively abandon ship and just learn Esperanto or something.
Not Everything, just Nouns.
EDIT: Woops, got confused myself
The plural -s in Dutch only gets an apostrophe if the stem word ends on an open vowel. So it’s cavia-cavia’s on the one hand, but kikker-kikkers on the other (and la[de]-lades). So even in Dutch this’d be incorrect ;)
Teacher here. My school uses everything Chrome OS and locks the ability to install extensions or other browsers. It’s not always us.
Use Firefox Mobile and ublock origin it will block ads on mobile
You’re not speaking to the teacher
When I watch YouTube on the Roku in my bedroom I see ads and it’s terrible. If I see a 30 second ad I go back and hit play again, usually I have to do that two or three times and then I get a 5-second skippable ad. Even then I’m often only two or three minutes into the video before it plays another ad.
I say this every time the topic comes up, and I’m always downvoted for it but here goes again:
YouTube is going to do this suit because YouTube CAN do this shit. It’s their company. They can enshitify it as much as they’d like. And they WILL enshitify it as much as they like as long as people continue to use it.
How long have they been in existence now? 18-19 years? And with every year they gets worse and worse, while growing bigger and bigger. Why do you think that is?
Could it be because they know that although everyone will bitch about them, complain about them, and write scathing tech articles about them- people will still gobble their shit up regardless.
Don’t like what YouTube is doing? Maybe think about not using it. Because as long as you’re participating- either by creating content or viewing it- you are a big part of the reason they’re getting away with doing this shit.
Downvote away.
Youtube started when hosting video’s was way easier. The files where smaller, the bandwidth of most people wasn’t that great either. Storage was more expensive though.
These days everybody wants 4K footage and everybody was 100-1000+ mbps internet and we have 4K screens so we can also watch it.
The competitors who host it are either paid up front or porn sites. Because there is no real way to start up a competitor to YouTube. I decided to accept that and I have RSSfeeds of all the creators I like to watch so I bypass the algorithm
They get away with it because they don’t have serious competition and the reason for that is that allowing anyone to upload videos for free, to be viewed by anyone else for free, is by itself not a viable business model.
It’s the size really. As with most social media platforms, often they are fairly easy to create (YouTube definitely isn’t, but many could). Problem is that it’s impossible to compete with, because people expect the activity you get from hundreds of millions of users.
Same goes for Twitter, Reddit and whatnot. Since capitalism took over the internet completely, basically none of the large plattforms have been outcompeted really.
To big to fail isn’t the banks nowadays, well then to, but it’s IT as well.
People well not pay for anything. I mean you can get YouTube premium without ads. But the vast majority don’t want it. And since no one well pay for anything how does a computer to YouTube make money?
Shit tons of people are paying for it. And the ones that aren’t, are viewing ads- both of these things are a profit for YouTube.
The only option you have is to not use the services at all. This is how you hurt them.
Nope. I don’t pay for it, and I don’t get ads.
For now.
The day I’m forced to watch YouTube ads is the day I never use it again
@aeternum @technology Adguard blocks all advertisements on there. I’ve installed that, and I’ve never received a single one. As much as I wish I could simply mix YouTube for my life, I can’t, because too many of the folks who produce content up there use it as their only means of sharing that content with the world, so I’ve sort of struck a balancing act between watching the things I want to watch, Will still remaining conscientious of what the companies behind it are doing.
does it count as viewing if every time I just download the videos with yt-dlp, and watch in a good media player?
I’m very surprised you got downvoted for saying that
Me too. I never try to come off as pushy on the topic. Just suggesting an option, but man… people haven’t responded well to it in the past.
Let’s just say, unless YouTube crosses people’s bottom lines and there’s an alternative being actively advertised, people won’t move.
Otherwise, they push that bottom line further.
The lack of alternatives where creators actually get paid for people watching their videos is the biggest problem.
Even youtube doesn’t pay the creators that much. Lois Rossman in a recent video showed some of his video in YT that had over 200k views and generated ~100 USD of income.
On a related note. Why would creators add sponsored segments/other sponsoring/patreon etc if YT pays them enough?
spoiler
YT doesn’t pay them enough. Unless your some kind of super star.
Nebula pays creators, and you pay to Nebula.
I have nebula, but still pay also for YT subscriptions
Agreed. Seems there no floor to what people will put up with from them. I can’t understand it. I’ve tried products and services I found that I absolutely hated. I don’t have those products or services anymore.
It’s pretty easy to not do something.
I pay for a YouTube premium family plan. It’s probably a rip off but my kids enjoy content on YouTube more than any other platform but YouTube is not safe for children with ads enabled (and YouTube kids is a joke)
Soggy cereal made a video about how YouTube ads are unsafe a few weeks ago and that was exactly my experience before I started paying for yt premium, look that up if you are curious
I’ll just share with you my experience:
I was also paying for a YouTube Premium family plan, but still got ads. What made me cancel was the fact that they’re still using trackers, so they were making money off me three times (subscription, ads, and selling my data)!
Coupled with the fact that “content creators” don’t really make content for the love of making it. It’s all created “for the algorithm”, especially the “watch to the end”, clickbait titles and thumbnails, “like and subscribe” begging, “only 15% of you are subscribers”, sponsored content disguised as education, etc… Videos today are nothing like they were 15 years ago, because it became solely about making money.
Google is one of the pioneers of the enshittification movement!
It’s not just ads on Youtube. It’s also all the sponsor crap and filler content to get to 10 minute videos.
I use it with an adblocker and sponsorblock but it’s still shit.
For sure. YouTube creators shilling for honey while Honey stole their affiliation money shows how little time they spend vetting their sponsors. The stuff they peddle is usually a few ticks away from scam, pretty much always overpriced. The day sponsorblock stops working, is the day I stop paying for YouTube premium and using youtube. It’s a pity, because there is a lot of good content on there.
There’s literally porn ads on yt. Recently an acquaintance of mine got one of those “Look what she said when she saw the size of his dick. You can have a bigger dick if you just buy our product”, with plenty of suggestive imagery. And scam ads. My mother got scammed because of a youtube ad pretending to sell products in the name of a famous brand of supermarkets in my region.
Tinfoil hat time:
YouTube allows/endorses/pushes ads not suitable for kids because they know parents, of all people, have no time to curate their kids’ ad experience and will just fork over the cash.
And youtube. Kids sucks so much because they don’t really want anyone to use it… Sadly though, they don’t have to plan to do these things. They just don’t invest in making them kid safe.
Can confirm. As soon as I turn off personalized ads, I get nothing but “find hot ladies in your area” and “play this hentai game” ads across all Google products. It’s ridiculous.
I think your theory is plausible. On the YT smart TV app, the ads seem to be increasingly about unpleasant things like dick pills, period pads, and constipation treatments. I think they literally serve up unsavory ad content as a way of punishing you into shelling out for a subscription. Jokes on them, I just switched to SmartTube.
Google’s ad-pocalypse is a self-licking ice cream cone. Bragging about $10.4 billion squeezed from advertisers while users rage-install adblockers? Masterclass in delusion. The “diminishing returns” of shoving 15 unskippable ads into a 3-minute tutorial is peak platform decay.
Creators churning out AI slop just to feed the algorithm? Pathetic. But why innovate when you can monetize desperation? The ad bubble’s bursting—soon we’ll all laugh at brands paying billions for bots and ad-blind zombies.
Keep stacking those unblockable trackers, Sundar. We’ll just keep finding new ways to mute your digital serfdom.
not gonna comment on your statements but you emphasize too many things.
Appreciate the feedback! I’ve edited the original comment
<3 looks and reads much better
Those poor suckers. I don’t think I’ve seen an advertisement on YouTube in something like five years.
Edit: And I sure as hell ain’t paying Google either.
If you see 0 ads and don’t pay anyone, I’m not sure how the service could be sustainable. I’m also against ads but only if you’re actually paying. That’s why I do pay for a yt family plan but also use adblock+sponsorblock.
Google has plenty of money. That’s the way I see it.
Afaik, business units are individual. Their products don’t finance each other.
And the user experience I should expect depends on their stupid hierarchy for reasons I should care about, I’m sure, but still I find myself not. Choosing to enshittify is a choice. Choosing a business model that depends on coercion into an ecosystem that will become enshittified after accumulating a critical mass is another, even more evil choice. Doing it while those cheering loudest are the ones being fucked hardest (I mean, there’s still a “certain line” between how badly “certain groups” are discriminated against, but let’s keep things broad here because we all know the in-group is going to shrink… you know the poem, those that don’t speak up and all that) is yet another choice and one that I’m not willing to join. Doing it while playing monopolistic games arguably even more strongly than Microsoft did when it got hit with a Nynex-level antitrust suit is a step even further down the fuck-me-brick road. The list goes on. Have you met Android??? Google’s motto used to be Don’t Be Evil. Yeah, I’m at least that old. Fight me.
Edit: please don’t fight me. I’m in some back pain right now from some light physical engagement the other day. I’m also, at a minimum, that old…
Dude, if you dislike it that much you could just like… not use it?
Or, we could use it for free! Get two birds stoned at once!
Stringing more non-sequitors into this probably won’t make it make more sense
K. Keep using a service you hate then, I guess.
Yeah they are and they need to act like seperate businesses to each other. But Google is just going to loan YouTube money when it needs to. Google is basically playing the game with infinite money.
It’s not. Why do you want it to be? It’s one of the most enduring social media monopolies, and it should be brought down. The more they lose revenue, the more they are forced to squeeze, the more they enshittify, the more people are pushed to make and use alternatives, and the stronger those alternatives get.
Honestly once youtube’s network can be usurped by something like peertube, I think that might be the ballgame for centralised social media. It is the hardest one to topple because of bandwidth costs, which means once it goes the case for needing a corporation to fund our networks kind of collapses with it.
I’m not sure how the service could be sustainable.
Bold of you to assume any of us give a shit about keeping Alphabet’s operations sustainable for them.
Sure but realistically services need money to run sites.
Yes, and for all I care, they can run out (though they won’t) and their sites can shut down.
Fuck yeah.
For anyone out of the loop, look into Freetube and Grayjay. There are other apps that do the same thing too, but those are good to start with.
Or you can setup RSSFeeds direcrly and also include news articles and other stuff
And yet they aggressively demonitize channels.
Line go up
I mean they don’t want to pay the creators thats abundantly clear.
I’d love to know their cost of storing all the YT videos and serving them.
YouTube runs at a loss, as far as I am aware. The other businesses prop it up. They run it, even at a loss, because they harvest data from it.
What ads? My adblocker still works.
I have no issue in paying creators with my YouTube Premium subscription. What annoys me is seeing creators feed the algorithm with “regular posts” or create filler videos for sponsors when they have nothing to say.
That and seeing explainer videos from someone who learned something five minutes before recording… the number of copycats and regurgitating the same news content is depressing.
The same goes for the epidemic of faceless AI videos narrating generic content… horrible. The “don’t recommend channel” must be worn off by now, from me alone. :-)
Fantastic exceptions from talented creators make it worth it, so I am happy.
Stop. Using. Youtube.
And replace it with what?
Freetube, and what I use, Newpipe. There are better experiences out there. All one needs to do is search for them. Happy hunting.
Isn’t that still using YouTube? Just a different interface.
Eh, I would argue you’re only using the servers to access the content creators data. Youtube is the interface, algorithm, advertisement, comments, etc. If it’s just the creators data being accessed with no additional contribution from youtube then I would just treat it as any ol’ host server.
Butt stuff
At least use an adblocker
You have a point it’s a monopoly but most YouTube videos I watch now the creators are always suggesting viewing on patreon because of all the YouTube copyright stuff.
I’ve noticed quite a few have vanished from YouTube so maybe there’s some signs YouTube is starting to get to annoying for creators.
I’ve never used Patreon, but are the videos not hosted there from YouTube?
I think they can pretty much post whatever they want but I’ve never used it myself as it’s all pay walled. But yeah I think reactors are all jumping over to it as it gets harder to post anything on YouTube without someone else trying to claim the ad money.
Patreon has it’s own internal hosting, yes. But is it still leaning on Azure/AWS? shrug Probably.
Touching grass
Many people responded with helpful advice. You decided to add rudeness to that. Why?
It was supposed to be a joke
Yes. A rude joke.
It’s not that deep
Deez nutz
Pornhub?
For watching YT videos: NewPipe or Tubular for phone app. FreeTube on Pc. Invidious in browser.
Just a few examples, there is loads more alternatives.
Including different platforms all together. Too much to choose from.
I use an alternative frontend for actually watching stuff, just google and find one with a public instance, no ads, can do pip on your phone for free
also easy to host for yourself
Literally any other form of entertainment.
Though the statement was to stop using it, not replace it.
Youtube is not just entertainment tho - the catch is that Google has way too much actually useful info hostage, like lectures, guides or documentaries.
@EngineerGaming @Senal tbf a lot of the creators I watch on YouTube are now on nebula and/or patreon. I ought to explore alternatives.
True. But I am not even talking about dedicated content creators (for whom it is indeed an option!). I am talking about, say, an old laptop disassembly guide that a random master uploaded and just forgot about it. People not actively managing their content are not going to bother.
It’s somewhat of a catch, that’s generally how monopolistic moats work but you really shouldn’t be relying on google as a backup service for obscure videos you wish to keep.
I’ve no idea of the amount of lectures, guides, documentaries and other non-entertainment media that is available exclusively on youtube, but again it isn’t an archiving service.
They can, will and have deleted whole channels for various reasons, most of which were bullshit, if you find something you absolutely have to keep, download it.
That being said, the process of downloading, archiving and curating content on anything more than a trivial scale can be much more involved than it seems, especially if you want backups/redundancy.
I’ve never been a big youtube user so my opinion on this is coloured by the fact that i don’t have that much invested in the platform.
I am now downloading everything I personally need or like. Wish there was, say, a torrent index of Youtube videos)
Not sure how versed/willing you are to selfhost but I’ve heard good things about tube archivist.
There are also a bunch of ui’s for yt-dlp, though i can’t vouch for quality.
