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Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.
(sh.itjust.works)
https://files.catbox.moe/a6111d.png / https://nitter.poast.org/LinusTech/status/1825956050685800834
If you go the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjHMzGl-VY. You will see it's gone. So Youtube being Youtube.
Here's a Odysee mirror of the video, https://odysee.com/@jopec:7/linus-tech-tips-degoogle-your-life-part-2-adfree-youtube:0.
He's also got a generally nuanced opinion of piracy, in that it's justifiable in some situations. If you call it piracy and you're okay with piracy then it's not really a contradiction.
Being willing to talk about it despite working against your interests isn't always bad depending on context.
Breaking news, people on the Internet have no concept of nuance.
How dare you make such a direct and personal attack on me!
A fact I struggle with on an almost daily basis...
I had the vague recollection of him having a small-business-owner-brain moment and going on about how it's theft, and it's taking money out of his pockets, or something along those lines.
Looks like I may have been either thinking of someone else, or misinterpreted a snippet of video of him ranting about something.
I will admit to not watching his stuff for a good number of years now, and could be totally conflating things.
That was probably his stance when YouTube ad revenue was his stream of income.
In 2024 they pay pennies, and his real income is from sponsorships like those d-brand skins and manscaping utilities. And their own merch, of course.
They've been pushing their own media platform (floatplane), so I'm willing to bet this was a bit of a game of chicken with YouTube. YouTube wouldn't ban one of their biggest channels, and even if they did it'd turn into great publicity for floatplane.
While I don't think they'd be able to get a lot of their subscribers over to floatplane completely, I do think they'd be able to pull over lots of random views by having their shorts on Facebook, Instagram and whoever else is trying to mimic tiktok these days.
Nah, I'm pretty sure that it was more recent, like 2023 or 2022
Think this was sponsorblock due to above statement
They've been pretty good about playing both sides. There have been plenty of videos of how to bypass add traffic and in the same video explaining how they rely on ad traffic . I don't love everything LMG does but they do seem to be kind of Open about the house wise and why nots of ad blocking.
In 2022 he tweeted this.
That might be what you're remembering, but he's definitely addressed his views on piracy during the WAN show several times as well.
Edit: someone else posted the full context elsewhere in the thread. I'd link to that comment, but idk how on lemmy so here: https://archive.ph/VavFc
You're not misremembering. I remember seeing it on there "podcast" or whatever it is where they talked about it extensively and I believe louis chimed in with a video going over it.
He directly called it bad because it hurt his revenue stream. He is ok with ad blocking as long as it isn't being done to him. That's pretty bold if you ask me. A double standard, quite the opposite of nuance. He equated it with entering a cirque due soleil show without paying a ticket, which is a false equivalence. He thinks that he is entitled to have his ads seen as a price of admittance to watching his videos. No one is entitled to have their ads watched.
Source on "he's ok with ad blocking as long as it's not done to him"? Doesn't sound like something he'd say.
The way I see it is if I'm forced to watch ads when watching something, I won't watch it. In that case, no ad revenue for you because I'm not watching your shit. Now, If I watch it with no ads, you get the same result, BUT I might tell someone to watch your shit or buy some merch. That person I told to watch it might watch your ads and that person would not have watched you without me telling them to. You're up 1 revenue.
The corporate greed is out of control. The amount of bullshit ads and tracking is insane. I'm blown away by the people that defend this shit.
You're just justifying your actions. YouTube is not free to run, and the content there is not free to create. You're a parasite.
Don't worry, I'm as well - but be honest about it. What you're doing, and many other gigabrains here, is just pathetic. There is a lot of corporate greed in this world, but this ain't it.
Google can axe YouTube to stop the bleeding aaaaaanytime they want. And creators can go back to working 9-5 aaaaaanytime they want, too.
When G bought YT, it was clear as day that the site was unprofitable. G bought it anyway. Now they are like 'but it's too expensive whaaaaaa'. Bed, sleep in, all that.
Now, for about a third of my subscriptions, I either buy merch or am on their patreon. Some are, amazingly, still there just because they like making videos (no direct monetization), and others I watch their vids but they don't give me enough reason to financially pitch in.
But you can't be like 'oh yt is just some scrappy startup that will fail without your help, you're killing a platform'. And even the biggest creators out there, I think they are a fucking moron for literally basing their livelihood on a website - run by G, of all companies. gestures to the g graveyard
Not my issue, not my problem. And I'm sure as fuck not going to feel bad about it.
You are just self-important and cannot come to terms with reality, lol. All those creators and their content would not exist in this form, for free, without YouTube. All other platforms are locked behind a paywall.
But geniuses like you then talk down paywalls as well, because how dare they monetize their time?! You just want everything for free - be honest about it.
Why you looking in a mirror tho?
Nothing important would be lost if yt shut down tomorrow. If all these income-driven 'creators' left due to lack of income, returning yt to just self-made videos instead of having budgets in the 5 and 6 figure range, again nothing would be lost.
I am clearly a genius from your perspective though; that's the only logical statement you've made. Congratulations! Maybe some day you will be of comparable brainpower. 🎉
Modders make mods for free. Video creators publish free videos on sites like Youtube or Vimeo today without any revenue stream. Prior to that creators published their content for free on sites like ebaums, or albinoblacksheep, or on personal pages.
Humans want to share. If Youtube had never existed, people wouldn't have suddenly stopped making videos to share, they should have just found another method of sharing or created their own alternative. The desire to create and share is innate to humanity; the concept of monetary compensation is not.
As for wanting everything to be free (I'm not who you were talking to but I'm responding anyway)... I mean, yeah kind of? Here's my question: why should everything be paid? I think that's a backwards mentality. People were sharing stories and art and other creations for no reason other than the love of sharing long before Youtube, and they will keep doing so after. Imo not every effort in life needs to be directly compensated. To me this is the same reason I will never pay for game mod: I want to support and encourage a modding community who mods because they love do it and they love sharing with community, not because they see a possible revenue stream.
Imo turning your hobbies into jobs or "side hustles" is one of the worst consequences of capitalism, and one we should push back against.
Every person is already paying for Youtube with their data. The ads are asking above and beyond.
It would be an entirely different story if Google wasn't primarily first a data-mining company, but since they are, and since selling that data (or the results of using that data) in of the MAIN revenue streams for their business, it is disingenuous to act like Youtube is some free service that is being offered to us. It's not; it's a massive data-mining operation of incredible value as it offers not just demographic information but vastly more details on individual interests and what kind of things they are likely to actually click and interact with than the vast majority of other platforms and sites.
We have got to stop ignoring the data aspect of businesses like Youtube.