this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 1 year ago (3 children)

“You can go ad free with YouTube premium!”

Buys premium

youtube shows ad for paramount plus under my video

Cancels YouTube premium.

So anywho there’s a thing called freetube. Just saying. Idk that it’s a perfect alternative, but it’s at least one step further from googles prying eyes and grubby hands.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Never seen that before, I've had premium for years now

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Threw in a response on the thread above, don’t wanna just copy past spam haha.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dang. You actually bought premium instead of installing an adblocker?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't wanna maintain an ad blocker, especially since I use youtube on a bunch of diff devices. Desktop/laptop/Ps4/Tv/Ipad/Phone like, everywhere. Premium just meant no ads on any of them with no fuss or maintenance.

Also the bonus of downloads/music/background play etc was very nice.

Honestly for someone like me who uses youtube as much as I do, it was 100% worth the money. I just ethically can't bring myself to pay for it now that they straight up lied and took my money without even trying to be subtle about it.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

You don't have to maintain an adblocker.