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.

  • BReel@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1419·
    1 year ago

    “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.

      • BReel@lemmy.oneEnglish
        332·
        1 year ago

        I think you have to be watching a video that it connects to.

        So for example I was watching the Game Grumps play Peppa pig (lol I know but it was hilarious) so it put an ad saying “try paramount plus to watch peppa pig” under it.

        I’ve seen it on a few other vids that have movies associated, like sonic for example. Seems to be a semi recent thing though

        (Is this how I post a pic on Lemmy? lol)

        • DeprecatedCompatV2@programming.devEnglish
          166·
          1 year ago

          This is not the kind of ad most people are talking about though. This is like Amazon trying to get me to buy insurance whenever I purchase electronics (which I never do, of course).

          • BReel@lemmy.oneEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Yeah I only ever saw it on Desktop since I do most my viewing there, and even then only on specific videos. So its not crazy frequent, just annoying its a thing at all.

            I do love the idea of youtube building in a skip for in vid sponsors though, that would possibly bring me back haha. Like if sponsored creators were required to add a “sponsor” chapter to their vids, so premium users could have it just skip that block of the video 🤔

      • Captain Poofter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        75·
        1 year ago

        Same. Have honestly enjoyed my YouTube subscription. Combined with the extension to bypass in-video ads, i basically never get marketed to on YouTube, and some of my money actually DOES go to creators. I think it’s more worth the money than Netflix, at least. It’ll be the last subscription I get rid of.

      • BReel@lemmy.oneEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

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

    • atetulo@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

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

      • BReel@lemmy.oneEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.