this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They have really gone all out on the whole enshittification process during the past couple of years, haven’t they?

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

Just wait until they figure out how much more $$$$ they can make by putting all content behind microtransactions:

Imagine a world where, instead of grappling with complex tokens and crypto jargon, you have a digital wallet connected to your Web browser. This wallet would automatically handle microtransactions as you browse and consume content, creating a seamless and simplified experience, reminiscent of exchanging tokens at a funfair or arcade

This transition to the Great Paywall isn't just about the monetization of content; it's about balancing the scales and recognizing the value of content creators in the digital ecosystem. In the next chapter of the Web, users aren't just passive consumers but active participants whose attention carries tangible value.

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

Let's not forget that, if we do go down the microtransaction hell of an internet path, we'd be screwing things up big-time for the coming generations...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

When will companies finally understand that some people won‘t watch ads no matter what tricks they employ. I‘d rather watch no video at all than a single ad. If that is their goal, fine.

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

We're getting closer to the prophetic 4chan post

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

I'm surprised it took them this long

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We did the Twitter to Mastodon migration. Now we are doing the Reddit to Lemmy/kbin migration. When are we doing the YouTube to Peertube migration?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's impossible or at least very difficult, right now. Video content is very expensive. LBRY is the only feasible option.

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

Or people could just host their own peertube instance with banner ads instead of preroll/mid video ads and maybe add a donation/subscription system.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

add a donation/subscription system.

At this point you could just subscribe to YouTube.

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

But YouTube is privately owned and not an open source platform that each creator has full control over

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you have a goose that produces a reliable daily supply of golden eggs do you:

  1. keep collecting your daily egg
    or
  2. see if giving it a good kick or two gets you more eggs
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As YouTube increases the number and length of ads, the amount of traffic behind blockers rises accordingly.

This is also just... a function of the evolving digital space. The consolidation of the internet ownership sphere and the modernized APIs/coding tools afford server-side content warehouses more and more power over what the end user receives.

Because AWS owns all the fucking rack space, because ISP monopolies are the defining feature of western net access, and Microsoft force-feeds people their proprietary interfaces, we're moving away from the point where clients control what they display and closer to the point where everything's just a dumb-terminal for big business.

We're effectively backpeddling from Web 2.0 to Terrestrial TV.

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

small cease and desist for users

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

YouTube is the only Google service I use on a regular basis. Happy to leave them behind if they continue with this type of behavior.

It would be less convenient, but it is what it is and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s ads.

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

I really think that Brave will circumvent this. Btw, YouTube will sue Invidious if they don't stop offering the service in the following weeks. So I think YouTube is onto something here.

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

As fill-in ads are a vector for computer viruses and other malware I for one will NOT be disabling my ad blocker unless YouTube is willing to provide a lifetime subscription to something like Life Lock and make me whole for anything lost to whatever malware arrives as a part of an ad.

Where else can I watch sci-show, Linus-tech-tips, and all the other channels I subscribe to?

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

Just use newpipe. It's youtube without the ads. Doesn't have casting support, but it allows you to download the videos. You can also listen/download to the audio of videos, without fetching the video.

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

Newpipe will probably be blocked as well if youtube is doing this. Honestly not sure why youtube hasn't blocked yt-dlp and others already.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not easily block able as it scrapes the YouTube website. They'd have to stop having a website for that to happen.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The problem with scraping is that while it’s difficult/impossible to block completely, it’s pretty easy to keep making changes to your site to disrupt scrapers. The work required by the scraper to adapt to those changes is usually way more than the work you put in to disrupt them.

So if a commercial site wants to make scraping unreliable and impractical, they almost certainly can.

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

It's also easy for the NewPipe devs to update their app and make it work again. This has been going on for years already.

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

Great, now YouTube is being further enshittified.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can watch any YouTube video on Invidious, Peertube is a federated alternative to Youtube, Odysee is a blockchain based Youtube alternative that kicks back to creators and users, and many creators use Nebula as a subscription platform that directly pays them.

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

oh boy, I wish youtube kills itself like reddit is doing right now so decentralized alternatives can become widely adopted

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Then I’m going to begin not fucking watching YouTube.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is a federated version of YouTube...

But storing video is a massive challenge, way harder than dealing with a Lemmy or Mastodon instance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My rational mind realises it’s such an expensive system to run that it’s reasonable for them to charge or show ads. The problem is they’ve been extremely aggressive with ads and pushing subscriptions, to the point where I’m pretty resentful of the idea. Plus they’ve neglected so many things (like allowing aggressive copyright predators and refusing to implement sensible human-based appeals processes) that they really should have dealt with and instead embraced an algorithm that I’m pretty sure is at least partially responsible for the radicalisation of large groups of people.

I.. don’t mind paying for shit. I just don’t want to give them money.

Also: wow there’s federated video sharing? Bet that’s not cheap to run.

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

even google is having difficulty storing video.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hopefully we get a decent alternative soon

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

PeerTube exists but it is not popular. It has a lot of potential though

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

It's about to have more potential for growth.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I pay for a youtube premium family plan. Best money I spend monthly. I want to support the youtube creators that I watch, I don't have to see ads (I block them anyway), and I get a music service included.

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

Does any of that money really goes to creators?

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

I do not have first hand knowledge, but I have heard that premium viewers are much more valuable to a channel than ad supported views. I also support channels I enjoy through Patreon as well. I would much rather pay and be a customer than do "free" services where my info is just the product for corporations.

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

revanue from yt premium views is like 1000x from ad views. that's probably only going to get larger.

if you dont believe in paying for your media then you give power to the advertisers.

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

I actually do not understand the widespread hostility that people have toward this kind of thing. I watch a lot of content on YouTube, and I don't want to see ads, so I pay for premium. I watch a lot of content on Twitch, and I don't want to see ads, so I pay for turbo. Hosting a major video streaming website isn't cheap. It's not like these things are unreasonably priced. If you hate the ads so much, then why not pay for the service that the platform is offering you, and for the content that creators are providing on it? And if you don't watch often enough for ad-free viewing to be worth a few bucks a month to you, then why get so worked up about having to sit through an ad every now and then?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I can't speak for everyone, but I block ads and don't pay because I hate Google. In addition to their repeated violations of user privacy, they go out of their way to disable OS features unless you pay them. Like disabling background play or PiP with Safari on iOS. Those features use the same open standards as foreground web browsers, so it literally takes extra effort to break them. Effort that could instead be used to fix the numerous problems with their platform, which they don't. I refuse to reward that behaviour.

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

And if you don’t watch often enough for ad-free viewing to be worth a few bucks a month to you, then why get so worked up about having to sit through an ad every now and then?

There is an awkward gap where most services (not just YouTube) don't offer reasonable pricing for consuming small amounts of content. So if you consume a lot of YouTube, the subscription price is justified. If you consume very little YouTube, you can probably suffer through some ads. But if you're somewhere in the middle, there isn't a great option.

YouTube probably makes fractions of a cent off of ads on a single video it shows me, but I can't pay fractions of a cent to watch one video.

I'd consider this to actually be a pretty widespread problem across the internet, where it's frustratingly difficult to buy small amounts of content for a reasonable price. It's either the subscription or nothing for a ton of services.

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

I hate ads with a passion due to my experiences in the marketing industry and will go out of my way to never watch any. I also don’t want to pay for random internet content, especially not to companies on the stock market. (Though I do use Patreon a bit for some content creators)

Can‘t explain it much more than that. If youtube locks me out due to that, so be it. I don‘t get worked up either, I simply state my opinion on it where I please and if I‘m not wanted I leave. That‘s about it.

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

I simply hate ads with a passion due to my experiences in marketing and will go out of my way to never watch any. Can‘t explain it much more than that. If youtube locks me out due to that, so be it. I don‘t get worked up either, I simply state my opinion on it where I please and if I‘m not wanted I leave. That‘s about it.

Why don't you pay for YouTube premium? This removes all platform ads.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As irritating as it is. I do understand. The internet and things on the internet can’t just be free, and ads is how we pay.

I do highly disagree with how many ads they’ve been playing with implementing.

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

They main problem I have with this is that we don't have a decent alternative for youtube yet. The main reason I don't want to pay for youtube is because it is Google. With YT premium you don't buy privacy (logically you would say with removing ads you also remove the need to track people).

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

Yeah, that's an excellent point. Youtube does have a monopoly for that. It would be nice if there were competition in the space.

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

It is not just the quantity, but the quality of ads.

Users would not be so concerned if they employed banner ads instead of 5 minute long ads which just force you to sit and wait for a 5 second video.