this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 237 points 1 month ago (8 children)

I don't see any mention of the YouTube adblock trick, so from the vid:

Copy YouTube URL. Paste it in Bing and search. Scroll passed Bing's sponsored bullshit and click on the thumbnail for the video you searched. It will then play, still in Bing, with no ads.

So if you're on a work or government or w/e computer that doesn't allow installing adblock extensions, there ya go. No downloads or anything, just YouTube and Bing.

 

...this is the first time I've ever had any interest in using Bing, lol.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Scroll passed Bing's sponsored bullshit

Ah. Still some ads then.

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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 month ago (22 children)

Isn't he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?

I mean I get that Youtubers have no morals and it's all about money but that seems excessively hypocritical, even for a Youtube "personality".

[–] [email protected] 286 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Isn't he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?

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.

[–] [email protected] 179 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Breaking news, people on the Internet have no concept of nuance.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago

How dare you make such a direct and personal attack on me!

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 month ago (26 children)

Isn't that essentially what it is? Getting something for free through certain means you wouldn't get for free otherwise? Which means no money goes to whoever owns the service you're using?

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (3 children)

LTT always seemed "slimy" to me, especially after the whole mistreatment allegations ordeal

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Yeah, ever since all that stuff came out just before the new CEO took over, including the video/audio of the sexual harassment meeting which was treated as a total joke, I unsubscribed and stopped viewing their content. I couldn't reconcile their fun and approachable/friendly image with how they're treating staff. Moved on to watching more from other creators like Jayztwocents. Unfortunate that people keep turning out to be shitty left and right.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (65 children)

He's right that it's piracy, he doesn't go on to say piracy is wrong, and neither would I.

It's piracy to block ads, and piracy isn't always wrong, so who cares?

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[–] [email protected] 120 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't care for Linus these days but respect for that.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, I got tired of his videos half-assing the work and the failed reviews hurting small manufacturers while Linus doubled down after GN documented their failures.

But this I can get behind.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Doubled down? After being called out they slowed the upload cadence, are taking more time to make sure mistakes don't get through, and changed their production process. They also formed a volunteer team of "beta tester" viewers who see each video pre-release to catch any mistakes they didn't internally. I think they handled it well. Of course it would be better if they didn't have a problem in the first place, but I'd never call it "doubling down".

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (9 children)

There was an initial reaction from Linus on his forums where he massively doubled down on his stance that he had not done anything wrong with the review model LTT had auctioned off without permission (I can't remember the name of the company). He had even accused GN of not following "journalistic standards" by not giving LTT a chance to put their side forward.

This was met with another video from GN, and overall criticism over the dismissive attitude Linus was displaying. That's when they came out with a YT video, admitting their numerous faults, and Linus himself admitted that the way he responded on the forum was not acceptable.

Pretty much doubled down initially, till they realised that they're in actual deep waters.

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 1 month ago (12 children)

I have no longer watched their content since the scandal.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Probably the sexual harassment one that's when I left. The billet labs stuff was bad too though.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Feels like I remember that one getting pretty good proof Linus didn't do anything, but could be wrong

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Linus wasn't accused of sexually harassing anyone. His company was accused of being a hostile work environment with sexual harassment by a former worker, but the accusations weren't against Linus himself. LTT hired a 3rd party law firm to investigate - LTT said the law firm basically said there wasn't legal liability based on the documentation they could find and LTT used that to absolve themselves and threaten to sue the accuser if she said anything else.

But this was an LTT hired lawfirm and LTT themselves reporting on what the report said - and since it's confidential you kind of just have to take their word that they're accurately reporting the findings. Further there were initially some corroborators of Madison's story who retracted and apologized quickly (assumingly after being threatened with legal action - Aprime is the example). Besides that a lot of the accusations were things that happened in person that wouldn't necessarily leave a digital trail so it's possible even if the 3rd party investigation was completely unbiased that everything Madison said was still true.

In the end believe what you want but it seems slimy enough that I stopped watching.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (11 children)

I stopped because they are bro douchebags.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 month ago (14 children)

Friendly reminder that pirates didn't usually stole gold. Piracy was stealing shipping goods, then selling them for profit at some port. Digital piracy is thus defined as acquiring, and then distributing for profit, media that you don't own the copyrights of. Ad blocking is categorically not piracy.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Also, "piracy" or "copyright infringement" isn't theft in any sense.

A key element of theft is that you deprive the rightful owner of something. You now have it and they no longer do. What makes it wrong is that the person who should have it no longer does. It's not that you have it. That's why the punishment for "mischief" where someone completely destroys something belonging to someone else is similar to the punishment for the theft of that same object.

Copyright infringement is breaking the rule that the state imposed giving someone the exclusive right to control the copying of something. You're not depriving anyone of anything tangible when you infringe a copyright. They still have the original, they still have any copies they made, any copies they gave out or sold are still where they were. The only thing you're doing is violating the rule that gave them exclusive control. If you're depriving someone of anything, it's depriving them of the opportunity they might have had to make money from selling a copy.

If anything, copyright infringement is more similar to trespassing than to theft. Just like copyright infringement, trespassing involves not allowing someone to control who accesses their property. If you sneak onto someone's campground property and have a bonfire party, the person loses the opportunity to rent out the campground for the bonfire, and any money they might have received for doing that. But, if you sneak in and sneak out and leave no trace, you could argue that nobody is harmed.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Well that's a thumbnail I'd never click on

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago (33 children)

Their video about thumbnail A/B testing was quite interesting to see. Considering how they have dedicated designers to make these thumbnails I guess that works pretty well, despite your personal opinion on it, with which I agree too.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I bet they removed it faster than a porn video on YouTube Kids! 😲

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 month ago

don't you know, it's hate speech against corporate profits

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (83 children)

Funny, considering in the past he's gone on big rants about how adblocking is no different from piracy, and is theft.

But then again, its Linus we're talking about, its not like he has a particularly big issue with theft anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 month ago

Of course de-googling your life is a violation of the terms is service...

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah so its war you want, YouTube.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What happened to his hair?

[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 month ago (5 children)

D-Brand paid him to bleach it.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago

Obligatory Louis Rossmann commentary on the matter. https://youtu.be/qHwP6S_jf7g?feature=shared

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)

…to the surprise of absolutely no one who's been paying attention. They got rid of the coalmine canary clause like a fucking decade ago.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What the heck does complying with wiretap orders have to do with removing YouTube videos about adblockers?

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It has been reuploaded already with a nice "re-upload" added in the thumbnail.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (20 children)

Didn't he say that using adblockers in YouTube was basically piracy?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

Yes, he also said that piracy can be a personal choice, and showed how to do it.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

There would be less talking over each other due to word definitions if the music industry had not convicted people that murder and stealing on boats was good way to describe unauthorized copying.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

Fucking hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

How to "block" ads: Refresh the video multiple times. They will show a few different ads and then give up. It even works on console YT apps which have more ads.

I guess it affects impressions? I figured they would have fixed that, but this still works so whatever.

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