Privacy advocate challenges YouTube’s ad blocking detection::Irish eyes may not be smiling
YT’s push into ad-blocker blocking did the same for me that Reddit’s API change did, that being it was enough of a push for me to stop using their platform. In Reddit’s case, I get my fix from Lemmy and in YT’s case, I use Freetube to watch videos. In both cases, I’m sure they’re not losing money in my absence but I do feel better not giving them the data that I used to.
Serious question: YouTube is a business and owned by a public corporation and not a FOSS so they can dictate how they want to run their platform. They want to run ads and blacklist ad blockers running on their platform. They have created a premium subscription for those who don’t want ads. I understand the public outrage, of course. My question is why can’t they do what they want with their own platform? I guess I’m finding it hard to see a different perspective. FYI, I’m in the process of distancing myself from Google services as much as possible.
When I visit the YouTube site, all that happens is their server sends data to my browser that it requested. What I/my browser do with that data (especially how and whether to display parts of the site) is up to me.
edit: Of course, they can try to forbid this via ToS but afaik nothing more than that.
Personally I wouldn’t mind paying for YouTube premium. As a matter of fact I did in the past. But it’s priced at least twice as high as I’m willing to pay. Perhaps if they had full premium with YouTube music at the current too high price, and then a “premium lite” that was simply no ads and but no YouTube music either at half or less the full price. Personally I just don’t want ads, I don’t want to over pay for a music service I dont want, just because I don’t want ads in the unrelated video portion of youtube.
Currently I feel like they are bullying me into buying a service I don’t want, by interfering with a service that I do want. Which is honestly what I suspect is at the root of this current push against ad blockers in the first place. It’s not about the video service in any meaningful way, I suspect they are trying to leverage their video dominance to bolster their music subscribership. This seems antisocial enough for me to have no ethical concerns about attempting to circumvent their ads.
Because corporations and businesses are still bound to the law of the country they offer their services in.
Just because some hillbilly bar in Kansas allows minors to smoke and drink doesn’t mean that’s legal because it’s their place.
My computer, my freedom!
I can do whatever I want.
So can the web server youre trying to access lol
the web server? absolutely!
the arbitrary code they send to my browser? I must be able to choose what to execute in my device.
Media hosting is not “arbitrary code” and costs money. Just saying don’t be surprised when a site prevents you from using a service without paying for it in some way.
they detect adblock by executing proprietary JavaScript code in my browser, using my CPU cycles. I paid for that CPU and I can choose what code gets executed and what not.
That JavaScript code is also privacy invasive and I’m not letting a mega corporation recollect information about myself. So yeah, I’ll block whatever I want from my browser. And if that makes Google loose money, they are more than welcomed to look for a business model other than advertising.
That JavaScript code is also privacy invasive
As a web developer seeing an end user say this is hilarious. Hate to break it you but there are much better ways to track you.
If you’re that paranoid just use a VPN and never enter personal information on the internet.
