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.

  • chuckd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    1 year ago

    Instead they could get 5$ a month from me for no ads.

    They do this already. It’s called YouTube Premium and they’ve determined it’s worth more than $5 a month. My guess is the amount they decide to charge is not an arbitrary number, but one that covers their expenses based on expected engagement.

    Unpopular opinion: If people either paid monthly, or they didn’t run pihole, blockers, or vanced, the monthly price of YT Premium would probably be closer to your magical $5 cost. Although, honestly, I doubt you’d pay the $5 either.

    • JamesFire@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      My guess is the amount they decide to charge is not an arbitrary number, but one that covers their expenses based on expected engagement.

      They charge the amount that gives them the most benefit. That definitely includes profit as a factor. Likely a large one. Companies don’t lower their prices when costs go down. They take in more profit.

    • nowayhosay@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      42·
      1 year ago

      “the mega globo corps only charge what they have to, to make ends meet. it would be cheaper if every one paid i swear”

      • chuckd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        I mean, we are where we’re at. So, unless you can prove otherwise…