I think as developers we have to be careful that we don't overstep logical boundaries. Youtube provides a free service that hosts immense volumes of video and creates an ecosystem allowing creators to earn a living. It's selfish to use the services of YouTube while removing their main source of revenue. If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it
This arguments stands in a fully rational market with fair competition guaranteed by a controlling entity.
Youtube doesn't have any competition at its scale, not using it isn't a rational choice. Even school assignments will have YouTube links to watch. I think we're at the point where your statement sounds like a "if you don't like the Standard Oil company just don't buy their oil" rehash.
A controlling entity would not guarantee fairness. Currently the way to compete is to stand up your own equivalent YouTube, possibly saving yourself a lot of money by using YouTube's open sourced codecs.
If there were a controlling entity you'd have to stand up your own equivalent YouTube, and a load of government people to wine and dine.
TBF nothing would guarantee fairness, the very notion of “free market” is pretty much an idealistic vision that only exists in very small niches from time to time. As long as you can game the system, there’s no reason not to do so from the start.
The current way to compete against YouTube is to finance a cloud provider to rise at that scale or build your own data centers which will land you somewhere in the top owning entities in the world. Then you need to lure creators and pay them the same or more than Youtube, and you might be seeing users and advertisers finally coming to your platform in significant numbers. Which also means you’ll enter into talks with content rights providers, pass contracts, and build an army of lawyers to deal with the whole world (including as you say, wining and dining the biggest entities that you need to stay in at least a neutral position toward your growth)
Saving money on open sourced codecs is probably not your main concern.
The alternative being to start your service small and grow organically, but in a country where YouTube isn’t available (fun thinking time: where could that be ?)
The problem here is "network effect" leverage on society.
When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be a part of a large part of society. This is isolating. Whether that isolation matters to the individual in question is highly variable.
You might be able to easily forego it. But a kid - ostensibly uninformed, not able to reason well enough and "not able to consent" - who's teacher sets an assignment to write about a youtube video has an overwhelming influence to "simply do it".
Should large parts of society including institutions know better and do better? Sure. But in practice they don't.
Today I think it's morally acceptable to circumvent tracking, advertising, etc. for behemoths like YouTube, Google, etc. They are simply too powerful, and have too much mindshare. There's nothing close to YouTube in terms of ubiquity. I don't have any sympathy for a monopoly, and I hope that YouTube's days are numbered so that a more open alternative like PeerTube can take its place.
My only real concern is channel owners. I want them to be able to be reasonably compensated for their work today.
> I wonder if it's possible to spoof viewing of the ads for the sake of channel owners without reducing privacy or being dusturbed by ads...
I wonder if this is a bit morally worse.
Not viewing the ads screws over Google. Faking the ad view costs the company running the ad money. A lot of smaller companies advertise on YouTube... but they often use pretty standard gross techniques like flat-out lying, deceiving, or playing to human psychology. It can be useful to dissect ads to understand how gross and manipulative they are.
YouTube provides many ways to access its content and clients such as this one utilize some of the lesser used methods to access the videos. But after all, YouTube allows this to happen and they are probably well aware of how their API is used. My guess is that people using alternative clients are a drop in the ocean and their impact on ads is completely negligible. You'll know this is no longer the case when YouTube cracks down on alternative clients.
If there was a pay to anonymously support Youtube creators directly with micropayments using only open source privacy respecting software like LBRY does, I would use it.
Sadly YouTube has monopolized a lot of content, has mandatory tracking, and also censors and suppresses things and uses algorithms to put people in maximally profitable filter bubbles regardless of mental health.
Ideally more creators will realize they can put censorship-free tracking-free content on alternative services that give them direct profits.
Until then I use Freetube and Invidious exclusively to opt out of tracking nonsense and avoid wasting my valuable time watching ads.
We should all starve adtech companies of revenue so creators are incentivized to learn how to monetize in a way that respects users rights and privacy.
You can pay for ad free YouTube by paying for YouTube Premium. No annoying micropayments. All the content with none of the ads.
It does not satisfy your anonymous requirement but very little does. Most content creators appreciate (directly or indirectly) the features a non anonymous platform provides.
YouTube premium requires I have a Google account, and consent to Google ToS which includes them tracking my behavior and using it to sell changes in my behavior as a service to the highest bidder.
Youtube Premium is not acceptable. I can use cash to buy a book or a movie at a store and not have to reveal anything about myself in the process. No targeting, no having my personal data and behavior collected in centralized systems and sold forever.
The only acceptable model I have seen is what LBRY does, where I can have an anonymous account and top up a wallet of tokens which are used to support creators with microtransactions. No tracking, no ads, but creators get paid.
How do you think creators gain a following in a world without a recommendation system? I can assure you only maybe a dozen of the (english) creators in the top 1000 are actually popular from word-of-mouth, with the rest entirely dependent on the recommendation system for their entire channel.
I think you misunderstand what YouTube is. YouTube's primary product IS its recommendation system. Other platforms will happily host video files for you for a marginal cost, but nobody goes to them because they won't see videos that appeal to them specifically when they visit the site's homepage.
I would counter that by asking how someone who is not blessed by the almighty advertizer-friendly algorithm can ever be seen. I suggest that the internet is healthiest when anyone has a real chance of gaining a following because they organically went viral or were upvoted by users like frequently happens on mastodon or even hackernews... even if the content is not advertiser friendly.
I understand what YouTube is quite well. The product is providing the most addictive advertiser friendly content possible that ignores all mental health studies. The product is cigarettes and like cigarettes, their use will only be reduced when enough people are educated on the harms and reject the second hand smoke in our public places.
Humans are capable of simply searching for things and subscribing to things like RSS. RSS was peak internet and ActivityPub is the next generation of this. We can go back to that, while maybe adding unbiased, open source, and provably fair user voted topical discovery engines.
https://odysee.com/ is getting close with an open source system with community voted content discovery and creator support via microtransaction tips. You do not need to be advertiser friendly to succeed there, and we all get the same view of the world.
no adblock blocks in-content ads, and if we are talking technicalities and theory anyway, surely it violates the tos. I'm not sure what this suggestion even meant to accomplish now that I think about it.
If I could pay creators directly and anonymously with only money and not my data and viewing habits and agreeing to let random third parties try to manipulate me, I would.
For now the only creators I can support with privacy are on LBRY.
"If the grocery store allowed me to pay via gold bullion, I would pay rather than shoplift."
I'm sympathetic to "I would pay for this if I could" argumentation when it comes to digital goods. But at some point the conditions you're setting become so unreasonable that nobody can reasonably fulfill them, and it becomes clear you're only doing it to get free stuff and stiff the creators.
You don't want to see ads? YT already gives you that option. You don't want YT data to be used for ad targeting? YT already gives you that option. But you additionally want to pay in gold bullion and only to the farmer rather than the grocery store that actually provided you the service. It's not very reasonable, is it?
You talk as though a refusal to compromise privacy is unreasonable. We all need privacy to protect ourselves and each other.
What happens when your searches for a medical condition are sold to your insurance company? Or when your political searches are used to inform new gerrymandering lines? Or when an anti-choice state gives Google a warrant demanding the identity of everyone who has made searches for abortion information? What about someone in China or Russia searching for content that casts their government in a negative light?
Laws change and politicians change. History has taught us over and over that centralized personal data will always eventually end up in the hands of those who will weaponize it.
Those of us with influence in technology must demand privacy. Privacy is not negotiable. Content hosts will either offer privacy or continue to see tool after tool emerge to make it easy for people to circumvent their surveillance capitalism models.
LBRY/Odysee has already proven it is totally possible to support video creators online without with anonymous microtransactions.
I have hope more creators sick of ads and censorship will mirror their content to privacy preserving systems that allow direct monetization.
Sure, it'd be extremely reasonable for you to not compromise your privacy, and only view content from creators that allow you to pay with your favorite cryptocurrency. But I thought that wasn't your stance; instead you will view the content anyway, but just make sure the creators are not compensated.
That's not a very principled defense of privacy, is it? It's just taking stuff for free because you can.
(If your real concern really is with search / watch history, those can be disabled. But two posts ago your real concern was with ad targeting, until I mentioned that it can be disabled. This makes your objections appear like excuses rather than the actual root cause.)
Most content in the world is provided exclusively on privacy-hostile platforms.
We either suggest people remove themselves from modern culture entirely, or we suggest they use tools that let them continue to partake in culture while rejecting harmful surveillance capitalism models.
In both cases the surveillance capitalists do not get any data or money, but the latter case at least privacy concerned citizens see the content, are still a part of society, and can buy merch or offer anonymous tips to creators directly in the instances they are given the chance via conventions, or anonymous tip-jar donation systems.
I choose the option better for users and creators. The surveillance capitalists get starved of revinue but if it hurts them enough they will be forced to change models just like the music industry did.
People pirated music to avoid DRM but still became fans and bought concert tickets.
Incorrect. I have premium and I still get all kinds of ads, in the content itself, and of course premium means a login which means not anonymous and absolutely "personalized" content.
If the content itself includes paid promotion then (a) it’s not individualized, and (b) the platform you view it on (YouTube, FreeTube, Blu-ray, or VHS) doesn’t matter…
…so I don’t think paid promotions from the content creators themselves are relevant to the discussion? Your only option is manually skipping the promotional content which is usually really trivial to do.
I have YouTube Premium and don’t see any ads by Google/YouTube. I’m not a heavy YouTube viewer though so it’s possible I’m missing something.
Edit: just discovered sponsorblock and wooow am I impressed at the lengths some folks will go to skip ads. TIL
Sponsorblock is great, it really makes some videos watchable.
Though in general if there is a lot of sponsorship in videos it usually means the content itself is also really mediocre and spammy so I don't tend to watch those anyway. The people who really have a lot of technical knowledge don't monetise it very much because they don't have to. Being an expert in their field already nets them more than enough money.
I watch very little youtube anyway, as I dislike the video format and prefer written content. But when I do need to because what I'm looking for isn't available elsewhere, sponsorblock is a great help.
This sounds plausible enough until you examine it and realize you're turning viewing ads into some kind of moral duty.
"Have you witnessed the requisite quantity of behavior-modifying media today, Citizen? Remember, we all have to do our part. I see you only internalized five minutes' worth yesterday. This is below target. Your beliefs and desires have not been sufficiently altered to meet corporate goals. We require greater acquiescence."
If a company wants to paywall something then they can do that. Maybe I'll pay for it. Advertising shits in your head. I don't accept the modification of my mind as an acceptable form of payment.
"So don't use it"
No. What are you going to do about it? Tell me I'm immoral?
What is immoral is people being told to either give up all privacy or stop using the internet.
A true third choice does not exist, so we are left with no choice but to create one. Strip the ads and remove the trackers until alternatives like anonymous micro-transactions are implemented.
This needs to go down like DRM. When enough people voted no to DRM by obtaining music via alternative channels, music sales portals started dropped DRM letting people have unrestricted copies of what they paid for.
> It's selfish to use the services of YouTube while removing their main source of revenue.
The entire edifice of Capitalism, which we celebrate, is built on
selfishness. And yet you use the word here as if it were a bad
thing. I am confused :)
> If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it
Why "simply" avoid a problem when with some effort you can improve it?
In this case optimising the service to make it free from ads and
tracking appears to be an improvement.
There's a difference between people being able to make money based on them doing a good job, which is Adam Smith-style selfishness, and me wanting a Porsche, so taking one from someone, which is not.
There are not two 'kinds' of selfishness. You describe a difference in
behaviours, but not in the underlying selfish motive. I remain
unconvinced of the propriety of picking and choosing whether to extol
or demean the same human condition depending on the ideology one is
trying to prop-up.
The legal system is judged based on behaviour, not the underlying motivations.
Stealing a porche is illegal, regardless of the underlying motivation. Making a good product to sell is not illegal, even if the motivation is selfish.
> and creates an ecosystem allowing creators to earn a living.
Yes, round of applause for google please, for being the inventors of sustainability in the business of art. Without all their benevolent stewardship we would all be starving for food and shelter.
You realize you're buying right into their communication strategy? This is just another instance of the age old "do dirty stuff and extract boats of money; pick a handful of lucky people; make them kings; show it off for everyone to see; now you're a good guy". Yes, i'm sure they "give away" tons, perhaps hundreds of millions or even more. The fact is that the majority of what people experience is unpredictability, dependency, unchecked and arbitrary strikes unless you're constantly running after what they consider is click-bait enough to be worth. In fact what most people experience is no money at all (or pennies) but for sure the occasional strike because you were too critical of something or because your sense of humor or parody is not to the taste of some IP lawyer. Yes "it's not google", "they just respect the law". Point is they (and their lookalikes) practically monopolized something as basic as video hosting and marginalized any non-giant alternative and are more than happy to hand over the keys to shutdown channels to anybody well-connected who is wearing a suit.
> If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it
Yes, why don't people live without a smartphone, without a car, without eating industrial food, without fossil fuel? Why do these people keep funding these pesky crooked pharma companies and buying drugs? Right, maybe they don't have a choice, they don't have enough money (because you always pay, in a way or another, to get out of these things, that's what monopoly means, in practice). Sure youtube might be on the "easier to do without" part of the spectrum, but (1) this is not true for everybody (what if you want to watch some internet TV?) and (2) arguing on this is just moving the goalpost since there are services like these which you need to do everyday things. More and more people cannot work without zoom, slack, github, gmail. Yes this is stupid, but i did not choose it. Should i quit my job? Perhaps. Will it make any difference in the big picture? Not at all.
Personally my opinion is that they just privatized de-facto public infrastructure. Which is to say they managed to raise a private tax which is almost mandatory to pay in practice. Which is pure and simple extortion. It may sound radical, but there's really nothing qualitatively different. They just managed to turn this particular form into something seemingly normal.
Evading the ads and tracking is an act of self-defence. Nobody is entitled to deploy their brainwashing machines on people's minds, just because it makes them money and they happen to be the gatekeepers to the world's videos.
Plausible deniability. People will use any excuse to free themselves from accountability.
Privacy, adverts, morality, monopoly and all the hand waving is just for show. They are valid concerns but you'll hear a lot of it as a veil for "me want free stuff".
This is how I feel about all the bold circumvention of paywalls. It’s a legally fuzzy area in some cases, but to me at least, it is basically people saying, “here, let me help you steal!”
That’s rich coming from someone defending a site that existed for a decade purely on helping people to steal copyrighted content until they had a monopoly and were able to force copyright holders to license it to them.
> This is how I feel about all the bold circumvention of paywalls. It’s a legally fuzzy area in some cases, but to me at least, it is basically people saying, “here, let me help you steal!”
The problem exists because these companies want to have their cake and eat it. They want people to pay for content yet they want it to be freely available to content spiders and for it to be spread on linking sites such as this one. It's like the old wallet joke: Get someone to crouch down to pick it up and then you yank it away.
If I see a link here from e.g. the washington post, I might read it, but I will never sign up for a monthly subscription. I don't even live in America so most of their content won't interest me. So a paywall in that case is only annoying. Bypassing it will not cost them a subscription which I'd never get anyway.
When you consume ads, tracking supported content, and money-sorted content targeting, you are voting that it is okay to give anyone the ability to modify your behavior, and of others in your network and household.
People are told their only options are to consent to corporate behavior modification or be effectively ejected from modern society.
That is a bullshit choice and everyone should feel no guilt for opting to consume content anonymously. In fact many -need- to do this to protect themselves from politicians who are unfriendly to basic human rights.
They won't because they can still serve you ads regardless of you being logged in or not. Why force you to log in and give up the instant ad impression?
They can't, because one of several YouTube competitors (Dailymotion, Vimeo, DTube, Twitch, etc...) would replace them and not force logins.
YouTube is about the content creators, and people and advertisers will go, where they are at. So if there is a mass exodus of content creators and users, YouTube is pretty much finished.
