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.
Yea, no I don’t think there’s any defense for their practices. If you read the ToS, i’m sure there’s language in there specifying the types of ads “removed” by the service, and that they can change the terms at will at any time for any reason.
That they are contractually protected doesn’t change the dishonesty and intentional deception of the practice. I just wish people would realize that all of these companies conduct themselves in this way, and as consumers we don’t have any real choice or control. Just because whatever company you’re buying a service from doesn’t abuse their position now, doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. The more market share a company has the more they can make these decisions without loosing much revenue, and if the decision nets them more profit even with fewer customers, why wouldn’t they make it?