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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 c

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

Waterluvian 4y ago
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!”
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  YouTube could kill all of this by simply forcing a login to watch anything but they won't because they're cowards.
  - magic_hamster 4y ago
    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?
  - Tozen 4y ago
    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.
- fijiaarone 4y ago
  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.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  It's not usually very fuzzy. If a site wants a hard paywall, they can set that up easily. But few sites want that.
- lrvick 4y ago
  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.
- _abox 4y ago
  > 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.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
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.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  >When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be a part of a large part of society. How would using freetube solve this problem?
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    It lets you watch the content otherwise available on YouTube without all the ads and tracking that comes with using the YouTube site or app.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be a part of a large part of society YouTube isn't a large part of society. People use it to watch silly/educational videos far more than as a social platform.
  - chii 4y ago
    > YouTube isn't a large part of society. based on watch time and the number of people using it, i'd argue it is a large part of society.
ahelwer 4y ago
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?
- lrvick 4y ago
  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.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
  based
lrvick 4y ago
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.
- schmichael 4y ago
  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.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    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.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      > which includes them tracking my behavior and using it to sell changes in my behavior as a service to the highest bidder. You can use Ad Block while using YT Premium.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> 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.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  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.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    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.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      I'm not trying to prop up an ideology. And I didn't say there were different kinds of selfishness; nor was I extolling or demeaning selfishness. I'm not sure what's left to reply to once I exclude all of that from your comment.
    - chii 4y ago
      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.
makeitdouble 4y ago
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.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  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.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    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 ?)
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
lol, lmao even
magic_hamster 4y ago
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.
shepherdjerred 4y ago
I would've made this same argument a year ago. 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.
- ParetoOptimal 4y ago
  > 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...
  - shepherdjerred 4y ago
    > 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.
kdhfkhhhhh 4y ago
>It's selfish to use the services of YouTube while removing their main source of revenue. I guess so. >If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it You are yet to give me an actual incentive why I shouldn't. No, "it's immoral" doesn't work, because morals aren't real.
lapinot 4y ago
> 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.
ls15 4y ago
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. > simply don't use it This is not always an option.
democra 4y ago
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".

Waterluvian 4y ago

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!”

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
YouTube could kill all of this by simply forcing a login to watch anything but they won't because they're cowards.
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  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?
- Tozen 4y ago
  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.
fijiaarone 4y ago
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.
Dylan16807 4y ago
It's not usually very fuzzy. If a site wants a hard paywall, they can set that up easily. But few sites want that.
lrvick 4y ago
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.
_abox 4y ago
> 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.

_carbyau_ 4y ago

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.

InCityDreams 4y ago
>When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be a part of a large part of society. How would using freetube solve this problem?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  It lets you watch the content otherwise available on YouTube without all the ads and tracking that comes with using the YouTube site or app.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> When you choose not to use Youtube, you are choosing to not be a part of a large part of society YouTube isn't a large part of society. People use it to watch silly/educational videos far more than as a social platform.
- chii 4y ago
  > YouTube isn't a large part of society. based on watch time and the number of people using it, i'd argue it is a large part of society.

ahelwer 4y ago

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?

lrvick 4y ago
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.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
based

lrvick 4y ago

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.

schmichael 4y ago
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.
- lrvick 4y ago
  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.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > which includes them tracking my behavior and using it to sell changes in my behavior as a service to the highest bidder. You can use Ad Block while using YT Premium.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> 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.

robertlagrant 4y ago
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.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  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.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I'm not trying to prop up an ideology. And I didn't say there were different kinds of selfishness; nor was I extolling or demeaning selfishness. I'm not sure what's left to reply to once I exclude all of that from your comment.
  - chii 4y ago
    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.

makeitdouble 4y ago

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.

robertlagrant 4y ago
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.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  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 ?)

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

lol, lmao even

magic_hamster 4y ago

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.

shepherdjerred 4y ago

I would've made this same argument a year ago. 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.

ParetoOptimal 4y ago
> 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...
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  > 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.

kdhfkhhhhh 4y ago

>It's selfish to use the services of YouTube while removing their main source of revenue. I guess so. >If you have a problem with YouTube's tracking, simply don't use it You are yet to give me an actual incentive why I shouldn't. No, "it's immoral" doesn't work, because morals aren't real.

lapinot 4y ago

> 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.

ls15 4y ago

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. > simply don't use it This is not always an option.

democra 4y ago

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".