6 ms·

YouTube is trying to block Invidious

101 points by beretguy 3y ago

izacus 3y ago
Was there ever an expectation that YouYube will just leave a frontend whichs first advertised festure is stripping their monetization?
- Racing0461 3y ago
  The idea was that youtube/google was rolling in so much money that the super users using ublock/utube-dl/invidious was so small Google won't waste their time bending over to pick up this penny on the floor. apparrantly the money lost seems to be big enough for them to care (or they run out of actual features to code so tossing this problem to engineering to fix).
  - tshirthoodie 3y ago
    Either way, that is some incredibly naive logic. The so-called open source software "community" desperately needs some lessons on how capitalism works.
    - Racing0461 3y ago
      everything in my post was capatalistic in nature. google's investment to stop ublock/invidious/etc > money lost = no blocking google's investment to stop ublock/invidious/etc < money lost = blocking The community assumed the first one, google calculated the second option so are proceeding with it.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Yeah, it would probably help if it's not posted across sites with millions of users then :/ (Or perhaps explicitly request YouTube Premium account?)
- paulddraper 3y ago
  What % of YT viewers do you think use Invidious? I think the surprise is that % would be enough to care. But apparently it is.
  - realusername 3y ago
    Google is in the middle of a scandal of faking advertising numbers, this is just a game of shifting the blame to somebody else. It's never been about ad blockers and the alternative frontends, they are covering up their own failures.
smashah 3y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube, especially if they're forced to use it. Secondly, imo technical measures is fair game - much better than their previously scummy tactic of sending legal threats to the stellar team at invidious. Thirdly, adversarial interoperability is a human digital right. Fourthly, godspeed to the invidious team, their hard work and story is important for the wider internet.
- stqism 3y ago
  While you’re probably right, this isn’t super relevant. From Google’s perspective, they just want to auction off the advertising slot and get that view, the actual click through rate on that ad is a secondary issue.
- snailmailman 3y ago
  So many of the ads I see on youtube aren’t even products - they are scams. The ad will be a clip of a celebrity with what’s clearly a separate ai-generated voiceover telling you “you can get thousands of dollars now if you do this one thing.” I’ve seen the same style of ad nearly every day for the last month. The celebrity changes every time I see it and has had so many people. Oprah, The Rock, Steve Harvey, Joe Biden, etc. I’ve reported the ads every time. They are always different companies from different countries. If YouTube is doing anything about it- it isn’t working. And then YouTube is trying to stop me from blocking these ads? They can try. But I refuse to pay for premium.
- asfdgionio 3y ago
  >Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube, especially if they're forced to use it. One of the reasons I block advertising is that I think it works. I'm only human. I can be deceived and I can be manipulated. I don't see any reason to give people the opportunity to hurt me.
- kazinator 3y ago
  > I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube. That user is using YouTube resources, without being of benefit to YouTube.
atomicfiredoll 3y ago
Maybe if Google could figure out how to build a decent YouTube search experience, it would alleviate at one of the use cases for these alternate front-ends.
- beretguy 3y ago
  Maybe if Google could figure out how to build decent search experience in general…
robblbobbl 3y ago
Forcing the playing of ads like this is really bad for all users and results in a viewer decline in the long term. Maybe you should look for/shift to alternatives like dailymotion or vimeo. Even projects like github.com/teampiped/piped (privacy friendly yt frontend) getting heavily throttled now. Shameless move.
- GoblinSlayer 3y ago
  0.0.0.0 youtube.com
monsieurUK 3y ago
I hate youtube, haven't used it since 2015 and screw google and youtube users are brainwashed and full of **
- Erratic6576 3y ago
  There are a handful of amazing Creators, praised be
  - monsieurUK 3y ago
    I wouldn't call them amazing, they're people who decided to give part of themselves to the evil corpo google/satan/freemasons/jewish cult, name it anything you want.
- monsieurUK 3y ago
  downvote me more you dumb fucks go suck satans cock xD
Erratic6576 3y ago
If Google needs to cut costs, ending the $20,000,000,000 annual gift to Apple would be more profitable than harassing their users
ravenstine 3y ago
I wonder what the threshold will be for YouTube to start losing a critical amount of relevance. YouTube is way, way less interesting than it even was just 5 years ago. Discoverability is in the toilet, and being discoverable usually means a high level of investment on the part of creators. Everyone is playing it very safe as a result, and your average YouTube video today is remeniscent of where cable television was just before streaming began drinking it's milkshake. Being aggressive against Invidious, youtube-dl, and ad blockers won't help them in the long term. Maybe they are covering their tracks for something, but even so, they will lose relevance. For many, their content isn't worth paying for, and even when it is, some hesitate to give money to a company that is likely to pull the rug from underneath them. The best thing YouTube can do right now is get rid of their current C-level and replace them with people who are either actually YouTube enthusiasts or creators themselves. Corporate bozos always bring down companies that have revenue models based on creativity. That isn't to say YouTube will go extinct, but it's second life may be a rebranding and only allowing content from established businesses, and being of little relevance. When it comes to Invidious, YouTube wouldn't have to do much to keep people in their own frontend. Their search function is complete bullshit today, and that would be an extremely easy fix. They can stop bubbling CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and co. to the top if you type in certain keywords. (obviously they will never do this though) They can improve the filtering of searches. They could fix the bugs with the queue and stop introducing new ones all the time.
vfclists 3y ago
Time to switch to Peertube
i8comments 3y ago
What is a full list of solutions and alternatives?

101 points by beretguy 3y ago

Was there ever an expectation that YouYube will just leave a frontend whichs first advertised festure is stripping their monetization?

Racing0461 3y ago
The idea was that youtube/google was rolling in so much money that the super users using ublock/utube-dl/invidious was so small Google won't waste their time bending over to pick up this penny on the floor. apparrantly the money lost seems to be big enough for them to care (or they run out of actual features to code so tossing this problem to engineering to fix).
- tshirthoodie 3y ago
  Either way, that is some incredibly naive logic. The so-called open source software "community" desperately needs some lessons on how capitalism works.
  - Racing0461 3y ago
    everything in my post was capatalistic in nature. google's investment to stop ublock/invidious/etc > money lost = no blocking google's investment to stop ublock/invidious/etc < money lost = blocking The community assumed the first one, google calculated the second option so are proceeding with it.
- izacus 3y ago
  Yeah, it would probably help if it's not posted across sites with millions of users then :/ (Or perhaps explicitly request YouTube Premium account?)
paulddraper 3y ago
What % of YT viewers do you think use Invidious? I think the surprise is that % would be enough to care. But apparently it is.
- realusername 3y ago
  Google is in the middle of a scandal of faking advertising numbers, this is just a game of shifting the blame to somebody else. It's never been about ad blockers and the alternative frontends, they are covering up their own failures.

smashah 3y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube, especially if they're forced to use it. Secondly, imo technical measures is fair game - much better than their previously scummy tactic of sending legal threats to the stellar team at invidious. Thirdly, adversarial interoperability is a human digital right. Fourthly, godspeed to the invidious team, their hard work and story is important for the wider internet.

stqism 3y ago
While you’re probably right, this isn’t super relevant. From Google’s perspective, they just want to auction off the advertising slot and get that view, the actual click through rate on that ad is a secondary issue.
snailmailman 3y ago
So many of the ads I see on youtube aren’t even products - they are scams. The ad will be a clip of a celebrity with what’s clearly a separate ai-generated voiceover telling you “you can get thousands of dollars now if you do this one thing.” I’ve seen the same style of ad nearly every day for the last month. The celebrity changes every time I see it and has had so many people. Oprah, The Rock, Steve Harvey, Joe Biden, etc. I’ve reported the ads every time. They are always different companies from different countries. If YouTube is doing anything about it- it isn’t working. And then YouTube is trying to stop me from blocking these ads? They can try. But I refuse to pay for premium.
asfdgionio 3y ago
>Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube, especially if they're forced to use it. One of the reasons I block advertising is that I think it works. I'm only human. I can be deceived and I can be manipulated. I don't see any reason to give people the opportunity to hurt me.
kazinator 3y ago
> I don't think the type of person who uses invidious is going to ever be convinced to buy something from an ad on YouTube. That user is using YouTube resources, without being of benefit to YouTube.

atomicfiredoll 3y ago

Maybe if Google could figure out how to build a decent YouTube search experience, it would alleviate at one of the use cases for these alternate front-ends.

beretguy 3y ago
Maybe if Google could figure out how to build decent search experience in general…

robblbobbl 3y ago

Forcing the playing of ads like this is really bad for all users and results in a viewer decline in the long term. Maybe you should look for/shift to alternatives like dailymotion or vimeo. Even projects like github.com/teampiped/piped (privacy friendly yt frontend) getting heavily throttled now. Shameless move.

GoblinSlayer 3y ago
0.0.0.0 youtube.com

monsieurUK 3y ago

I hate youtube, haven't used it since 2015 and screw google and youtube users are brainwashed and full of **

Erratic6576 3y ago
There are a handful of amazing Creators, praised be
- monsieurUK 3y ago
  I wouldn't call them amazing, they're people who decided to give part of themselves to the evil corpo google/satan/freemasons/jewish cult, name it anything you want.
monsieurUK 3y ago
downvote me more you dumb fucks go suck satans cock xD

Erratic6576 3y ago

If Google needs to cut costs, ending the $20,000,000,000 annual gift to Apple would be more profitable than harassing their users

ravenstine 3y ago

I wonder what the threshold will be for YouTube to start losing a critical amount of relevance. YouTube is way, way less interesting than it even was just 5 years ago. Discoverability is in the toilet, and being discoverable usually means a high level of investment on the part of creators. Everyone is playing it very safe as a result, and your average YouTube video today is remeniscent of where cable television was just before streaming began drinking it's milkshake. Being aggressive against Invidious, youtube-dl, and ad blockers won't help them in the long term. Maybe they are covering their tracks for something, but even so, they will lose relevance. For many, their content isn't worth paying for, and even when it is, some hesitate to give money to a company that is likely to pull the rug from underneath them. The best thing YouTube can do right now is get rid of their current C-level and replace them with people who are either actually YouTube enthusiasts or creators themselves. Corporate bozos always bring down companies that have revenue models based on creativity. That isn't to say YouTube will go extinct, but it's second life may be a rebranding and only allowing content from established businesses, and being of little relevance. When it comes to Invidious, YouTube wouldn't have to do much to keep people in their own frontend. Their search function is complete bullshit today, and that would be an extremely easy fix. They can stop bubbling CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and co. to the top if you type in certain keywords. (obviously they will never do this though) They can improve the filtering of searches. They could fix the bugs with the queue and stop introducing new ones all the time.

vfclists 3y ago

Time to switch to Peertube

i8comments 3y ago

What is a full list of solutions and alternatives?