3 ms·

Why would Youtube, which makes money off ads, allow a web browser that blocks ads to access Youtube when they could just refuse to serve their user agent?

worble 2y ago
They currently allow Brave which does that. If a major website starting blocking user agents for any reason other than compatibility then all that would do is trigger (finally) the deprecation of user agents strings as browsers would all just pretend to be each other.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  It would just be yet another zero-sum meta-war, with web browsers ultimately using randomized user agent strings just as mobiles randomize MAC addresses. But none of that means that the war somehow can't or won't occur.
- AlienRobot 2y ago
  Brave and Vivaldi can probably get away with it because they're just a Chromium re-skin. Firefox uses Gecko instead of Webkit. They can't change their user agent string.
BizarroLand 2y ago
Because they don't want to get sued for monopolistic practices, I guess. Since the Goo owns Chrome and Youtube, Youtube blocking non-chrome user agents would be actionable. Even if they whitelisted Safari, that would still be actionable.
- carstenhag 2y ago
  It's not just YouTube blocking something. It's Google not paying Mozilla millions for keeping Google as default search engine
- AlienRobot 2y ago
  I don't believe a court would tell Google it has to provide a service for free.
  - BizarroLand 2y ago
    Any competent lawyer could easily make the argument that that is a false equivalence. They're not being forced to provide a service for free, they're not being allowed to ostracize essentially the only browser with any meaningful percentage of users that doesn't use their web engine as that is an anti-competitive and monopolistic practice.
terminalbraid 2y ago
User agents are trivially fungible thing in this. That's the nature of the internet and how connections are established. Personal hardware constructs whatever packet that is going out and there's nothing special if that packet comes from a sanctioned or unsanctioned client. There's no way for a provider to distinguish the difference between what created an acceptable packet. It's difficult for me to envision how that's rigorously enforceable to prevent something outside of the app (like a browser) to access something ultimately consumed by an API without resorting to (expensive and crackable) digital rights management at the hardware level. You can run down whatever train of thought you want, but ultimately since the client is running on machines controlled by the consumer, it can be cracked, reverse engineered, decapped, or whatever. This has been the end state for every attempt the industry has made to control user behavior. DVD CSS, Bluray, Sony's CD rootkit nonsense, every game console, satellite TV cards, analog cable TV, on and on, all broken. I'm confident google/youtube wishes there weren't applications like FreeTube and yt-dlp. The fact of the matter is it's practically impossible to exclude them but still keep their own ecosystem functioning at an acceptable cost and with consumer buy in.

worble 2y ago

They currently allow Brave which does that. If a major website starting blocking user agents for any reason other than compatibility then all that would do is trigger (finally) the deprecation of user agents strings as browsers would all just pretend to be each other.

ssl-3 2y ago
It would just be yet another zero-sum meta-war, with web browsers ultimately using randomized user agent strings just as mobiles randomize MAC addresses. But none of that means that the war somehow can't or won't occur.
AlienRobot 2y ago
Brave and Vivaldi can probably get away with it because they're just a Chromium re-skin. Firefox uses Gecko instead of Webkit. They can't change their user agent string.

BizarroLand 2y ago

Because they don't want to get sued for monopolistic practices, I guess. Since the Goo owns Chrome and Youtube, Youtube blocking non-chrome user agents would be actionable. Even if they whitelisted Safari, that would still be actionable.

carstenhag 2y ago
It's not just YouTube blocking something. It's Google not paying Mozilla millions for keeping Google as default search engine
AlienRobot 2y ago
I don't believe a court would tell Google it has to provide a service for free.
- BizarroLand 2y ago
  Any competent lawyer could easily make the argument that that is a false equivalence. They're not being forced to provide a service for free, they're not being allowed to ostracize essentially the only browser with any meaningful percentage of users that doesn't use their web engine as that is an anti-competitive and monopolistic practice.

terminalbraid 2y ago

User agents are trivially fungible thing in this. That's the nature of the internet and how connections are established. Personal hardware constructs whatever packet that is going out and there's nothing special if that packet comes from a sanctioned or unsanctioned client. There's no way for a provider to distinguish the difference between what created an acceptable packet. It's difficult for me to envision how that's rigorously enforceable to prevent something outside of the app (like a browser) to access something ultimately consumed by an API without resorting to (expensive and crackable) digital rights management at the hardware level. You can run down whatever train of thought you want, but ultimately since the client is running on machines controlled by the consumer, it can be cracked, reverse engineered, decapped, or whatever. This has been the end state for every attempt the industry has made to control user behavior. DVD CSS, Bluray, Sony's CD rootkit nonsense, every game console, satellite TV cards, analog cable TV, on and on, all broken. I'm confident google/youtube wishes there weren't applications like FreeTube and yt-dlp. The fact of the matter is it's practically impossible to exclude them but still keep their own ecosystem functioning at an acceptable cost and with consumer buy in.