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Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.
(sh.itjust.works)
https://files.catbox.moe/a6111d.png / https://nitter.poast.org/LinusTech/status/1825956050685800834
If you go the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjHMzGl-VY. You will see it's gone. So Youtube being Youtube.
Here's a Odysee mirror of the video, https://odysee.com/@jopec:7/linus-tech-tips-degoogle-your-life-part-2-adfree-youtube:0.
But what if I don't agree to the TOS? I use YouTube w/o an account, I am never prompted to agree to any TOS, and I can watch videos just fine. So my understanding is the TOS doesn't apply because I never agreed to them.
I reject the idea that users are expected to go find the TOS when using a new website, and close the website if they disagree with the terms. I don't do that when entering a store, so why would a website be any different? If a physical store wants me to abide by some terms, they can either present it to me when I enter (e.g. checking ID at a bar or casino), or stop me when I violate some rule and tell me I need to leave or agree to the terms to continue being there. None of that happens w/ YouTube, I just load the webpage, click a video, and I'm watching a video. At no point am I presented with any form of TOS prompt, so I have to assume my behavior is acceptable for YouTube.
The only thing I'm doing differently from the average person is blocking ads, not by changing any of the code on the page, but by essentially blocking things at the network level. At what point have I committed piracy?
I mean, when I goto Google or YouTube signed out, and without an ad blocker/tracking auto reject I get a pop up with their short ToS, every time.
Huh, really? I just tried on a fresh browser (Safari on macOS) and didn't get any kind of popup. I never use Safari, so it's safe to say I've never accessed YT on it. I have no extensions, I was just presented with a page that says "search to get started" or something, then when I load a video, I get ads. No TOS popup at all.
So me adding an ad-blocker in this scenario wouldn't be an issue because I was never asked to accept any terms of service. At least that's my understanding. And it certainly wouldn't be piracy because I'm doing nothing to access something I shouldn't, YouTube is just giving me access because I asked nicely.
For me this is fighting over semantics. It doesn't really matter if it's legally piracy or not since nobody is gonna go after you for it either way. It's about whether what you're doing is moral or the intended way. You can use adblocker, but then you're just freeloading. Fact of the matter is that nothing is free and everything needs compensation when at scale. You can rightfully claim that YouTube shoves too many ads and that it's a monopoly so it abuses it's position, but at the end of the day you're using the service without compensating for it, so you're stealing at least something.
You're right, it absolutely doesn't, which is why it's so weird to me that Linus makes a big deal about it.
Which is why I either donate to channels I like or buy their merch. They get way more than if I wasn't blocking ads, and I don't have to support a company that manipulates people with ads. So I guess at the end of the day I'm "stealing" from YouTube, and I guess I'm okay with that. If they offered good value for their premium service, I'd pay. But they don't, so I just use an ad-blocker to get the thing I care about. I refuse to let them harvest my personal data, and that's basically what their advertising is designed to do. I'd disable my ad-blocker if their ads were provably not tracking me, but I know that to not be true.
I'm not against paying for things. I pay for Nebula, my email (Tuta), and some other alternatives to Google products, I just refuse to pay for artificial limitations. YouTube Premium sucks for my intended use-case (download news to listen to on my commute, and occasionally listen to music while doing chores), and it's not worth the $10 or whatever they charge for it. If they offered a lower tier (say, something based on watch-time), I might pay for it, more out of guilt than anything, but it needs to be a fair price. About half the channels I regularly watch are on Nebula or Odyssee, so I wouldn't miss too much if they blocked my access to it.