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Comment by Infinitesimus | Hacker News Reader

Do you have anything against subscribing to the platform? (If you can afford it)

Not sure if this has changed, but the last time I tried the YouTube Premium trial, they heavily pushed their own content (eg Scare PewDiePie) which was so completely opposite from anything I watch on YouTube, I felt I'd just replaced one ad experience with a worse one that I was paying for. I'd rather see the non-stop Masterclass ads (at least they were often relevant) than see PewDiePie everytime I log in.

They do promote YouTube premium videos in the beginning but after a while you stop seeing it if you don't consume it. I think it took a week max for premium videos to leave my recommended content (it was a while ago I started my subscription) .

If you click the X on the YouTube Premium bar on the homepage, it goes away forever. Or at least, it did for me.

I pay for other platforms, even ones with free options (CBC), and so I am definitely open to it.

But I distrust Google and don't want to serve them more data than is necessary.

I would be outright shocked if Google is unable correlate video viewing habits via direct downloads to a Google account. Especially since they (google, facebook, et.al) have already demonstrated the ability to strongly correlate IP traffic with an account (active or shadow).

Yeah, but will they bother? It's a pretty small fraction of traffic which even uses an ad blocker, let alone a completely different client.

To stop feeding personal data to Google completely one must stop using the internet, stop using credit cards, stop filling out warranty cards, and so on. They vacuum up personal data from every possible commercialized database they can access.

But I can at least refuse to use a Google account, and to serve a tracking cookie. I'd have to live off the grid and in the woods to stop feeding them any data.

You can also refuse to watch Youtube videos. It seems like you just want to keep your cake and eat it too.

With NewPipe and ytdl I can.

And the cake is delicious.

Nothing wrong with that, plenty of people do. Just don't go around proclaiming privacy concerns and whatnot when that goes out the window as soon as you get your Youtube fix.

I have defenestrated very little.

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