Isn't it against Google's terms and conditions to run such an app that plays YouTube videos without playing the ads too? I remember reading about that.
Google should, at least in theory, treat users of NewPipe same way it treats browser users with adblock.
So next time you see a YouTube employee, thank them for that
Adblock Plus for example uses EasyList by default, and that contains this rule to block the ads:
youtube.com#@#.video-ads
This may be right, so host based adblocking may not work.
However, uBlock origin etc definitely block youtube ads and it works as a browser extension so they have access to the DOM and probably do something there.
I have two YouTube accounts, and at first it only happened on one. Now it is happening to both. Maybe it is something they are currently just testing.
Do you have a source or a more detailed explanation for that?
It's one thing to hate a company and refuse to use their products and a whole nother thing to promote products that sidestep features the service asks money for.
With that I have almost exhausted the list of ads that Google thought has been relevant for me since I started dating my wife well over a decade ago.
Why they cannot show ads for family holidays, programming conferences, local stores etc I don't know but if I had to guess I'd say they could need some diversity on their teams ;-). (Adding a few married parents with stable marriages and small children should do the trick, but I am not interested and haven't been for a couple of years, I find Google close to disgusting sometimes and whatever technical edge it has has disappeared to the degree that I'm positively surprised to just see sane results like they used to be in 2007.)
The corollary of that is that any interaction with such a company is unethical, since it encourages them to continue the manipulation on people who may not be as aware or resistant.
I therefore assume you've routed YouTube.com to :: ?
For a number of years I allowed them to run JS on my device and download ads from other servers to my device.
I have now instructed my rendering device to not do that. Even as a devout christian that doesn't feel unethical.
I'm free to try to avoid the ads, they are free (within limits) to get me to view ads.
A pro tip in that regard would be to make the ads relevant and unobtrusive.
A good first step here would be to include them statically on the server side and make sure they don't contain any moving or noisy elements.
Another good idea would be to select ads not solely on what company they can fleece for most money by showing me irrelevant ads but also factor in if the ad is in any way relevant.
https://curiositystream.com/legaleagle/
Some content creators on YT (such as Legal Eagle, etc.) are also now on Nebula. $15 USD per year right now. Apparently they don't have to worry so much about de-monetization, however that works.
I actually ended up going down a different route and created my own F-Droid repository for NewPipe and a couple other apps so I could get faster updates for them and I trust the upstream developers.
https://garykim.dev/blog/2020/04/14/personal-f-droid-reposit...
I imagine this will be an unpopular opinion here though.
But they're not - they're like one of those re-released Android Play Store apps which are hacked to provide paid features for free.
NewPipe is not a re-release of any Android Play Store app, or like any hacked app (like YouTube Vanced). It provides features beyond even YouTube Premium's featureset, removes perceived anti-features like Google Play Services integration, and is much more lightweight to boot.
If I'm watching an hour long video about X, and I have to watch 40 mid-roll ads, I'm way more likely to turn it off. I'd much rather directly support creators via Patreon, and Adblock everything else.
Since when is that an unreasonable ask?
It's a whole different matter when you can pay, the service provider asks you to pay and then you release an app that deliberately bypasses that ask.
YouTube is asking that their users either watch ads or pay money. That's how YouTube and creators can keep the lights on. I think that's a fair model. There are other models, like Vimeo, where the uploader pays for the hosting.
It certainly seems like the future is one where we expect access to everything and pay for nothing. That worries me.
/soapbox
Creators do get the lion share of YouTube's gross revenue.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/03261...
Fuck YouTube.
nowadays, if you want to pay for a newspaper article or a video, you have to fork over all your pii and oblige yourself to paying a certain sum in the future unless you do something to cancel it.
there is no fairness in commerce any more. they treat us like hostiles, and we have to treat them like hostiles.
the current choice isn't between paying for it or pirating it, it's between handing over your identity and future income or actively hiding.
one party to this commercial transaction doesn't need to eat and has an income the size of hundreds of thousands of the other side.
NewPipe doesn't need to be trusted where Google actively requires you to trust them - yet repeatedly acts untrustworthily.
If they want me to happily give them money, let me do it without trusting those who do not deserve my trust. I shouldn't have to trust corporations.
I 100% agree that personal data has unfortunately found its way into a transaction in which it should not belong. I respect the fact that you push back on this point, though I do find "treat them like hostiles" as an extreme position. Other entities offer transactions that I find abhorrent, and I simply just refuse to interact with them.
If paying for physical media (be it movies or newspapers or anything else) with "coins" is still valuable to you, I encourage you to continue to practice that behavior, and encourage others as well. It is still mostly possible in many cases.
> ...Google actively requires you to trust them... ... I shouldn't have to trust corporations.
Regarding YouTube, you can still interact with them in a trustless environment. Browse in incognito mode in a non-Google browser. Google gets to show an ad to an anonymous user and you get to watch a video. End of transaction.
Nobody uses youtube because they love it. Everyone uses youtube because google effectively killed all the competition by sliding billions of investor money to DMCA backers. And well, this one time it worked out nice for them, i guess. But it is not a business practice I will support. Fortunately, i'm technical enough to play their cat and mouse game to consume creators who are hostage to their monopoly on discovery.
It is a mistake to assume that everyone blocks ads because they do not want to watch ads. In my case, it is playing a game of damage control with a major corporation that has the ability to connect my activities across much of the web. Other people legitimately point to the cost of bandwidth. I am sure that other reasons exist.
It is also to the benefit if creators if they diversify their revenue streams. At the moment, they are far too dependent upon decisions made by Google. Some have realized this by requesting donations from users, merchandising, baking in ads from sponsors, and promoting alternate distribution mechanisms. While seeking out other sources of revenues creates problems for people who are just starting out, it is pretty much a necessity for people who are seeking to earn money from their work.
Watching content on YouTube while blocking ads does not encourage creators to go to other platforms. You've already consumed their product, thus lessening demand, so there's less reason to put it on another platform. It's not likely you'll go watch it on Vimeo after they upload it there when you've already seen it on YouTube.
Creators may be better off with a donation and merchandise revenue stream. Describing your actions as "benefitting" them by helping them see this by depriving them of revenue from you for their content is a slightly odd take though.
The claim was that creators would benefit from diversifying, not that my actions were benefiting them. I was quite clear that my motivations were related to Google.
I mean, the creator should have its share, but it's not like YouTube does nothing.
Yes, that happens.
Otherwise, there's no issue with YouTube getting add money.
I mostly use YouTube to discover niche content, but only because I've been running an ad-blocker since forever. I cannot fathom how anyone could enjoy it in any other way currently. When I see how IT works at friend's houses I'm horrified.
If YT blocked access for browsers with ad-blockers (or make it inconvenient enough) I would essentially stop using it.
OMG.
Whereas YouTube is a toxic cesspool, the others are blackhole hellmouths leading directly to eternal damnation. Meaning the wannabe's complete abrogation of their responsibilities show that YouTube's pathetic attempts at content moderation are better than nothing.
I now think there's an opportunity for white label video hosting.
I just saw an ad from "Epoch Times" (Scientologists?) about the COVID-19 hoax.
I'm gobsmacked. YouTube is pure unfiltered evil.
Moderation wise, I don't make any kind of distinction between content and ads.
I forgot that I turned off ad blocking. I guess I normally don't see this kind of shit.
You're supporting them just by using them, whether they are showing you ads or tracking you or not. You're reducing demand on other platforms for this content because you're letting YouTube provide it for you. If you really want to stand against YouTube, don't use it. Otherwise, you're still supporting their platform, you've just decided to do so in a way that saves you time, money and convenience at the expense of YouTube and the content creators on YouTube.
If you're going to do it, you might as well own it.
I guess it's too easy for me to continue using YT for discovery.
It's similar to disliking Walmart and Amazon but still using them because they are cheap, convenient, a known factor, etc, which many do (including me, in the case of Amazon). The first step is acknowledging the trade-off you're making and being aware of it. At least then people are making a conscious choice, so if they want to re-evaluate at some point, they can do so with better facts.
With their resources and the nature of the service, they could easily win the cat-and-mouse game against ad-blocker devs if they wanted to.
The reason they don't, is because they actually want to keep those "entitled people" on their platform, in order to avoid giving competing platforms an opening to grow their own communities. They know there is a substantial part of their userbase who would simply not use their service if they had to either pay or endure the vanilla experience.
Regarding ads: Showing ads like "Girl Mobile Video Talk" with description "Girl Mobile Number Live Video Call" with "Install Link" in a youtube ads is unacceptable. And the worst thing is you cannot even turn off that ads without being turning on ads personalization.
Regarding Money: 10$ may be a cup of coffee for you but in other side of world people are earning 200$ of salary so they just can't afford it. So many people don't have privilege like average Americans have?
Regarding supporting creators. Sure ads pay creator but showing ads every 10minute , beginning of video and end of video is total BS. And even creator are already using their own ads like "This video is sponsored by Brilliant.org" so I don't mind blocking ads.
I don't like it one bit -> down vote