YouTube's ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws

While I admire the valor in trying to get it undone under the privacy umbrella, Youtube can easily state that it is not a matter of privacy but a matter of DMCA (anti-circumvention mechanism) and at that point it a whole can of worm.

I genuinely believe this game of whack-a-mole would end if Youtube stopped being greedy and offered a simple plan, than offered ONLY no ads. No stuffing of other products like Youtube Premium or whatever the case may be. You can keep static ads like they used to be, but let me pay 6 or 7€ per month and just not have intrusive video ads.

I stopped using youtube entirely for a few weeks when I got the popup the first time. I just recently watched a few couple videos and the popup seems to have disappeared? Maybe this shit is causing a bigger drop in numbers than they're comfortable with? It would surprise me if that was the case but I figure they're reporting "watch hours" to advertisers/investors and not "adblock-free watch hours". In order to keep misleading those people I could see them letting up on enforcement if it was causing a real numbers drop.

YouTube literally grew off the back of "illegal" music uploads by users, and profited greatly from their DIY content upload work, but now it wants to charge for its overall product while smugly cracking down on those that evade paying? Reeks of hypocrisy.