For example, the real implied free storage in GMail has implicitly been reduced by 80%. Their failure to reduce prices and in fact their price INCREASES are just pure greed on display.
Would be like proving an alternative to cater to shoplifters.
Businesses get to define their own rules and if you don't abide by them they're allowed to choose not to do business with you. You either need to agree to their terms of service (no adblock) or you need to take your business else where. They don't owe you anything.
Your mentality seems to be that a restaurant can offer free meals to anyone who walks in and sits down, then after they're already eating, demand they watch an annoying ad on a screen built into the table, and somehow the diners are morally obligated to watch it instead of just covering it up with their menu. That's BS.
That's fine, but then they can also choose to retaliate how they want. It's really weird that everything you're saying seems to boil down to "I don't need to play by their rules, but they need to play by mine."
I'm of the opinion that if you want to bypass their ads that's fine, but you can't get angry when they take action to prevent that.
> Your mentality seems to be that a restaurant can offer free meals to anyone who walks in and sits down, then after they're already eating, demand they watch an annoying ad on a screen built into the table, and somehow the diners are morally obligated to watch it instead of just covering it up with their menu. That's BS.
Yes, that's my attitude. I don't know why it wouldn't be. If a restaurant wanted to make me watch an ad before every single bite, then that's their prerogative. I wouldn't eat there, but if that's what they want to do, then that's their choice.
If YouTube wants to make you watch 10 ads before a 30 second video then more power to them. If they want to take action against people trying to bypass that then good for them. Similar to the example above, I'm not going to use them, but I don't get to dictate how they run their business. If you don't like their actions, then take your business elsewhere. They don't own you anything and vice versa. It's really as simple as that.
It’s more like a restaurant kicking out a group that just wants to sit at a table for free without buying anything.
So what is a better term for unauthorized use of compute and bandwidth?
The terms of service for YT are: watch ads or pay for premium. This is so that YT can pay their bills (hosting, salaries, cheques to creators).
> They're giving a product away for free, and people are consuming it for free; end of story.
No they are not. They are providing a service according to certain terms of service. If you don't like the terms feel free not to use the service.
If it's unauthorized, why is the server responding with that data? Youtube has a very simple solution if they don't want the data they send to you to be modified at your discretion -- don't send the data. Their servers are perfectly free to respond with some kind of HTTP error code and not serve up the video data. Once they've sent me the bytes, their control over which of said bytes I consume, modify or discard is over.
I never agreed to any terms of service. My browser made a request and their servers responded with some data. If my request alone constitutes accepting a terms of service, I too should be free to include some sort of X-ToS header with my requests that impose similarly onerous terms on the operator of the server I am making the request to, provided they respond with a non-error HTTP code. Like, lets say, for every Youtube video I load, Youtube must provide a full-ride college scholarship to 1000 kids.
And many will change the channel and watch something else in the meantime. Youtube checks that you have clicked away and just waits for you, basically FORCING you to watch the ad. TV and radio don't do that, neither do magazines.
If Youtube was TV, in this analogy every channel has an ad as soon as you open it. Oh, and when you go back to a channel you switched from due to an ad, that very same ad is waiting for you to watch it dutifully.
As for the TV analogy, it’s a paid option which still serves ads. YouTube offers a paid option which does not serve ads. Should they ever try to cross the line of charging money and still serving ads then all bets are off.
This whole thing is happening because content makers have become VERY entitled to the system of advertising which pays them; rather than innovate in the space, they're trying to moralize and legalize their way into forcing the audience not to look away. Don't let it happen folks.
To be clear, I'm not saying YT should give things away; I'm saying the mask should come off and they should outright charge money.
Either accept the cat-and-mouse game, pay for YT premium, or stop using YouTube. Complaining that Google is somehow wronging you by not giving you the free video hosting you're entitled to is asinine.
They should not be allowed to profit from their anti-competitively acquired monopoly, even in ways that their competitors would have if they had not been driven out of business.
> They're only now putting ads in videos,
They've been showing ads on videos since 2007, before Google even bought YouTube.
> charging for not-doing-that,
They've been offering that for 8 years, about half the lifetime of YouTube.
> Complaining that Google is somehow wronging you by not giving you the free video hosting you're entitled to is asinine.
Google are using our browsing and video watching data already. That's enough (and has been enough over many years) for them to monetize their service. What they are doing now with the attack on adblockers on Youtube is corporate greed as they simply want MORE monetization.
And what they are doing to adblockers in general with manifest v3 and Privacy Sandbox is simply anti-competitive practices.
> Either accept the cat-and-mouse game, pay for YT premium, or stop using YouTube. And how about no? What's in to you? Working in Youtube and worried your boss can't buy his 5-th Tesla? Understand that there are some people not happy with the enshittification of the internet, and we want to fight for a better one.
Why do you think that data is valuable? Because it can better target ads to you. Ads that you then block. Making the data worthless...
The only way they are allowed to legally monetize data for marketing purposes is to find other users that don't have do-not-track + opted in for marketing targeting, and show the ads to them.
Additionally, they can (and do) utilize bulk usage data (from many people) by feeding it into their ecosystem. For example, a video about cats being more popular than another will pop up higher on the search rankings when somebody searches for "cat". User "labor"/interest moderates the content on the platform, which makes it more attractive, and increases the overall number and engagement of users. Out of those users there is some % that have opted in for marketing, and can be legally targeted by personalized ads.
In Australia there is ABC, SBS, Community Broadcasting Foundation, Channel 31, etc,
"Hey fellow hackers. I am a hacker myself and I totally don't work for Google. Ads are good, mkay?"
Bruh, dunno what planet you live on and how brainwashed you have to be to think blocking ads is theft. It's like getting a fine when there are ads on the radio and you change the station, or ads on the TV and you changing the channel.
It's your device, it's the creator's content, and Youtube facilitates you seeing that content. In return, they can (and very much do) monetize your usage data, your interests, etc, and give some of that value to the creator. That should have been the relationship between creator, service and consumer. However, monetizing the trove of data they have on you is not enough for them.
What they are doing now is motivated by pure corporate greed and desire to squeeze every possible cent out of their dominant position. They can and don't care about your experience, knowing that there is hardly an alternative for you, and that, my friend, is called a monopoly. And wherever there are monopolies, users suffer. So don't sell me the idea that poor poor Google can't make ends meet and need to force feed me 100 ads during one video so they can survive. This is a monopoly saying a big "fuck you" to their users and trying to scalp them by enshittifying their service and forcing you to pay for the "premium".
Forcing you to watch content that you didn't want to and pausing the ad counter while you have clicked away is the TV equivalent of the ADs following you on every channel and not relenting until you have watched them. They have no excuse
How do you think they're monetizing your data? By definition it's not by showing you ads, you're blocking them. Also not by using the data to make their paid service so good that you'll really want to subscribe, since you obviously are entitled to the service for free.
The reality is that your data is worthless, and your use of the service is a liability rather than an asset. And you'll be equally worthless to any competitor, which was the GP's actual point.
I disagree. Bulk usage data is a type of platform moderation which makes certain content more or less popular, and it improves the quality of the platform overall when fed into their algorithms. That's how google search is made as well. That rises the number of users to the platform. Out of that number, some don't mind paying for it, and some don't mind being tracked/showed ads.
In a nutshell, mine and your usage usage/engagement, regardless if we block ads or not, helped them improve heir platform, which resulted in increase in paying users.
There’s a huge difference between no ads, and unskipable ads shat out every seven minutes, with another two at the start of every video.
Television isn’t even this bad.
For example PS plus. You spend time in the service and then your subscription runs out and you can’t access or even fully use games you paid for.
What makes google different? Why do users endure the pain?