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YouTube tests disabling videos for people using ad blockers
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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I actually used to have YT Premium because I'm a strong believer that nothing is free, so you either pay with data or money (on anything slightly commercial, not counting FOSS projects made as hobby or under foundations etc. as things get more complex then. But even then I pay/donate for some stuff in the same way of reasoning).
Yet I cancled the YT Premium subscription. Simply for one reason, privacy. I don't mind paying, but then I don't want just no adds, I also want no tracking. I pay with money, so I don't want to pay with data as well having a whole profile made.
Switched to NewPipe with sponsorblock on phone and TV and FreeTube on PC. Got a redirect extension in FireFox automatically sending YT videos to either Invidious or Pipe.
Would definetely prefer to pay than being tracked...
But i also feel like the time is mature to produce a new type of web where nor ads, nor user payments are required, i think we'll get there some day..
No ads and no user payment?
So...... who pays to keep the servers going? Who pays to produce the content?
That stuff is expensive! We're paying for it somehow.
There are a few options and none of them are great.
First we have to split between paying for content and paying for the delivery.
There is already a platform where people pay for the delivery by letting their device be part of the delivery system. That's Bittorrent. You can download by uploading. I don't see why something like the Bittorrent protocol couldn't be adapted to a Youtube like platform. And if the platform only serves a frotend that helps you find the correct torrent and then streams the content in a video player, the demands on the server would be low enough that it could be run using ddonations or something like that. It would basically be a legal version of the Pirate Bay.
For content creation on the other side, that's a whole different can of worms. Content creation takes much more money. I see only two alternatives to ads, sponsorships and direct payments: government-sponsored content and unpaid content.
Government-sponsored content like e.g. BBC stuff is good, but it doessn"t nearly fill every niche that Youtubers etc. currently cover.
Unpaid content could work for some media, e.g. there are a lot of great books or music made by hobbyists without commercial aspirations, but making high-production-value videos without propper funding is just not going to happen at scale.
So all in all, I don't see a future where we aren't going to pay for content in any way.
An issue with the torrent scheme is efficiency. Networks of home computers will suck down considerably more power from (potentially) less than ideal energy sources than dedicated servers in well-planned locations (i.e. near reliable renewable energy sources, with backup generators). I don't see a way to have this without involving large institutions, whether private or public.
Regarding media creation, there's a middle ground between direct payment and government-sponsored: Universal Basic Income, or a related scheme of generic grants for art/education producers. Ensuring people don't starve or become homeless as they start projects or grow large enough to be sustained by direct payments from an audience could foster this sort of growth.
Yeah, when you talk about ideal, home computers will not win. When you talk about an industry that overprovisions servers by ~50% and doesn't even turn these overprovisioned servers off when they don't need them, an industry that lobbies against any push to force them to put solar on their roofs, that lobbies against mandatory haste heat reuse and all that, I believe that a network of home computers will not be much more wasteful. Especially considering that the PCs are ildeing already anyway.
The problem with government-sponsored is, that we have to pay for it anyway. Unless you live in the Emirates, governments usually don't have a money surplus and they need to make money through taxes. So wheter you pay through taxes or through direct contributions, there isn't too much of a difference there.
What about using tecnologies such as Bitcoin and blockchain to find a sustainable mechanism of income for creators / server owners?
Miners already have an economical incentive to build a network and keep expanding it: they literally get paid for producing and maintaining computer power, and why is it working? Because Bitcoin was the first and only available example that made what gold did, but better in a time that was really needed..
We just need to include the web into the equation, building a web and a mechanism of incentives (i would say based on bitcoin) that works better than the current web! Easier said than done that's sure!
We need to think about what every social media platform would want to use because works better than ads and all the other incentives/income methods.
If Satoshi did it, i don't see why can't we do it too..
If you have an android phone with a Google account, you're being tracked already.
As I be see it, I'm going to be tracked by everything on the internet whether I like it or not. So in the case of YouTube, I may as well support the creators I watch hours of content from.
Software doesn’t has to be this way. Humans define their own way and the Fediverse is showing us this.
You get tracked if you give up and accept the privacy invasions because "the internet is just like that". Get a phone with an unlocked bootloader, remove the stock Android and install GrapheneOS/LineageOS/CalyxOS.
I totally understand where you are coming from, as I to pay for YT premium. However; when it comes to tracking, it is one of the few applications that I don't think works very well without it. Part of why I enjoy it most of the time is the interesting content the algorithm suggests, that I wouldn't otherwise be aware of.
I don't know the solution to that problem... Maybe the tracking stays within the YT world only, and isn't sold or used anywhere else?