Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.

Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.

Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.

Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.

Now all I see is this.

Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.

I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.

  • AssPennies@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Subterfuge at work, a fun subject to study.

    Some of my favorites from a declassified WWII “simple productivity sabotage” manual:

    • Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

    • Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.

    • When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.

    • Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

    • Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

    • Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

    • Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable"and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

    When I first saw these I was like goddamn, psyops got to my executive director!