The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
You're right, those videos look like total garbage
Was speaking the login requirement but the ads for other videos is insult to injury
Even if you're logged out, YouTube still recommends videos based on your viewing habits.
Ok
Not an advid watcher so they are just going off what ever link I happen to click any given day.
That's still a lot.
They know what videos you click (obviously)
They know when you click them
They know how much you watch each of the videos
They know how many times you click on the videos
Depending on the platform/client/browser/search engine implementation, they see what videos are shown to you before you click on them (thumbnail gets fetched, autoplay, pre-loading, etc.)
If someone sent you the link, they most likely know who's sent you the link (through a reference ID)
The person who's sent you this is probably logged in, so they know them by name, DoB, interests, etc. From here on out they can guess your own membership of certain statistical cohortsa bit better then through yourown clickinglinks alone.
And a host of other things - where you're located (IP address), what type of connection you're on (IP address + bandwidth), what type of device, what browser/client, etc.
This is just of the top of my head.
Don't mean to scare anyone with this, but it is inherently spooky at the very least.
Its not only true of youtube either. I think they call it browser fingerprint? There are websites that can break down what it's looking for and Ive tried, in an always futile attempt, to mask mine as much as possible but could spend sometime looking into it again.
Someday I'll just go straight torr everything I am just admittedly too lazy.
They also know who is near you and what they are up to, so perhaps you, too....!
Stop!!! You cant watch content unless you hand over your identification papers sir.
While you are here may i interest you in our other entrances which are further away from where you actually wanted to go and will also stop you from entering without providing identification.
Grayjay has been working pretty well for me.
For me it does not bypass age verification, even if I enable the toggle on the settings.
If you're not going for an open source option just use ReVanced.
Wonder if federated youtube would work where people host their own content or join up to get a server as a group. That way the home videos nobody watches would not take up the space while big shots need to get better servers to support the view counts.
This is what I advocate for. The caveat, but also the reason it will work (accordig to me) is that it's not monetised.
There would thus also not be very many dopamine videos (or ragebait etc), those are made to make money.
Also, if it isn't for making money, then the scope is no longer a big problem (you don't need the "line to go up" and get "more followers") and distribution becomes much simpler.
I'll gladly share a bunch of videos to see how it could function, I have a 0.7Gb up but can easily switch to a 10Gb up.
Thoughts?
The most annoying thing for me is that I am logged in and embedded videos are still broken.
Third party cookies. You don't want them.
Can’t you grab a login from bugmenot ?
That hasn't worked for me in like a decade.
How's that stop bots?
It doesn’t. This is about ad revenue and tracking cookies. Got a VPN? You’re a bot! Got an ad blocker? You’re a bot!
Bots aren't a problem when your not trying force content down people's throats.
I'm hosting Invidious locally via Docker and don't have to deal with this shit.