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.
I mean, it makes sense no? They are a business after all. Why wouldn't they try to enforce their ads? I personally don't watch YT that much but why not just pay up if you need ad free experience? The content on YouTube is good because creators get paid well from ads
Creators get paid well by their sponsors. They get shit on by Google which is why every video is sponsored. The aggressive ad rolls before and during the video pretty much just benefit google.
Isn't it more because so many people watch with ad blockers that they got shit from Google though? (I'm saying this as someone that uses an ad block and sponsor block too)
If you've ever seen a YouTuber speak in a weird way, stumble around certain topics, leave out important information that might be controversial or censor something that seems minor, then you should know the answer to your question is no.