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.
How does one quit YouTube?
There is just so much stuff on there and no alternative.
Many channels I watch are on Nebula as well - that one is paid but it's yearly 15$ or so. You can get it bundled with curiosity stream. Some channels upload to rumble, but I am not familiar with that platform. Then there is odysee... it's kinda all over the place. There are channels that upload on odysee, but I don't like the crypto bullshit that is associated with that platform. The other thing not only with odysee but all new smaller platforms - they are a good place for all the scummy outcast that gets filtered on YT. I try not to read comments otherwise I would have to puke.
Also a happy customer of Nebula here. I've come across some pretty interesting content on there.
YEs and some YT creators even add bonus videos.