cobalt (@cobalt.tools)
bsky.app
youtube’s been testing various ways of limiting access, both for downloaders and real users with adblockers most fucked up experiment being forced DRM for ALL videos, even those that are licensed as CC: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12563 feels like it will only get worse from now on 🫠

If rolled out widely, this would make web browsers and third-party YouTube clients without a DRM license unusable for YouTube playback, download, etc. This would include almost all open-source web browsers and almost all third-party YouTube clients. Archive link to reddit post about this

  • melfieEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    Part of the reason why I self-host is to avoid being tracked under my real identity that is required for payment. No way I’m paying a big corpo with a surveillance capitalist business model to spy on me to avoid their ads. Sounds akin to paying the mafia for protection.

      • melfieEnglish
        3·
        5 days ago

        Obviously, you know the answer. Yes, I take your point about paying for something that provides value, and generally would agree if not for the corrupt political system that allows a corporation like Google to have the near complete hedgemony that YouTube enjoys. As it stands, there are basically 4 choices right now:

        1. Watch ads and let them spy on you
        2. Pay them while they still spy on you with a guaranteed real identity
        3. Use smaller platforms that have few creators contributing content, many of which are for-profit and may one day go public and turn into something resembling Google today
        4. Use ad blockers / alternative clients to have your cake and eat it too.

        Since Google also wants to have their cake and eat it too by charging you while still tracking you, and at the same time, mistreating the users and creators responsible for their success, it follows that the members of a left-leaning and tech-savvy community like Lemmy would overwhelmingly choose option 4 while also doing option 3 whenever possible.