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So who am I cheating by not watching ads for products that I would never buy anyway?
Nobody
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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+1 for yt-dlp.
For decades the best I could get from my ISP was 5mbps. Not great for streaming video, but YouTube at 720p could juuuuust barely keep up. Assuming absolutely nothing else was going on at the same time over my network.
I now have 25mbps through another ISP...but, they slow you down to 3mbps (worse than I had before!) when they detect you're streaming video. Or so their marketing material claims. I don't stream nearly enough video to say I've noticed. But then maybe I'm not noticing because that's (close to) what I'm accustomed to.
I could've sworn the CRTC (Canada's closest thing to the US's FCC) had slapped that one down a few years ago. Is the whole packet inspection / net neutrality thing still a thing in this day and age? I mean, how else would they know?
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another +1 here for YT-dlp.
I have a share on my main PC that my media server can see.
All I do is yt-dlp the videos I come across during a day that I want to watch, yt-dlp them into this folder, then when I go to bed, I just open my TV's media player and they show up in my media server under "YouTube Queue"
I never used to have a problem with advertising, still don't really, what I have a problem with is the mis-management of advertising, esp with the large media ad networks like google.
Fact of the matter is quite simple. I HAVE NEVER HAD a virus/malware attack or even the sniff of a threat of one since I started network/ad blocking the large ad networks.
When I used to allow all these ad's I regularly used to see pop ups and warnings on a daily basis from my AV software, even while browsing good, friendly sites.
My biggest beef with You-Tube specifically right now however, is how they actually detect the ad-blocker. They don't check to see if it's just them that can't get an advert in, they check for the presence of the blocker as an extension.
I tested several ad-blockers, and whitelisted you-tube in them, and still I got the "ad-blockers are against the Ts&Cs", the only thing that got rid of the messages was to wholesale uninstall every single bit of browser protection I have installed, leaving me fully open to every single ad-network, tracker, data-miner and god knows what else on the internet.
I refuse to do this. I don't just have an ad-blocker because I don't like ad's, I do actually white list quite a few sites, esp the ones who just use simple advertising, like a single image that doesn't move and stays quiet in a side bar, and more specifically is served from your OWN DOMAIN, not some 3rd party mega tracking data mining corp.
I have no desire for a huge creative to jump out of it's sidebar and fling itself open over my entire screen, while it starts pumping out 20 million decibels of shouty shouty narrative, in the middle of my work day, when I'm looking up something to do with the code problem I'm working on, it has the same effect on my mental model as the dreaded "do you have 5 minutes" tap on my shoulder.
Once the ad-networks start getting their house in order, toning things down, ensuring they are not a vector for spreading malware crap, and generally just start being more responsible, then I'll start allowing their ad's again, it's pretty much that simple.
Sorry... yes that did turn into a bit of a rant didn't intend it too.
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Just a bit
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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I do this as well. It also allows me to control the sound quality better for podcasts.
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And right there at the top... "YouTube Premium members also appear to be impacted."
Seems you're paying to still get screwed
I'm not going to pay for YouTube because I don't use it often enough.
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Curiously, I am not (impacted). Not yest, anyway, but if I am I shall reconsider.
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Quote: Just pay for it, FFS
Coming soon to a browser near you!
"Want the most pertinent search results for you query? Sign up for Google Extra today!"
(Terms and conditions apply. Your initial subscription of $4.99/m may be doubled without warning, tripled if you search for pr0n)
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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Why is that not sabotage?
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In the old paper newspaper days, I regularly threw the ad inserts into the wastepaper bin without looking at them. That was sabotage, too. I didn't feel sorry for being a saboteur.
Also, when a friend laid down his newspaper, I often asked if I could read it. Not buying my own copy was stealing. Public libraries are for stealing, too.
At the London tube, you see a lot of newspapers left on the seats - so many that I made a remark about it to a London friend of mine. He told that if you bring a newspaper to read on the tube on your way to work (or home), it is a matter of politeness to leave the paper on the train for others to read. That is sort of stealing, too, even if the second and third person reading the same copy may be one who never would consider buying his own copy.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Thank You for your informative reply. It is not clear to me why throwing ad inserts into the bin is sabotage. Deliberately and maliciously slowing a PC which can cause harm or even if it does not but merely degrades performance to the detriment of the user must be. As for leaving a paper on the tube it is not obvious to me such is legally stealing as it seems to me to be nothing more than the equivalent of lending to a friend a copy of exempli gratia a book recommended which I assume we all here have done. I am not a barrister nor solicitor nor solicitor advocate nor lawyer but I will be surprised if YouTube is not taken to court re/ this matter. So I conclude Alphabet Inc. is ether stupid or impudent.
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Stupid, I think
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Interesting view.
At least for books (printed) in the US it is well established that lending a book to another is fair use. It is similar to lending someone a screw driver. Same issue arose when places started renting movies on tape/dvd. In the US that was settled by requiring that stores purchase it at a much higher price.
Depending on what period of time one looks at newspapers (printed) they vary making money from actually buying the paper, to ramping up on advertising revenue and then now, at least in the US for most major papers, trying to squeeze every penny out of diminishing readership. Certainly for much of that time reading it in a library was not considered a problem that I ever heard about. The ads that were not in the inserts were still there. I have read newspapers in a library - I cannot recall ever seeing inserts.
Microfiche newspapers also contained the ads. But one could suppose the sale price no longer applied.
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I've been against non-print advertising since cable television became widespread. Prior to that, television was free (to use) because advertising paid for it. At least here in North America.
Today, you pay your cable or satellite provider who pays the content providers who still collect the advertising revenues. The consumer now pays way more and still has to watch advertising.
Now the streaming services are going to start advertising. If you pay for premium service, you will get fewer ads.
Advertising must work or advertisers would not continue to advertise.
Print advertising has never bothered me because you can turn the page without losing the train of thought in the article you are reading.
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I pay for YouTube Premium with no ads. I use YouTube for financial research on my investments, so It's worth it for me to pay so I can shorten the time spent researching every night. But the trigger was the last election cycle in 2022 when I got bombarded with political ads that infuriated me, the same ads running over and over. That's when I clicked on the free trial and never looked back.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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Interesting, thank you
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Quote: Just pay for it, FFS.
Uh huh. That's exactly the attitude that people had when cable TV started to become popular. You can get this better product if you pay for it! Look at where we are now. Free TV is dead, cable TV has more advertisements than free tv ever did. No one won.
Now it's Youtube's turn. You can get this "better" youtube if you pay for it! No ads, I double pinky-promise swear. And when it's all said and done, free youtube will be gone, and paid youtube will be just as sh*tty as free youtube is now with respect to ads.
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Well, so far so good, what can I say. If it ever goes the way you're saying it might, I shall simply unsubscribe.
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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When the ads get on my nerves or I am watching a long video and they decide to hit me with a chain of them every 2 minutes. I just connect to vpn from a country where ads are banned and enjoy my content in peace. Maybe they will eventually catch on, but until then, it works well.
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Smart work! Thanks for posting.
Paul Sanders.
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal.
Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
modified 18-Jan-24 5:55am.
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Why don't mathematicians go to the beach? Because they don't need the sun to get a tan; they have sine and cosine!
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. -Anon
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Frederick Nietzsche
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They can also get a cot just by inverting the tan !
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Wordle 941 4/6*
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Wordle 941 3/6
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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