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 enjoyed watching favorite -old- movies not chopped-up to insert 2 or 3 of 5 minutes of commercials. I quit cable-TV and got my views where I could.
There was a time when people were asked to choose between TV adverts and Pay-TV with no adverts. Those who went for Pay-TV got a few years of respite. Then, as always happens, they got screwed over. Don't believe that line for a second. They'll just bide their time, and next thing you know, you'll be watching ads-a-plenty again.
Yeah man - the world changes. The pendulum swings. It’s quite the ride eh!?