No one is forced to use youtube in the same sense no one is forced to use a smartphone.

In the real world you'll eventually have to use those things to participate in society, just by the sheer reach those things have in our daily lives.

Just look back into any time a friend or family shared a link, or it was embedded in an article, or a company made an announcement only in youtube, or if you're in school and you were asked to view some lesson, or those college lectures that get uploaded to youtube.

I can get more examples, the thing is you'll need to click a youtube link at some point. Is it ok for us to deal with an enshittified platform? should we act like a luddite because we don't agree with the TOS? is this fair for us?

My current usage of youtube doesn't involve following creators, for that I use odysee/twitch. But the point remains, its morally correct to block ads, the platform is unfairly dominant.

Easier said than done when you talk about the global video sharing platform that is used everywhere by everyone...

It's like telling someone to just ditch their smartphone... not practically doable. Blocking ads is morally correct when you are forced to use it.

This is my issue with it, hopefully it's clear

Google has likely operated youtube at a big loss since buying it. But instead of finding ways to sustainably grow the service, they absorbed all the cost and offered unmatched convenience over the decades. I'm referring to unlimited uploads, anonymous public viewing, high quality streams, and availability all over the world. All this time it costed Google lots of money, but they kept it all free with the purpose of dominating the video sharing market.

The problem is that nowadays youtube has turned practically into a public utility. Schools, many workplaces, many companies use it, and it's embedded everywhere. In recent years Google has made lots of effort into squeezing their userbase for money, likely because they are trying to make this profitable. That results in lots of enshittification, and it is us who need to deal with it now.

It is very hard to just quit youtube, it's like trying to not use a smartphone in the modern age, or trying to live without whatsapp (in some countries). You have to give up lots of things to fully quit, and be negatively affected in some ways.

In a better timeline we would have multiple video sharing websites with clear payment structures, that grow sustainably, have clearly defined limits, and all have a substantial chunk of users. That's why I think it would be eventually good if youtube goes like twitter and requires an account for anything. They would give up their public service position, and allow creators and users to move into better platforms.

So all in all, it puts people like me in a bad position.

1. I don't use any Google service, I have no account with them and thus not agree with their ToS
2. I can perfectly find alternatives, besides youtube.
3. I am often forced to see it when it's embedded, when it's shared in friend groups, family groups, and sometimes work groups
4. That forces me to deal with their shitty website
5. The only compromise is using invidious in my home network. I don't deal with their shit...

Like many, this is not a money issue. I pay for Twitch/Netflix/Prime. I can afford yt premium, but for what little usage I have it's not worth it.

Title is kinda misleading. The issue only affects public instances, and it has been an ongoing problem since many months ago. Basically the moment youtube detects lots of traffic from one IP it gets blocked, and need sign-in.

It seems this block just became harder to work around, and they started blocking all IPs from hosting providers, but I'm sure a solution will be found eventually.

If you have a spare laptop/PC/raspberry pi you can host your own invidious in your home. It won't get blocked, it will be much faster, and you can use options that are usually disabled on public instances (the API and DASH quality).

Then you can add something like tailscale/twingate into the mix to access it outside your home. Self hosted wireguard can also work if your ISP gives you a static IP or you setup a DDNS service. I personally use twingate because I don't like opening any port in my router.

It's nice that Apple now allows these kinds of apps in the store. A few years back having local terminal, and fully emulated linux apps ready to download would be unthinkable.

There's another app "a-shell" that's similar. It has better performance but can't install many packages.

They can try to enshittify all they want, but as long as they keep offering that shit for free it's their own fault really. There will always be a way to remove all the crap once the video images enter my computer.

If it isn't sustainable for them then they should have required sign in and payment long ago instead of operating at a loss just to get all the content in their place. The only ones letting it happen are themselves, we just here for the ride.

it's not fake, bing rewards has been a thing for many years. It's literally just using bing to search things, each search gives you points, and then you redeem giftcards (amazon, uber, etc)

I guess most here don't particularly care, but the points mechanic it's nice

I wouldn't say it's borderline unusable tbh...

The first adware result is blocked with any ad blocker, the fact you see it means you might not have your ad blocker on, or disabled in incognito mode.

The second and third copilot bullshit sections can be toggled off from any search result page, on the sidebar settings there's a toggle.

I do appreciate the bing rewards thing, basically every few weeks I get a gift card because you earn points by using bing

He's already way past caring about anything other than money. He just gets the script and lends his known face for the video... regardless of anything else.

Can't entirely blame the guy though, cuz when he gets going you quickly see what an asshat he actually is, but he did have passion for the content a few years ago.

I just wish LTT would fade into irrelevancy already, it's just shallow clickbaity content that hardly provides any value. I'm also just waiting for their next workplace abuse accusations... the place is known to be abusive for years.

This is what I'm referring to https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjJUVsmjIj4

It has been definitely downplayed and sugarcoated for public audience, but the shitty workplace smells a mile away...

I don't use pens a lot these days, but in college I had to take a shit ton of notes every day, so I used to obsess over the best pens to get. I'm also lefty, so I have to deal with lots of smudging the paper and my hand...

• Ballpoint pens are a hard no. They smudge far too much, and usually had uneven ink flow. They also had this scratchy feeling when writing, didn't help me as a lefty write quickly

• Gel pens therefore were my go-to. I tried pilot G2's for a while, but I had to deal with smudging still cuz of the thicker point. Then I switched to uniball signo 207 micro, and these hit the sweet spot. Even ink distribution, finer point, quick-dry ink, smooth flow.

I think I tried fountain pens once or twice before, but I couldn't use them properly. I smudged the entire paper and couldn't write fast either...

Just install Linux, it’s not that hard.

This is just but the small first step. I was basically checking what it will take to daily drive linux on my desktop, and there's many little roadblocks that I'm just instead considering getting a Win 11 pro license next year and just turning off all the shit in gpedit.

• No RGB software for my gigabyte mobo (openrgb doesn't have it).
• No AMD adrenalin unless I go with Ubuntu, which is just on the same path of enshittification as windows
• No steelseries engine
• No Sapphire trixx
• No microsoft office desktop/onedrive (means I gotta find an office replacement that also works on my apple devices and syncs)

Linux has come a long way, and it's probably enough for some but it would be a massive headache for me still...

Why does it have to be LMG of all places to use lemmy. Linus is not the cool tech guy anymore, he's just another corpa boss who prefers profits over people and accuracy.

LMG has a long history of overworking its workers, plus reports of sexual harassment and bullying...

He belongs with spez and all other profit shitheads the fediverse is supposed to be free of.

My favorite linus quote (when asked why he didn't properly test a product for a video):

I don't know if I can apologize for not spending another $500 of various people's time.

"but we still can’t give everything away for free.”

Then why have they positioned youtube to be a public worldwide service freely accessible all these years?

It is the usual tactic of operating at a loss for years, building an unsustainable service and supporting it with revenue from other places. Google was officially declared a monopoly, and youtube is not profitable, so it's easy to connect the dots and say youtube grew to it's current dominance unfairly through that monopoly money.

Now they want to enforce their TOS on you, pay up or watch a million ads or leave. Well fuck their TOS, I avoid anything google like the plague, but their unfair position on video sharing makes it hard to avoid youtube particularly. I respond unfairly in turn, by proxying youtube through invidious.

Built on a foundation of theft

Sums up all AI

EDIT: meant all gen AI

Built on a foundation of theft

Sums up all AI

google has been blocking any IP that uses lots of youtube bandwidth, and that means any public instance needs to do IP rotation.

I also heard they began blocking all IPs belonging to some cloud providers.

I run my own invidious instance from my home servr. Only I use it, so it'll never be blocked, but I don't have the same anonymity as if using a public instance...

It's mostly for the benefits of using youtube ad-free without a google account, while having local bookmarks, watch-later, and subscription feed. If that's your main goal Invidious is really easy to set-up.

"There are no plans to get rid of Old Reddit." - reddit

Completely expected this, technically they are not removing it, just making it so shit no one would use it. Same move done by twitter when muskrat took over

The redesign doesn't really work, it just tells you to use their horrendous app or login to see any "unverified" content. What that is only they seem to know...

Anyone still relying on reddit's user generated data should use something like a redlib instance

I did that when they leaked my phone number to hackers, as happened to other millions of users. Using authy is a security threat

I think a few more details are needed to get you a clear alternative:

• Which devices you want to cast from? what content you want to cast (DRM content like netflix, and/or your own media)? what kind of TV you have?

In my case after degoogling, I use mainly apple devices besides my windows pc. 2 of my TVs have AirPlay built in, so there's no issue casting anything. If your TV is rather recent it's likely to have it too.

The third TV is tricky, it's an older 4k LG. I have a linux box connected to it and installed UxPlay in it. It only works with AirPlay "mirroring" so you kinda need an app that can treat the TV as a second monitor. Otherwise the mirroring won't cover the entire TV screen. I'm still assuming apple devices here, but there's OutPlayer and nPlayer in the appstore that can do this. It does support sound-only casting, so if it's music you want it should be able to direct cast from your apps.

The second caveat for UxPlay is that it only works with DRM-free content (youtube, self hosted media). For DRM content I haven't found a nice alternative for the old TV , so I use its built in apps (netflix, amazon prime). Kodi exists, but the plug-ins support for streaming sites isn't good, often getting stuck to low-res content.

I'm guessing buying an apple tv/fire stick/roku is the only alternative for DRM content casting. I also explored the idea of "degoogling" my unused chromecast 3rd gen, but absolutely nothing exists for this and it just collects dust in a drawer.

Now that authy has fucked us over with this, what should I move my 2fa codes into, any recommendations?

Unfortunately I can't use aegis on iOS/windows, does keepass have this functionality?