My favorite video of the month : Bypassing paywalls

[Rudel_chw]

Just tried some of these extensions ... great stuff, particularly loved the removal of clickbait from YT, its fantastic: you still can watch the videos, but they have no clickbait thumbnails but rather an actual scene from the video:

 

 

watch it before YT notices and removes it

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by Rudel_chw

[Dragon1-1]

More people need to know about adblockers. Maybe then we'll see fewer ads that are loud, distracting or outright offensive. I'd be fine with a small handful of static ads that fit thematically and visually with the site. For example, an ArmA mods site used to advertise firearm and airsoft supplies, and I saw some scientific websites with ads for various relevant lab equipment. That would be fine. A crude, irrelevant, animated mess that plays sound on top of that? Adblock time.

YouTube, especially, seems to think it's a TV channel. I mostly use it to listen to the music, and as such, TV style ads are right out. Especially since the actual content creators don't see a dime out of that ad revenue in most cases (admittedly, some of the ones I listen to are long dead, but still). 

I don't usually need to bypass paywalls, however, I read The Guardian for the news, which doesn't have one. If I need to chase down a reference, it's more often than not within the monthly access limits.

[Rudel_chw]

On 12/19/2022 at 8:16 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

Especially since the actual content creators don't see a dime out of that ad revenue in most cases

 

You are wrong about that, I know quite a few youtubers that do get revenue from YT ... that's why I don't block YT but subscribe to YT premium to pay without ads ... but I sure hate clickbait thumbnails, so that specific extension is a blessing  wish there was something similar for my iPad.

[BitMaster]

Need to have a deeper look at this tonight. I hope it is compatible with my Brave browser.

[Dragon1-1]

12 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

I know quite a few youtubers that do get revenue from YT ...

Emphasis mine. There's "youtubers", and there's "mid-20th century folk musicians".  I occasionally watch actual youtubers, but for most part, I use it as a glorified music player. Most of the music in question is long out of print vinyl and tapes, hard to find in their countries of origin and downright impossible where I am. The artists (or their kids, mid-20th century was a long time ago) in question aren't seeing a dime from YT monetizing this stuff, and neither do those youtubers who don't monetize their videos that way, yet still get ads plastered on them.

TBH, if the ads weren't ridiculously loud, 100% irrelevant (if I need to buy something, I make my own call, the excited moron in the ad never enters into it) and if they didn't insult me attempting extremely obvious psychological manipulation, I could have felt a little bad about it. As it stands, it's a cancer that needs to die. If I ever find a youtuber I actually care about, I might support them in other ways.

I'd love it if EU introduced legislation to make all online advertising opt-in. That sort of thing would likely force the advertisers to make their ads less obnoxious and actually fun to watch. Back in the day of posters and newspaper ads, they sometimes had a degree of artistic merit. Today, it's extremely rare, the advertising I glimpse on my phone is typically downright revolting.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Dragon1-1