But their use is justified when you get state propaganda in front of children’s cartoons…

In the autumn, YouTube launched its extremely amateurish campaign against ad-blocking software (such as Ublock Origin). If you don’t refresh regularly, the first thing you’ll see is a message saying that ad-blocking software is not allowed on YouTube, followed by “It looks like you’re using an ad-blocker. Ads make YouTube possible for billions of people around the world to use. You can go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid from your subscription”. A few days later (around mid-October) came the next variation: three videos could be viewed in this way (with a countdown), then YouTube disabled the player. By comparison, Alphabet (the parent company of Google, which owns YouTube) has gone one step further…

Now the pop-up says “Ad blocking violates YouTube’s terms of service”, with the same old bullet points underneath. Either subscribe to YouTube Premium or allow ads on the site. A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge: “The use of ad blockers violates YouTube’s terms of service. We’ve launched a global effort to encourage viewers who use ad blockers to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience. Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators around the world and allow billions of people to access their favourite content on YouTube.

But let’s have a look at what YouTube Premium has to offer besides the removal of ads (of course, the sponsors in the videos remain, and we recommend SponsorBlock for that). You can download the videos. (You can do this with a lot of free software, but YouTube says that putting a link to it in the description of a video is a violation of their community guidelines, and the automatic response to the appeal is that it was the VIDEO that was the problem, even though there was nothing wrong with it…) You can play videos with the screen closed or in the background. This only makes sense on a mobile phone. You can also access music, thanks to YouTube Music. So if you don’t listen to music and don’t use a mobile phone, there’s not much point in spending $13 a month. Also, the Premium Lite subscription without YouTube Music has recently been discontinued. That says a lot.

And we thank you, but we don’t want the ads. Or the subscription. The money-hungry tech giant just wants to gobble up more money.

Source: WCCFTech