anti-adblock-killer VS Invidious

So, for most of the history of advertising, you didn't have a choice. Advertising was a part of someone else's property that would ambush[0] you before you could even ignore it. Internet advertising is an outlier in that it happens on your property. You ask for a web page, the web site sends back the page with a bunch of JavaScript that tries to run an ad auction on your computer, then your browser extensions delete the JavaScript, then another bit of JavaScript sent by the web site detects this and deletes the content, except no because your extension also defeated the antitamper script, except no because the web site legally threatened your ad blocker with billions of dollars in litigation for breaking the "don't rip DVDs" law.

I'm not kidding about that, BTW[1][2][3]. There is a silent and ongoing effort by everyone - including ad companies - to appropriate your physical property with their intellectual property[4]. You see, on the totem pole of capitalist legitimacy, physical ownership is actually really weak. There's all sorts of government-granted monopolies that can be traded like property[5], but let you bulldoze lesser ownership over physical objects. You might own your computer, but I own the content, so I own your computer for as long as my content is somewhere on it.

Talking about fundamental rights is interesting. Right now, at least in the US, people have a fundamental right to advertise - it's called the 1st Amendment. We can't even have functional campaign contribution laws because SCOTUS demands that billionaires have a god-given right to spend their billions shouting over everyone else in campaign ads. Several other fundamental rights mean you have the right to ignore shouty ads, but you don't have the right to shut the advertisers up. Likewise, the right to refuse ad exposure online is implied by the fact that the website runs on your computer. But other rights - such as the right to control copies of your speech - can negate that same implication.

Anyway, this is why I think we should bring back the Boston Strangler[6]. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[0] This is separate from the concept of "ambush marketing" where you try to ride another marketer's coat tails as close as possible without violating trademark law, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambush_marketing

[1] https://digiday.com/media/adblock-plus-accuses-axel-springer...

[2] https://torrentfreak.com/dmca-used-to-remove-ad-server-url-f...

[3] Here's a longer GitHub issue/flamewar full of people debating whether or not you can apply DMCA 1201 equivalents to ad blockers: https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer/issues/1034

[4] Shut up Stallman, you know what it really means. - Not Cory Doctorow

[5] I'm afraid to call them property because if I do that means the Takings clause applies and we can't ever roll back the life+70 insanity that Berne, Germany, and the EU foisted on us.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Valenti#Valenti_on_new_te...

On Windows, I use Anti-Adblock Killer + uBlock Origin + SponsorBlock + YouTube Enhancer (which adds many features such as granular custom speed up to 14x).

Try Anti-Adblock Killer.

Should also be using Anti Adblock Killer

Link

Youtube seems to be doing some A/B testing with the comment system which has made proxies like Invidious and yt-dlp/Newpipe unable to load comments. There is a patch for Invidious [1] which solves this problem but it is not in master yet. I tested it on my own instance and it does solve the problem.

[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/pull/4576

BTW, I don't understand the workaround: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/pull/4552/files

Which was taken from here: https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js/pull/624

Could anybody explain it to me?

Use a Youtube proxy like Invidious [1], problem solved and you get to subscribe to channels without telling the Beast about your interests. Add Sponsorblock (which supports Invidious) to get rid of any in-stream advertising which remains and you'll be transported back to those hallowed times of yore when men were men, women were women and advertising was something you found in newspapers. Youtube will try to make this harder just like Xitter is trying to make it harder to use proxies like Nitter [2].

[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

[2] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

Going to drop this here for others who haven't heard of it https://invidious.io/

Now, how do we fix this? YouTube's ad model sucks. Their algorithm sucks. Their front page sucks. They've captured a bunch of creators though so often YouTube is the only place you can find someone.

I want those creators to benefit from me viewing their videos. I want the fact that I view a video and like it to help other people find that video in their recommendations. I want an algorithm that shows me things that are interesting and relevant not one that promotes the spammiest and most ad heavy videos that barely have anything to do with my watch history.

Having an alternative front end is nice but I don't want to rob YouTube of the money they spend on hosting the videos.

So, how do we do this?

Peer to peer fails when there is little interest in something or when most people leech and it sucks for archiving old content.

Hosting it all in one place is super expensive and hard for a small group to manage without turning into YouTube.

Maybe we could find a way for the creators to host their own content and get paid when people view it while being part of a large federated network for easy discoverability?

Please list any projects you know of, I'm sure there are a lot of people here who would be willing to contribute or donate.

Sometimes a half-solution will do, like Invidious or Piped.

[0] https://invidious.io/

[1] https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped