S3 will be way more expensive that it has to be. Instead, I'd opt for using a dedicated server from Hetzner, unlimited traffic for 0 EUR/GB (besides the monthly cost of the instance that is).
I wonder how far you could get with Github pages? It’s probably againsttheir ToS anyways, but I bet you could host a decent amount of (efficiently-encoded) videos before they kick you off.
mpv combined with yt-dlp works quite nicely too, just paste the URL as an argument to mpv and it handles downloading on its own. Primary issue is that yt-dlp is highly sensitive to shadow API changes so rolling release is needed for it to be useful, though this can still be done with custom repositories on distros outside of e.g. Arch.
I never see these surveys when I browse Youtube on my PC but the bonkers shit they ask my Mum always amuses me, also Youtube is very picky about about the content that YouTube creators create but will happily bombard my Mum with gambling ads all the time. You can opt out for "less" gambling adverts but obviously algo-wankers weasel out of any responsibility so it probably won't work very well since it makes them less money.
I stopped using the official YouTube app when YouTube started to constantly show me literal porn as ads below videos. The images were distorted a little bit but you could clearly see what was going on. I wasn't able to report any ad and it kept happening, so I just stopped using the app and went full ad block.
If she uses a PC you might be able to install uBlock for her. I never see ads on YouTube except for the mentions of sponsors that are part of the video.
I get loads of financial scams, especially crypto scams. It used to be Russian wife services and gambling. Probably because I turned off ad personalization for my Google account, so I get the lowest grade ad stock there is.
I’ve also turned off ad targeting and have experienced the same. Lots of scam ads, many of them for crypto. I’ve tried to report a few of the more blatant scam ads, but the reporting process is tedious and not worth wasting my time on. Like the “free fortnite v-bucks” at a sketchy site is 100% stealing your account right? Thankfully I don’t see those very often so presumably google takes them down quick.
It boggles my mind how many scam ads are running on YouTube. Only ads I get are scams, make 5k a day, get rich quick with nft, fake investor ads etc. Google willingly make extreme amounts of money working with these scammers on the backs of ordinary people while already having billions. They are morally corrupt.
My guess is these are from Google Consumer Surveys, which anyone can use. So google itself probably doesn't give a sh*t about this data, although I wouldn't bet that they don't track it.
[Edited to add]
Although GCS is intended for boring stuff like which marketting logo or slogan is best, you can actually use it for any question, that doesn't violate the terms. In the past I've used it for joke surveys as well as academic research. Although I haven't done it for a while in case some turker flags me and gets my whole google account banned.
+1 I've previously got some of these questionable surveys from the 'Opinion Rewards' app and a few other spots on Google sites. Quite sure if you click on the [i] button (in OP's screenshot), it displays a blurb about the questions coming from a third party.
Maybe there are questions where the value of learning a thing about the user for future ad targeting is higher than just showing them another ad?
Reminds me of the time a dating company did research (maybe okcupid?) on the best question to ask for matching, and it was something like "do you believe in angels?".
These surveys on platforms are basically a way of evading the deep tracking they used to implement on their apps. Since app stores and device makers clamped down on app-based tracking, many social platforms lost their ability to track people deeply to better target ads, so now they do covert psychological and cultural profiling to get the metrics they want.
It's also why many platforms are handicapping their web sites and why some only allow access through mobile apps, because web site interactions don't give them deeper tracking cues they want, like access to device cameras and microphones, without alerting users first.
If you use TikTok or IG, you'll realize that whenever you're about to share something, your camera is activated, and it can capture a lot of details about you like your skin color, or snapshots of where you are... App makers have been over-reaching in privacy for ages now, and you're always giving up something personal for using any social service, whether it's your money, time spent watching ads, unrewarded labor in generating their content, or your privacy.
I don't do any surveys, they're often driven by mis-guided objectives that don't help user experience at all.
Youtube ads have reached the point of ridiculous. Many people, in the early days, moved from TV to Youtube to avoid ads. But the last time I used the apps (on the iPhone) to listen to a song, I had two unskip-able ads before and one later.
Today, I bother with their HTML website on Safari (because of iOS ad block, it seems that I miss most of the ads) but their web app is shitty (and maybe being made intentionally shitty?).
You only need to use YT a couple times to already be annoyed by the unskippable and numerous ads, plus inline advertisement, that your face will get slapped with.
Would not mind paying if I knew what to expect from the start of their service. Now they are abusing more and more their market position to fuck their customers. No way I'm paying for that shit.
Google is highly profitable, take the subscription fee and donate it to someone who will help people instead of just develop more sophisticated ads and ways to remove blocking from browsers…
$15 per month is a little nuts - I don't know anyone who pays for Youtube Premium - Though they piloted Youtube lite overseas for $5 per month but it's seems unlikely they will bring it to the states - If they do roll it out, I will subscribe
I've been using it. It's gotten a lot better than when it first came out. Super annoying that they released a product that was far inferior (and probably still is inferior) to Google Play music and forced everyone to switch.
Google has been trying to diversify outside of search + Google Apps but everything they try just feels janky and doomed for the graveyard in a couple of years anyway. Stadia, Chromebooks, Google Home, Wifi, Fiber, all of the Nest stuff post-acquisition, Fi… they all seem like they start off with a bang, then go nowhere and just fizzle for a few years before getting the axe. It makes it hard to get excited about anything they announce. I think Facebook has been doing this too.
At the end of the day, they’re advertising companies trying to be something more.
I pay for YT Music. YouTube Premium is just bonus since I seldom use YouTube. YT Music is still not as good as Google Play Music was, but it’s better than Spotify imho.
YT Premium gives me a lot - YT is transformed when you don’t have ads, can have it playing in the background while on another app (there’s a Picture in Picture beta I’m using at the moment which works great). Also downloads and Music.
Not really. The cost of NewPipe is that you cannot log in, effectively forking the user experience in terms of content discovery, subscription management and watch history (versus the usual browser or app experience). There are not any decent workarounds for this.
I've found the experience of content discovery on YouTube to be absolutely abysmal. Tiktok introduces me to new videos each time I open it, even suggesting things that I've never demonstrated an interest in but which are still fascinating. Meanwhile YouTube keeps suggesting the same videos again and again each time I open it up, and they all seem to be based on the last few videos I've watched.
Missing out on YouTube content discovery isn't a huge loss.
it works everywhere you might want to watch youtube. xbox, phone, smart tv, computer, tablet, hell probably my old gameboy DS.
guess it depends on how much youtube you consume. personally it was a no brainer.. less than an hour's worth of work a month to pay for it? now i only see ads when i get signed out of youtube.
Funny thing Youtube doesn't accept my money. It says my region is not supported for Youtube Premium. I would not mind paying 5-10 bucks a month for that, already does for Netflix and Apple TV.
That's not entirely within their control though. They provide a platform for people to host things. If someone pays you to talk about their product, no one will stop you unless the thing you're selling is against their ToS.
I pay for YouTube music for this very reason. Comes with ad free YouTube. I actually respect Google isn't a charity,but I value my time enough to not waste it on ads.
I have also experienced this. I hope it is a bug, but it also might be a result of using the same account on multiple screens (whereas before it would just stop playback on one).
I wonder if it's to measure things like critical thinking skills and compare them with the videos people watch.
The average American reads at 7th-8th grade level and might not know what "false dichotomy" means, so it could be useful data. It's also a logical fallacy, so it might give an indication about whether a person has been exposed to the ideas of logical fallacies.
"People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
> "People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
Huh that's odd, I was thinking the opposite - people with critical thinking skills are often labelled as radical for disagreeing with logical flaws in the current mainstream narrative. Witness: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russiagate, ore more recently the Rittenhouse 'white supremacist' theory.
There should be a law that requires any data collecting companies to list the inferences that they are planning to make from the data they collect. Once the study is complete, they should be required to destroy the data and inform customers.
A question like in the OP seems like it’s trying to figure out your level of education, which is something that could be used in discriminatory ways, not to mention that it’s not something everyone wants to share.
Can someone expand on what this is? How does it come up for you and how often? I watch YT on the regular, combination of different platforms and entry points. Definitely not always with adblock. Wasn’t even aware this was a thing until now.
89 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadCentralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii, DLive, Triller
Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
Depending on how worried you are about potential load and/or egress costs, you could go for somewhere with cheaper egress as well if you want.
You’d also want to compare google drive, Dropbox, box, Amazon drive (Amazon photos), iCloud storage, and backblaze
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box
You can use an instance that let's you upload or you can run your own on a host somewhere and federated it.
Theres an app for Android and Win/Mac/Linux called Freetube that uses Invidious.
There are a lot of free Invidious instances out there. You can also self host one if you want.
Use it! And if you can, donate to one of the public Invidious instances.
I get loads of financial scams, especially crypto scams. It used to be Russian wife services and gambling. Probably because I turned off ad personalization for my Google account, so I get the lowest grade ad stock there is.
[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/
I'll mirror the parent's sentiment. It blows my mind every time i see someone else use YouTube and see ads.
I'm pretty sure a significant fraction of Google's revenue is coming directly or indirectly from scammers.
“YouTube recommended this to me, I never imagine YouTube / Google would be trying to scam me”.
And it was displaying a YT video.
My sewing machine is decade+ old second hand I got for € 20, no YT.
[Edited to add]
Although GCS is intended for boring stuff like which marketting logo or slogan is best, you can actually use it for any question, that doesn't violate the terms. In the past I've used it for joke surveys as well as academic research. Although I haven't done it for a while in case some turker flags me and gets my whole google account banned.
Reminds me of the time a dating company did research (maybe okcupid?) on the best question to ask for matching, and it was something like "do you believe in angels?".
It's also why many platforms are handicapping their web sites and why some only allow access through mobile apps, because web site interactions don't give them deeper tracking cues they want, like access to device cameras and microphones, without alerting users first.
If you use TikTok or IG, you'll realize that whenever you're about to share something, your camera is activated, and it can capture a lot of details about you like your skin color, or snapshots of where you are... App makers have been over-reaching in privacy for ages now, and you're always giving up something personal for using any social service, whether it's your money, time spent watching ads, unrewarded labor in generating their content, or your privacy.
I don't do any surveys, they're often driven by mis-guided objectives that don't help user experience at all.
Today, I bother with their HTML website on Safari (because of iOS ad block, it seems that I miss most of the ads) but their web app is shitty (and maybe being made intentionally shitty?).
Maybe for the past 3 months?
I’ve got the same it’s intentionally shittier feeling too.
https://pi-hole.net/
Google is highly profitable, take the subscription fee and donate it to someone who will help people instead of just develop more sophisticated ads and ways to remove blocking from browsers…
I’m happy to help support YT creators in this way.
Thanks. May be I will check it out again.
At the end of the day, they’re advertising companies trying to be something more.
Also, pretty sure I pay $10 not $15.
[0] https://newpipe.net/
The less insight YT has into me the better.
That being said, I understand how this could be a negative to some.
Missing out on YouTube content discovery isn't a huge loss.
guess it depends on how much youtube you consume. personally it was a no brainer.. less than an hour's worth of work a month to pay for it? now i only see ads when i get signed out of youtube.
And it’s $12/mo from the site (not in-app).
Also, why is it nuts?
The average American reads at 7th-8th grade level and might not know what "false dichotomy" means, so it could be useful data. It's also a logical fallacy, so it might give an indication about whether a person has been exposed to the ideas of logical fallacies.
"People who aren't familiar with logical fallacies tend to become radicalized by YouTube in X months."
Huh that's odd, I was thinking the opposite - people with critical thinking skills are often labelled as radical for disagreeing with logical flaws in the current mainstream narrative. Witness: Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russiagate, ore more recently the Rittenhouse 'white supremacist' theory.
A question like in the OP seems like it’s trying to figure out your level of education, which is something that could be used in discriminatory ways, not to mention that it’s not something everyone wants to share.