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Tell HN: YouTube is punishing logged-out users

3 points by penskymaterial ↗ HN
YouTube has implemented hair trigger "anti-bot" measures that I suspect strictly limit the number of session cookies issued over a sliding window.

If you browse in Incognito Mode it does not take much casual browsing to exceed this limit.

It accuses you of being a bot and demands you log in to view any content.

A great excuse for a scheme to force everyone to log in and be tracked.

3 comments

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basilikum
Has been like that for a while. I don't think it's as much about forcing log in and more about monopolizing access to YouTube videos for AI training.
JohnFen
Hmm. If that's the reason, that's very disconcerting.

I moved all of my websites behind a login prompt because I couldn't find any realistic way to defend them from genAI bots. I keep hoping that some solution will come about that would allow me to open them up again, but if Google can't figure it out either, that isn't a good omen.

01jonny01
It's much worse if you have a VPN.

I tested this at Skipvids.com