• Agent641@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago
    1. Get a job working for Google making anti-adblockers.

    2. Use your 20% time contributing to FOSS stealth adblocker and anti-anti-adblockers.

    3. ???

    4. Profit for life

    • yogi_pogi@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This was actually my life a few years ago.

      I was hardening our applications to stop scraping and automation bots.

      Then contributing to open-source to have better scraping and automation.

      I wasn’t purposely creating loop holes or anything because that’s highly illegal. It’s about making sure both sides “play nice”, because the automation bots are frequently used by spammers/evildoers.

  • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    I would accept “I work for the team that tries to detect ad blockers on YouTube, and slow down the process with bureaucracy.”

    • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      colleague of the marketing guy that just makes up metrics to pretend to his boss and stakeholders that their work on ads makes any difference

      laudable professionals

  • Thoven@lemdro.id
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    2 months ago

    Cards on the table: for Google money I’d do it too. If they want to enshittify their product until the competition has a fighting chance, who am I to stop them? Sure, it’s an annoying and anticonsumer thing to do. But making a “free” product’s bad qualities harder to circumvent isn’t the ethical hill I’m going to die on.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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      2 months ago

      But, who’s their competitor? They have none. All the other alternative have very specific community (artsy short film, science, etc)

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I would take the job just to make sure we can sabotage it. And I’m not even affected by their adblocker detection; I just yt-dlp and NewPipe the videos.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, I don’t really get the argument here. As much as it sucks, it’s not nearly as morally reprehensible as something like weapons. If you don’t do it someone else will. It’s not something a handful of devs are gonna make a difference in by boycotting and it isn’t worth being fired over or not accepting a job over.

        • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 months ago

          Advertising is absolutely morally reprehensible. It is propaganda that exists only to manipulate people into buying shit they didn’t want or need. And it turns out that mindless consumerism is destroying society and our planet.

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            2 months ago

            I never said it wasn’t morally reprehensible. Only that it’s less morally reprehensible than something like making weapons.

          • infinite_ass@leminal.space
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            2 months ago

            You can’t make better people and better cattle at the same time.

            Imagine you were a billionaire. Which do you want?

        • Taleya@aussie.zone
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          2 months ago

          Last time i watched youtube unprotected it had a higher fcking ad frequency than television. And they were put in the stupidest places imaginable, making the video unwatchable. And i’m fucking genx, so i grew up way before the concept of avoiding ads.

          There’s funding your product then there’s just being a piece of shit

    • bigFab@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Youtube servers are terrible. Why not focus on offering a smoother experience? Then charge what you want.

    • Johanno@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      Well then make Premium a reasonable price.

      And just don’t provide stuff for free. Nobody forces alphabet to provide youtube without account and for free.

      It was a money sink since Google created it

    • HStone32@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They had a good thing going. YouTube was far from unprofitable. But the skyrocketing density and plummeting quality of ads drove people to adblockers.

      I suspect though, the day will soon come when ad-space is no longer quite so valuable.