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Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

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Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#311

Post by Atlas667 »

squigz wrote: post #246
Atlas667 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried adding rules to ublock origin but sites like youtube and many others now have "component obfuscation". Meaning there is no unique ID on their components/elements and it makes it much harder to target. And some element titles/names are even on a different component than the content, which is even harder still. So it says "reels" on one component and the actual reels are on another. Blocking now has to be a…

What are you not able to block on YouTube? I've had all ads, shorts, those games, etc blocked successfully for years.

Usually selecting is something like .class.subclass:nth-child(4).

Which will sometimes block what you want, but not always since they switch their layout so much.

You need conditions.

Its really finnicky to get right and I usually want to block views on cards, recommended tabs, trending and I have to redo it every 2 or 3 weeks.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#313

Post by sjw987 »

mieubrisse wrote: post #145
coffeecoders wrote: post #63

This is one of those things that should be unnecessary if we all had perfect self-control, but the reality is these apps are engineered explicitly to bypass that. It feels a bit silly to need guardrails for something as trivial as scrolling. Shameless personal plug: I wrote about it here. https://nabraj.com/blog/swipe-scroll-repeat-addiction/

I had an epiphany that faulting myself, and my self-control, is exactly what these sites want you to do. "Oh, it's just your bad self-discipline" No, this is full-on war for control of your mind. And the adversary spends millions to hire teams of the world's best psychologists and engineers to deploy technology that never sleeps with the sole purpose of grabbing and keeping your attention. Once I realized this, I sta…

Self controlling your screen use and media consumption is entirely within your remit.

Companies have no power to force you to use their products/services, and despite the millions they spend trying to hook you, you always have the option to simply stop using their product/service, delete their app and/or stop visiting their website.

You don't have systemic failures in your psychological defense system. We are adaptable creatures.

Using technology to protect us from more technology works right up until the prior technology fails, the latter technology adapts, or you lower your guard and fall back into old routines. Like many things in life, such as eating healthily, exercising regularly, managing finances and relationships well, you need to assess the situation you're in, note the advantages and disadvantages it gives you, assess a plan for action to use it for the good parts only, and stick to it.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#314

Post by sjw987 »

Oceoss wrote: post #278

"focus on blocking the app itself instead of the addictive feed" " the "healthy" and "social" features" maannn, this totally resonates with me, I totally agree and I always thought about this too social media/instagram has positive parts (connect with friends) and extremely negative parts (reels) I will try that

I'm curious. I don't use social media and am very extroverted. All of the communication, including sharing media, I do through WhatsApp (because it's most popular and widespread) or Signal (preferred).

Does Instagram have any advantage in communication or media sharing over standard widely adopted messaging (and group messaging) apps?

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#315

Post by rkomorn »

sjw987 wrote: post #313
mieubrisse wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an epiphany that faulting myself, and my self-control, is exactly what these sites want you to do. "Oh, it's just your bad self-discipline" No, this is full-on war for control of your mind. And the adversary spends millions to hire teams of the world's best psychologists and engineers to deploy technology that never sleeps with the sole purpose of grabbing and keeping your attention. Once I realized this, I sta…

Self controlling your screen use and media consumption is entirely within your remit. Companies have no power to force you to use their products/services, and despite the millions they spend trying to hook you, you always have the option to simply stop using their product/service, delete their app and/or stop visiting their website. You don't have systemic failures in your psychological defense system. We are adaptab…

I think personal accountability is good and all but I don't think we should ignore the endless efforts made by corporations to optimize every single interaction you have with them to maximize the value you provide them.

I don't think we should have a society that demands constant personal accountability in order to not get suckered by marketing, SEO, algorithmic feed optimization, etc.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#316

Post by K0balt »

rcfox wrote: post #303
cj wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He means in real life. You’re at a bar. You meet someone. They ask for your insta username to follow/message you. Making friends and meeting people is hard enough for most people. The added friction of not being reachable on the platforms people use every day for messaging isn’t ideal. It’s not ideal to say “Sorry, I’m philosophically against social media so I can’t give you a username, you’ll have to text me” - and…

But why not just email?

For me, email has become a cesspool of garbage. It’s like receiving letters in a dumpster parked in front of your house that the whole neighborhood dumps their trash into.

I loved email. It was perfect. Now, for me, it’s basically unusable. I can unsubscribe from ten garbage subscriptions a day, and it doesn’t even make a dent.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#317

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #248
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so real man. I was a massive push in pushing everyone to use signal but I could only convince 2-3 of my friends and literally now there is only 1 single friend of mine who is on signal.. Whereas on insta dm, literally all of my friends are there, mostly 24x7 active. I just used bleeper to sometimes interact with them. I think it made my mental health definitely more saner/net gain I care about my privacy enou…

If your friends can’t install a free app and type in their phone number and an auth code (literally takes 30 seconds) to talk to you privately, they aren’t your friends. (I have no other messengers and have recruited about a hundred people to use Signal, including much of the Vegas cash game poker scene.) Quality over quantity is important always, but is of utmost importance when it comes to personal associations. De…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#318

Post by rcfox »

alsetmusic wrote: post #308
rcfox wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why not just email?

This question feels out of touch and I'm in my mid-forties. Yesterday, I saw a couple moving musical equipment into my building and asked who was the musician. The person said I could find them on Insta. I had hoped they'd be on Soundcloud, as I'm a musician and post my music there. Insta is what a lot of young people use. Before the pan, someone I matched with on a dating app rejected me when I told them I don't hav…

I welcome being out of touch. The current trends seem ridiculous to me.

There's no practical difference between sending a message via Instagram vs via email. It's all just marketing. You probably can't even get an Instagram account without first getting an email account.

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#319

Post by charlie-83 »

vel0city wrote: post #282
charlie-83 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you have to choose between not talking to someone and talking to them on such a platform. For friends, sure, just says that you want to switch to something e2e. But for people you don't really know that well it's kind of unreasonable to expect them to switch for you. LinkedIn is a good example, I don't like using the platform but I also have no interest in adding loads of random old colleages I might talk t…

> it's kind of unreasonable to expect them to switch for you And yet they expect you to switch for them?

I guess there is a difference between expect and assume. It would be weird for me to assume that the vast majority of people care deeply about digital privacy when clearly that's not true. Its pretty reasonable for them to assume I have Instagram or whatever when the vast majority of people do.

From their perspective, they assume I already have an Instagram account and if I say I don't then they aren't really going to understand why I wouldn't want to make one. For someone who isn't well informed on issues of digital privacy, I think this is a reasonable way to behave. From their perspective, someone demanding they download and use some random app they haven't heard of for reasons about encryption they don't understand is not reasonable.

Of course it is very worthwhile trying to educate people on issues of digital privacy. If you are able to educate them, then they will see that you perpective is reasonable. However, you aren't going to change everyone's minds

Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels

#320

Post by djmips »

I tried this for a while because I specifically wanted it for YouTube. However, I relized that I want to not see shorts at all! So while it did prevent shorts from playing it was a bad experience. Like getting your hand swatted when your reach for the donut instead of the donuts just not being there at all.
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