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FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

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Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#211

Post by lrvick »

jsnell wrote: post #200
lrvick wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could pay creators directly and anonymously with only money and not my data and viewing habits and agreeing to let random third parties try to manipulate me, I would. For now the only creators I can support with privacy are on LBRY.

"If the grocery store allowed me to pay via gold bullion, I would pay rather than shoplift." I'm sympathetic to "I would pay for this if I could" argumentation when it comes to digital goods. But at some point the conditions you're setting become so unreasonable that nobody can reasonably fulfill them, and it becomes clear you're only doing it to get free stuff and stiff the creators. You don't want to see ads? YT al…

You talk as though a refusal to compromise privacy is unreasonable. We all need privacy to protect ourselves and each other.

What happens when your searches for a medical condition are sold to your insurance company? Or when your political searches are used to inform new gerrymandering lines? Or when an anti-choice state gives Google a warrant demanding the identity of everyone who has made searches for abortion information? What about someone in China or Russia searching for content that casts their government in a negative light?

Laws change and politicians change. History has taught us over and over that centralized personal data will always eventually end up in the hands of those who will weaponize it.

Those of us with influence in technology must demand privacy. Privacy is not negotiable. Content hosts will either offer privacy or continue to see tool after tool emerge to make it easy for people to circumvent their surveillance capitalism models.

LBRY/Odysee has already proven it is totally possible to support video creators online without with anonymous microtransactions.

I have hope more creators sick of ads and censorship will mirror their content to privacy preserving systems that allow direct monetization.

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#212

Post by jsjohnst »

MR4D wrote: post #59
n4bz0r wrote: post #53

People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had a better profile of my preferences. Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possi…

I think you might not be understanding the context of the argument. Google has tons of information on you - way more than it needs, and yet it still doesn’t get recommendations as good as we expect (as you rightly point out). So the issue is that it has tons of extra data than they need because it * doesn’t make their recommendation any better.* Gathering data for the sake of gathering data in todays world of informa…

> For instance, my IP changes when I travel, but I’m an American who speaks English, and yet YouTube insists in showing me local ads in different languages when I’m in foreign countries

I have no direct access to confirm this, but I have a theory as to why it happens. It’s a combination of greed and various ad buying semi-broken options.

1. Google shows ads which earn them the most money. “Relevance” only plays out in the mapping phase of finding advertisers who are willing to show their ad to your target group. The reducing phase is essentially just sorting by bid and selecting the top ones.

2. For many English speaking ad buys, I’ll bet there is an option that was checked to restrict which countries it’s shown too for the highest bids (maybe they have a separate campaign for RoW with a low bid, but doubtful). Advertisers have learned about ad fraud at least to some degree, so checking this box seems good to them.

3. Local advertisers in X foreign country aren’t given an option for “exclude English speakers here on holiday” and even if they did, some won’t click it and so there will still be some low bidding ad to fill the slot.

If it was about real relevancy to you and not “who will pay the most given this bucket of basic attributes”, folks like me would probably hate advertising less. The problem is it’s not and in a capitalist world I’m not sure it’ll ever change.

The same holds true for product recommendations, it’s my personal belief that on say Amazon, if a product is recommended for me, it’s because either the seller paid for the recommendation or it’s the highest margin item that fits my vagueish buying patterns. It’s not about real relevance there either, it’s “you brushed into this weird vẹn diagram overlap” and “now we can make money showing it to you.”

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#213

Post by jsjohnst »

n4bz0r wrote: post #53

People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had a better profile of my preferences. Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possi…

> Where do I opt-in for more tracking?

Sadly, broken fallacy. More tracking wouldn’t lead to better recommendations. I already wrote a reply to a child comment, but wanted to say same applies here. YouTube isn’t about “showing you videos endlessly”, it’s about “endlessly monetizing you watching videos”. The recommendations are geared around them primarily making more money, not around your enjoyment (which is a distant priority, just enough to keep you as a willing product to be sold).

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#214

Post by u8080 »

judge2020 wrote: post #115
cuttysnark wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP addresses are frequently kept and stored to show users their active sessions. Are you sincerely doubting that a company like Google doesn't or can't use this information in other ways that support their core business? You don't have to call it "tracking", but I can't think of a better name.

What is a scenario where this actually happens, though? Imagine two people live in the same residence. One is extremely privacy conscious, doesn’t even have a Google account, and the other doesn’t even run an ad blocker. Both have the same phones on the same OS version, and for sake of argument, both are on the same ipv4. Does this mean that, if the privacy conscious person opens a private browsing session on their p…

I've seen some ads related to my colleague's search queries at work in incognito mode.

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#215

Post by andsoitis »

jsjohnst wrote: post #213
n4bz0r wrote: post #53

People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had a better profile of my preferences. Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possi…

> Where do I opt-in for more tracking? Sadly, broken fallacy. More tracking wouldn’t lead to better recommendations. I already wrote a reply to a child comment, but wanted to say same applies here. YouTube isn’t about “showing you videos endlessly”, it’s about “endlessly monetizing you watching videos”. The recommendations are geared around them primarily making more money, not around your enjoyment (which is a dista…

Building on your logic… if they want to make more money, wouldn’t they then be incentivized to get you to stay with YouTube by giving you something better to watch than the competition? Or better and better videos so you prolong your current session?

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#216

Post by andsoitis »

Eleison23 wrote: post #119
n4bz0r wrote: post #53

People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had a better profile of my preferences. Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possi…

YouTube's recommendations aren't based on what you want to see the most, they're based on what will earn the most money through engagement. You're going to see recommendations for monetized channels, channels that have long ads on them, and channels that you are likely to comment/like/subscribe. It has very little to do with discerning your tastes and more to do with extracting value out of your time spent in the app…

> channels that you are likely to comment/like/subscribe.

That seems to contradict your thesis “aren’t based on what you want to see the most”

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#218

Post by Sakos »

n4bz0r wrote: post #53

People here talking about how they don't want YouTube to make a profile of their preferences, and here I am, wishing YouTube had a better profile of my preferences. Lately, there is almost no new videos in my recommendation feed. It's mostly either the things I've already watched or new videos from the channels I'm already subscribed to. It really feels like I've exhausted the internet at some point. This can't possi…

I would pay for a third-party service that automatically generated good recommendations based on my watch history and interests.

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#219

Post by lvass »

lszyba1 wrote: post #116
lvass wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is boob tube 2.0 really better than the original yet? It seemingly can't even stop showing bizarre things to children, recommending good content seems very far away. It's probably not even their business interest if you adblock.

@ivass would you kind msg me, I wanted to ask you something, but there is no connection info on your profile. twitter.com/lucasmanual or email on my profile.

Thanks for pointing that out, my profile has an email now. Sent you a message via your website's form.

Re: FreeTube – A Private YouTube Client

#220

Post by Eleison23 »

andsoitis wrote: post #216
Eleison23 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube's recommendations aren't based on what you want to see the most, they're based on what will earn the most money through engagement. You're going to see recommendations for monetized channels, channels that have long ads on them, and channels that you are likely to comment/like/subscribe. It has very little to do with discerning your tastes and more to do with extracting value out of your time spent in the app…

> channels that you are likely to comment/like/subscribe. That seems to contradict your thesis “aren’t based on what you want to see the most”

Not really - if I hated a video or wanted to gouge out my eyeballs after seeing it, I am likely to "dislike" it or comment with an angry rant. That's also engagement and that's what social media wants, not stuff I enjoy, stuff I engage with.
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