Google's anti-ad scripts are breaking browsers and privacy plugins. It could get worse because Google controls the ad market, Chrome, and the extension store.

Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.

This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.

This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.

  • @RambomstEnglish
    53•1 year ago

    I just got an email from YouTube, my premium price is going up by almost double…

    • @[email protected]English
      20•1 year ago

      Same. It is no longer worth it, I’ll be sad to lose my music streaming, but there are other pathways that some may consider unethical.

        • Final RemixEnglish
          4•1 year ago

          That’s getting harder though, at least in my experience. Circa 2010, it was music and shit everywhere. Now it’s slimmer pickin’s, it seems.

          • @[email protected]English
            2•1 year ago

            I’ve tried torrents but those seemed to all be dead ends, i found another website that uses some backdoor from a streaming service and the file info is actually correct but you get songs 1 by 1. Which takes a lot of time.

          • KeithEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            If you just want YTM for free there’s beatbump on web and Innertune or ViMusic on android

      • @[email protected]English
        1•1 year ago

        If only there was a place to buy DRM free music in the file type I want for use in whatever device I want also for movies.

    • @[email protected]English
      10•1 year ago

      If you subscribe to premium using an Indian IP address, for example, you’ll get it for like a buck a month

      • @lemming741English
        7•1 year ago

        I did that for a month from Argentina, then Visa stopped working. I started a personal invidious instance and haven’t looked back.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•1 year ago

          a bit off topic but when you say personal instance where is it hosted? And if it is strictly personal, doesn’t google create the same profile for you which will be assigned in your IP if it is hosted in your house, or in your VPS’s IP if hosted elsewhere?

    • KaryoplasmaEnglish
      4•1 year ago

      YouTube Music is no longer optional. It’s now bundled into the basic features of Premium and Google uses that to justify the insane price hike. Their argument is that it’s cheaper than before for the dozen-or-so people that had subscribed to both YT Music and Premium. All others now “save” on the YT Music subscription, the fact that nobody saves anything by paying for a service they don’t need is completely lost on them. Just corporate greed and pushing the monopoly a bit further, nothing to see here.