this is why i use ad blockers regardless. if they block the internet for me then it was never worth anything in the first place. basically like social media gas lighting and banning users for speaking political truth because it threatens their stock.
all the people that paid FOR youtube red or prenium, are all suddenly quiet now in the subs.
I have the premium lite or whatever. If a video is coded as a “music video”, they still have commercials.
Total bullshit. First, why is that a distinction? I should get commercial free regardless of the type of video.
Second, they consider a lot of normal videos to be “music videos”. Basically if there is a substantial amount of music, it’s a “music video”. This includes visualizations with generic music in the background.
Third, I’ve still gotten some ads on mobile for some reason. It’s crazy to me.
I had premium as part of a family plan with like 6-7 friends from 2017-2022 while I was basically ignorant of the enshitification, then when I got a secondhand pc I stopped paying since I had adblock. Had a few years of bliss and then the pc bricked up so I went back to premium for about six months and during that brief period it just got worse and worse so rapidly that I jumped ship. Very glad I did now. I pay for a nebula subscription which is nice to have for throwing up on the tv while I do stuff but it doesnt have a ton of content
If you have an android based tv or device, look into installing smarttube, it’s great
Is that something available on whatever the android app store is? And is it just a yt front end that blocks stuff?
You have to get the apk from their github page or website. But yeah it’s just a way better YouTube tv front-end, still let’s you sign in with a proper account so you still get all of your subscriptions and history and they’ll carry over to when you go to the standard YouTube website on another device. It has adblocking built in and you can even set up sponsorblock too.
Will I be able to make use of the interwebs to figure out installation on the tv fairly easily? I’m assuming it’s best to get it on a thumb drive off my pc?
Thumb drive is pretty easy yeah, i think you might need a file browser app to install it but you can get them on the play store. Or if you don’t want/can’t use a thumb drive you can use an app called send to tv, also on the play store.
I keep seeing this recommended and been meaning to give that a shot on my Sony TV.
Do you happen to know if it would let you retain “Google Cast” functionality? As in click the little cast icon in a YouTube video on my phone, and make it play on the TV without having to use the remote?It does, yeah! It’s got loads of customisability and quality of life features you can fine tune to exactly your liking as well. Highly recommend it
that’s sick, thank you, I’ll look into how to install apks on my TV later then! thanks!
There’s an app you can get in the play store called send to tv i think, allows you to send files if you don’t want to mess with external storage or are unable to
See an “No Ads” purchase on an Android game you actually like
Purchase it
“Congratulation, you received 10 ad skips”
Refund!
but isnt this kind deal is from like shitty mobile game? i remember when i play really shitty idle game, it have this deal XD
The game is called State.io (ignore the url-ification, it’s not a page)
A risk-type game (even tho I’ve never played original risk, it’s also about luck+strategy, numbers and claiming territory)
same developer as slither.io?
It’s Morphe ing time
Never stopped pirating gang, pop out.
I might be back to pirating soon if it gets bad enough that I can get my wife on board.
People are willing to pay for a good service. If paying becomes a worse experience than getting whatever you want for free, there’s no helping them.
how do u do it safely
VPN, Plex or Jellyfin servers shared with people you know
no one i know pirates
theyre either too busy/lazy/think piracy is bad
what vpn do you recommend?
even if you dont pirate, youtube with adblock gives you more than enough videos on a specifi show/movie, without having to actually watch it.
I seem to remember a lot of arguments when Netflix first introduced a cheaper-with-ads subscription that “not everyone can afford ad-free subscriptions” and that somehow it would make things better.
Ignoring the fact that the play was obviously to get the ad-subscription up to the current cost of ad-free subscription.
And now I think it’s Disney introducing ads to all subscriptions.
So, no doubt Netflix will do that soon in order to “innovate” the line-go-up.Netflix is my last bastion of legit media. I was only using Netflix for a number of years and reduced the amount of new media I downloaded to nothing.
I never bought into all the additional services that popped up after it, like Apple and Disney, and just reverted to downloading for the stuff that wasn’t available anymore.
I still pay for Netflix though. I pay for myself and my Mum as an additional account. I also pay for a friend from another country so I effectively have 2.5x subs to premium Netflix.
If they add ads, then I’m done with all the bullshit and will just download 100%.
I will never understand why Netflix or Spotify dont just chill out a little.
Netflix can’t possibly get any bigger. Its available on basically every device to basically every economically active human on the planet. Its big enough that its used as a description of any streaming service. “Its basically Netflix but for books/anime/games/whatever”.
At some point can you not just give it a rest? Or use the excess money to try and build a new business doing something else?
excess money
I don’t think they believe such a thing.
Spotify now has ads on Premium when listening to podcasts. It’s infuriating and frankly insulting. Podcasts are cheap as dirt to make compared to music.
I think I’ll cancel Spotify.
you should anyways, founder is heavily invested in robot warfare companies
Watch them implement ads om base subsvriptiom tier for non-ai generated music. I smell the way the winds are blowing
Pretty much where I am at.
Piracy is a service issue, I think Steam proves that.
If that service isn’t viable any longer, time to move onStreaming took away my pirate days.
It was easier to just pay the 30 bucks a month or whatever than to spend the 8-10 hours a month triaging and downloading.
This was 10 years ago that I turned off my plex server… and I’m looking to scrape her hull and refloat her
Look into Jellyfin instead of Plex if you’re stepping back into it. Plex took VC money and is absolutely enshittifing.
Jellyfin is a wholly FOSS alternative with near complete feature parity that costs nothing and is only getting better, not worse.
I have the lifetime pass for plex so I’d likely still use that since it gets the job done for streaming my local content AND has a solid appletv app
Issue a chargeback.
This kind of shenanigans are the exact benefit of credit cards. You’re no longer getting what the merchant sold you. You didn’t agree to this.
They will in all likelihood ban your credit card and terminate your account, but this harms them a fuck ton more than just cancelling.
Issue a chargeback.
Be careful with chargebacks on Google Play though. I hear Google don’t like chargebacks and they absolutely ghost you after permanently disabling your Google account if you do it.
Be evil :) their motto stronger than ever right now
I know for a fact Sony will. I hesistate to call it a chargeback, but my bank did a transaction reversal after they caught a double charge from PlayStation for a game. The rep on the phone called it a chargeback. This wasn’t a double click accident; the transactions were 10 hours apart and I was asleep for the second. They locked my account and refused to accept any evidence that this was a mistake on their part and everything was in the clear as to who owed who money. I had screenshots and communications with my bank, but there was no one to send it to. They told me to pay the amount, then we could clear it up. I told them I’m not paying $150 for one game.
I never got my account back and lost all of my digital titles. I’ve used it as a warning now that Sony is talking about killing off discs. They can and will cut you off whenever they feel like it and you have zero recourse. You don’t own any of it.
That calls for an escalation to small claims court.
Make ‘em fly an attorney in from Japan
I kinda doubt this would get your games back as I’m sure its in the TOS, but you can make them spend more money on a lawyer than them “losing” the $150
The TOS can include things that a judge refuses to honor. Even if you ultimately only have a digital copy of games, purchasing them still gives you reasonable expectation of continued access absent good cause to lock you out. Removing access without a good reason is then effectively false advertising.
Wish you could make a charge back for the full value of your account. If they can remove something you bought, you should get your money back in full. Fucking parasites. Sony is shit.
Some people would get so many money back lol, i know some people who prolly have HUNDRED of euros on steam games some eve thousand
Yet another reason why antitrust law is important. The same entity shouldn’t be able to shut off your email because you had a dispute over an entirely separate product.
That’s completely unnecessary. You can refund your purchase directly.
Chargebacks should only be used if the merchant refuses to make it right.
I’m so glad this hasn’t been an issue in my life for the last 20ish years.
When I stay in a hotel now I get legitimately offended by commercials. I actually find them offensive.
Same, I stop watching anything with a commercial outside of Golf. Which is background viewing anyway, simultaneously inundated with commercials, the irony isnt lost here, but I like golf and it’s the only time I can handle it.
Ive also started reading novels again, just mentally preparing for the inevitable break away from all streaming/reinvented cable bundling bullshit. Video games aren’t far behind either which is my true last bastion
The commercials are free dude
So stop paying them. It really is that easy.
Probably a one time purchase typically between 5$ to 10$
Today in why is pirating get popular again, we see all steaming platforms add ads to all paid subscriptions.
When I signed up for Disney they didn’t have any ads, that’s why I signed up. Now looking at if I should cancel my account, but I know my kids would rebel
I mean they’re counting on parents to capitulate to the demands of their children for this not to be a financial mistake on their end.
Tell your kids to pay for it.
Had that last year, after switching to a new phone.
The document scanning app I had payed for suddenly displayed ads.
I had a look into it, and it turned out, that the company just stopped updating their existing app at some point and instead released a new one under the same name.If you still have that phone you could try to extract the APK using some app
I went another way. Had a look and by now there is an open source alternative in the f-droid store available.
I prefer that anyway because… reasons…
First choice: open source, second choice if OSS not available: paid app.
Likewise when you download a free app whose ad explicitly says, “No ads!” and it does, in fact, have ads.
