Why Youtube-dl?

wrote:
On Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:34:24 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Mayayana wrote:

But now it's reversed: A page should be as broken
as possible unless the visitor yields to script and spying.
Sadly, it doesn't matter what you do on your end.

They just don't care.

The web page can break 20 different ways, and as
long as they can suck packets out of your browser
"proving" you saw a bogus ad impression, their job
is done. I can have floating junk attack an article
on three sides, leaving a tiny square where the content
is located.

The design intent, is to keep you interested for
long enough, so the ad impression registers. If
you "get out of there" fast enough, they don't
make any money off you.

I have developed ninja-like reflexes for that "X"
up in the corner. It's like Gunfight At The OK Corral.
"Draw, sucker!". You can practice shooting at the "X".

Paul

Since that "X" might really link to anything I wonder some times how
safe it is to click it.


I guess when they figure out a way to booby trap that,
that's when we'll know :-) The person who figures out a
way, will likely "end up rich". Think of the adventures
we'll have, and the places we'll see and visit. Wheee!

Paul

"Mayayana" on Mon, 2 Nov 2020 08:35:08 -0500
typed in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the following:
wrote

| I think they are mad because when you download a You Tube, you don't
| get the commercials.

Yes. For a long time I didn't even know that some of
them had ads. When I tried to watch some on a Raspberry
Pi using Firefox it wasn't worth the trouble. And since I
disable script, the youtube website is completely broken for
me normally. I see nothing. Yet only 2-3 years ago it worked
fine. (I'm still not sure how widespread ads are. There don't
seem to be ads in many things I'm interested in, such as
videos put out by academics, when I watch them on the
Pi with "civilian" browser configuration.)

But I think the
really insidious aspect of this is the attempt, which has been
going on for a long time, to train the public that the Internet
is a broadcast that they have no control over. It's like the
conversion of the town common to a shopping mall. Websites
are now private venues where you're supposed to buy stuff.

As they saying goes, if you are not paying for it, you are not the
customer. You are the product being sold to the customers (E.G.,
advertisers). It has always been such, even before The Web.

TANSTAAFL. GoFundMe works by taking a cut.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

"pyotr filipivich" wrote

| As they saying goes, if you are not paying for it, you are not the
| customer. You are the product being sold to the customers (E.G.,
| advertisers). It has always been such, even before The Web.
|
| TANSTAAFL. GoFundMe works by taking a cut.

Interestingly it seems to be mostly the "tech savvy"
young people who don't get that. At one point a young
woman I know was telling me cash is out and I should
use Square. I pointed out that they take a cut for
being a superfluous middleman. She was incredulous.
I think she just figured I was too old to talk sense.

There's a very naive kind of golden age mythology,
combined with consumerism and laziness. Uber isn't just
a union-busting exploiter of poor people. It's a socialist
solution. Apple wallet is a servant and lifestyle aid.
Square is how we bring the Jetsons to the 2020s.
AirBNB isn't a slummy, overpriced apartment rental
company. It's another socialist miracle, helping us to
share our digs with new friends.

Meanwhile, I had to buy
a new Tracfone and I'm trying to figure out how to use
it without Google. It's amazing to me that peoples' whole
lives are tracked and moderated by either Apple or
Google. And no one sees a problem with that.

On Mon, 02 Nov 2020 20:24:05 -0500, Paul
wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:34:24 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Mayayana wrote:

But now it's reversed: A page should be as broken
as possible unless the visitor yields to script and spying.
Sadly, it doesn't matter what you do on your end.

They just don't care.

The web page can break 20 different ways, and as
long as they can suck packets out of your browser
"proving" you saw a bogus ad impression, their job
is done. I can have floating junk attack an article
on three sides, leaving a tiny square where the content
is located.

The design intent, is to keep you interested for
long enough, so the ad impression registers. If
you "get out of there" fast enough, they don't
make any money off you.

I have developed ninja-like reflexes for that "X"
up in the corner. It's like Gunfight At The OK Corral.
"Draw, sucker!". You can practice shooting at the "X".

Paul

Since that "X" might really link to anything I wonder some times how
safe it is to click it.


I guess when they figure out a way to booby trap that,
that's when we'll know :-) The person who figures out a
way, will likely "end up rich". Think of the adventures
we'll have, and the places we'll see and visit. Wheee!

Paul

That little pop up window is just an HTML artifact and they can make
the "X" link to anything.

"Mayayana" on Tue, 3 Nov 2020 12:18:14 -0500
typed in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the following:
"pyotr filipivich" wrote

| As they saying goes, if you are not paying for it, you are not the
| customer. You are the product being sold to the customers (E.G.,
| advertisers). It has always been such, even before The Web.
|
| TANSTAAFL. GoFundMe works by taking a cut.

Interestingly it seems to be mostly the "tech savvy"
young people who don't get that. At one point a young
woman I know was telling me cash is out and I should
use Square. I pointed out that they take a cut for
being a superfluous middleman. She was incredulous.
I think she just figured I was too old to talk sense.

There's a very naive kind of golden age mythology,
combined with consumerism and laziness. Uber isn't just
a union-busting exploiter of poor people. It's a socialist
solution. Apple wallet is a servant and lifestyle aid.
Square is how we bring the Jetsons to the 2020s.
AirBNB isn't a slummy, overpriced apartment rental
company. It's another socialist miracle, helping us to
share our digs with new friends.

Meanwhile, I had to buy
a new Tracfone and I'm trying to figure out how to use
it without Google. It's amazing to me that peoples' whole
lives are tracked and moderated by either Apple or
Google. And no one sees a problem with that.

Just us old farts who want a phone, not an undersized computer
which also makes phone calls.

--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

"pyotr filipivich" wrote

| Meanwhile, I had to buy
| a new Tracfone and I'm trying to figure out how to use
| it without Google. It's amazing to me that peoples' whole
| lives are tracked and moderated by either Apple or
| Google. And no one sees a problem with that.
|
| Just us old farts who want a phone, not an undersized computer
| which also makes phone calls.

Apparently. Though there are lots and lots of old people
who also see no problem with it.

There seems to be a whole culture of hacking phones,
but I really don't want to spend all that time. As it's turned
out, I can't complain. I paid $30 for a Google slab computer.
I was able to disable most of Google and installed APKPure,
which is an open version of Google's store. So I managed to
get the thing set up without making a Google account. When
I have time I might look into ways to get all of the Google
crap off the phone. But it's not easy. It's their OS. Even
the duckduckgo browser I tried installing seems to be just
a Chrome wrapper. So I installed Firefox. That was a pleasant
surprise. uBlock Origin and NoScript. Then I installed a
satellite image program. Woops. Google again. And it won't
let me see satellite images unless I let it collect my location
data.

I needed the APKPure just to get the Tracfone app that
I need to use the phone. Without a Google account I couldn't
download the Tracfone app to my Tracfone phone! It seems
that Tracfone must have a deal with Google to make sure their
slab phones don't actually work until one walks the Google
gauntlet to get tatooed with the mark of the beast.

I'm still
not sure what APKPure is. It seems to be a sort of OSS app
installer to bypass Google. But their own site is a horrendous
mess of sleazy apps trying to trick me into installing them.