this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Google could kill YouTube Vanced for good::The company is exploring an integrity API that could lock down WebViews with DRM

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[–] bstix@feddit.dk 131 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's a waste of time. People who bother installing Vanced are not likely to click a single god damn ad even if it's forced on them.

So yes, Google can choose to bother some people and get higher statistics on ad views, but the companies paying for the ad will not see one single fucking sale more. This lowers the value of the ad.

They're chasing imaginary revenue.

The value of exposure isn't real either. The phone might play it but I don't fucking watch something that I don't want to watch. I've been online since before online ads were a thing and not once have I bought anything from any online ads.

Just let me opt out of that circus for fuck sake.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don't understand this toxic level of optimism found on this platform. if they do client integrity checks, nobody will be able to use an ad blocker. you will have to use an approved YouTube client. it will result in higher ad revenue to Google.

all of these folks who are using revanced will watch annoying ads repeating a thousand times over and the content of the ad will be stuck in their brains exactly as intended. the companies that pay for the ads don't care if you think you are immune to propaganda. they want you to watch.

what part of this is imaginary?

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

companies that pay for the ads don't care if you think you are immune to propaganda. they want you to watch.

They don't pay for ads just to waste my time. They buy ads to sell products.

Forced advertising does not work on the kind of people who already do everything they can not to watch ads.

if you think you are immune

I'm literally not watching my phone if YouTube or other stream goes into ad mode. I do not see the ad.

The imaginary part is that Google gets paid just as much for showing ads that don't work as they do for showing ads that do work.

Forced advertising is good for Google. It's not good for the users nor the companies who pay Google.

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The majority of ads are toxic on a medical need level for me. I’d sooner build an ai to prewatch and live record videos. Cutting out the cursed segment.’

Not all ads are cost per click, many are priced by impression, and that traffic to Vance’s costs money.

So they would make more money blocking Vance, but the impressions from Vance’s users are likely the seething “I’ll never buy from you for making me watch this ad” type.

[–] phillaholic@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If you aren’t paying them for Premium, or viewing their ads, you’re literally costing them money. They’d rather stop you from even consuming the bandwidth.

[–] Player2@sopuli.xyz 36 points 1 year ago (4 children)

On the other hand, they are spending real money on development time to fight against an army of independents doing it for fun or personal satisfaction. That's throwing money into a hole they can never fill up

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, as someone in ops in another industry I would just chaulk this up to the cost of doing business, cut my losses, and move on. I can’t imagine most people are using ad blockers.

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[–] bstix@feddit.dk 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, that part is working really well. I've been using YouTube less and less every time they've worsened the free service. I don't even bother with the revanced loopholes, I'll just don't use YouTube to find stuff. Most of the content is made for monetisation purposes anyway.

I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, or that I don't understand why. It's just a prime example of the internet going to shit.

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[–] bitwaba@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you give thumbs ups and add comments, you're still providing user generated content that increases the value of the content you watched, so they're still getting something out of it. Your contributions could go on to drive someone else to watch the video which could end up seeing the ad you blocked.

It's a question of what that value is that you've provided to the service. It's the same question Reddit will be finding out the answers to over the next couple months.

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[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Does it really cost them? If we take it to the extreme and say everyone collectively decided to stop costing them money by watching their content for free, what would that do to the value of their platform?

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[–] not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No matter what, people will always find a way to mod the apps they really want to have free.

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's definitely a danger if attestation becomes widespread enough that they can require it.

Not a danger of being unable to mod the apps, but they will be able to restrict access to their servers to the official unmodified app, when it's running on specific trusted operating systems.

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[–] AnarchoDakosaurus@toast.ooo 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yup. I remeber the girls at school listening to bootlegged YouTube videos from shitty rip off apps from the appstore lol. Before revanced, there was vanced, after revanced, a new Phoenix will emerge. The people will it.

[–] Butterpaderp@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Electric boogaloo

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 7 points 1 year ago

Reeeeeeeeeeevanced

[–] key@lemmy.keychat.org 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remeber the girls at school listening to bootlegged YouTube videos from shitty rip off apps from the appstore

That could have been yesterday or like 15 years ago

[–] AnarchoDakosaurus@toast.ooo 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haha fair enough. For what its worth they had iPhone 4's and Ipod touches. It was close to a decade ago then it was to yesterday.

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Imagine going to school when people had access to smart phones. Fuck I feel sorry for you younglings

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[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is just the mini version of what they tried to do in Chrome. Since you don't have to use the built in webview it's meaningless.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Apps can easily be redesigned with some kind of webview integration, and some apps already do have random things that bring up webview, and thia would kill them on a rooted device.

The inherent issue here is they're arguing this will help prevent fraud, but they're not looking for fraud. They're looking for an altered device and assuming fraud.

[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I nuked a food app recently because instead of opening so I could give them money in exchange for food they decided to police my phone for PCAPdroid by way of refusing to run beyond showing a message stating that I can't have PCAPdroid installed and closing after a 5 second timeout.

Fuck you, Papa Murphy's. What's your app doing that you're afraid I'll be able to see? You're blacklisted for life now.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why would someone download a fast food app in the first place, I’d pay to NOT have that on my phone lawl

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[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

What I meant though was you aren't necessarily stuck using Google's webview, though they make it non-trivial to jailbreak from theirs.

https://github.com/bromite/bromite/wiki/Installing-SystemWebView

[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Of course they would, the bastards. I'm assuming that would also affect newpipe and freetube too?

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At first I thought so too, but I believe those might still work as long as the attestation feature doesn't end up in browsers. Those applications likely can still pretend to be web user.

ReVanced is special because it patches original YouTube. So if the original YouTube would start doing this kind of verification, after being patched it would stop working. To fix it the whole playback code would have to be replaced, but at that point why not use NewPipe or GrayJay.

BTW: Google is doing that because it has monopoly in that market. They similarly have monoly with browser market. Still after uproar they backed off. We really should try to break it and apps that support multiple platforms (like mentioned NewPipe and GrayJay are probably the best way to dethrone them)

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[–] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

I'm making good use of yt-dlp while I still can

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surely as long as there's a way to access YouTube on devices without attestation, this won't kill anything.

[–] alvvayson@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Indeed. And if they decide to brick or degrade all legacy apps, people will just transcode and torrent.

Information wants to be free, and millions of people have the skills to make it happen.

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[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone confirm whether YouTube ReVanced really uses WebView?

[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's the official app apk with some mods. So probably not.

[–] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In that case the premise of the entire article is wrong then.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Google can redesign the official app and kill functionality to the previous version.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I don't think it matters. ReVanced patches original YouTube so it will use whatever YouTube is using. Even if current YouTube app doesn't use WebView that's nothing stopping them from adding it in the future.

If I'm reading article right, Google supposedly "discontinued" the attestation technology in Chrome, because of the shit storm, but looks like they are thinking of adding it to Android and use it to verify the devices and applications are genuine. The YouTube server for example might refuse to serve the video if the application is not genuine.

[–] NumerousGeorg@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

I don't understand why YouTube doesn't use the stupid blob video format (I don't know the technical details, maybe it's about drm protection) already. It almost makes it impossible to view a video in something other than the player it came with and I don't like that.

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