Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.::YouTube’s dramatic content gatekeeping decisions of late have a long history behind them, and there’s an equally long history of these defenses being bypassed.
It will happen eventually. These kinds of adversarial arrangements between parties are inherently unstable. The enshittification cycle only ends when a site properly collapses. If you think they couldn’t get shittier, give it time. They’ll find a way.
All we need is for a good alternative to become more viable and for the site to have a few more exodus events and it’ll lose its critical mass. Ultimately I think most platforms are going to have to become federated, it’s the only way to avoid enshittification and still grow the network. Growing the network is important because it is the size of youtube and other centralised sites’ networks that gives them their stability and utility. It’s the network effect.
This is where the biggest challenge lies. Doing what YouTube does is not easy. I don’t think anyone could do it all. So it would have to be picking a choosing. Can anyone upload hours/days/years worth of video content? Are the people who put up those videos able to get paid without having to create their own relationships with advertisers or asking for viewer donations? How are copyright violations handled? Or more sinister video content?