Google could kill YouTube Vanced for good::The company is exploring an integrity API that could lock down WebViews with DRM

  • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Wow, this article is just like 100% wrong. I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet.

    To get why this could be a problem for YouTube Vanced’s successors, we need to understand how they work. Rather than modding the YouTube app itself, Vanced apps are essentially tweaked and modded browsers that display videos via a WebView that shows YouTube, adding extra features to the experience like adblock and other YouTube Premium perks. If YouTube was able to check which apps or devices are trying to access its servers before displaying content, this would be an easy route to stop Vanced successors from working.

    The YouTube-app, and Revanced in turn, does not utilize a WebView to display video. They are most certainly not ‘modded browsers’.

    Seriously, who wrote this shit? An AI? It’s baffling.

      • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        To play video, the YouTube app does API calls directly to the YouTube API instead of loading any web code, then gets a reference to the media to play back and plays it back in a native media playback SDK.

        Revanced does their stuff the way they do by manipulating the bytecode that the YouTube app consists of, to add/remove things.

    • FrostKing@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’m surprised no one had mentioned this yet

      It’s because there’s an annoying trend of everyone reading the headline and not the article. Drives me bonkers

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Headline: “THING IS HAPPENING”

        Body: “Here’s 1000 words unrelated to the headline. Here’s some ads. Here’s interviews with three people saying nothing of interest. Here’s the thing you clicked under the headline for and it adds a bit of nuance to the headline along with a bunch of waffling and uncertainty. Here’s a pointless anecdote. More ads! Here’s a recipe for chicken wings and a bunch of pictures of celebrities. Oops! Article ended a full screen ago. Nothing down here but clickbait and more ads.”

        Gee, I wonder why people just take the headline at face value.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
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      11 months ago

      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
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      11 months ago

      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
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        11 months ago

        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

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        11 months ago

        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.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        11 months ago

        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?

        • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Yes, Bandwidth, servers, storage are all expensive. If everyone stopped paying or seeing ads they’d kill the product and you’d have nothing. There is no viable replacement for YouTube. Most channels would cease to exist. Only the larger ones would be able to afford to figure out how to keep going. The ladder would be pulled up for any small or new creator looking to break in.

          • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            11 months ago

            It would suck but things would go on. I’m sure other places like tiktok would salivate at the idea of a YouTube exodus. Also there’s other platforms that would gladly have, at least, subsections of YouTube. Plenty of other places to post your gaming videos.

            • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Letting TikTok win is not good. Unless something has changed, they pay shit to creators too.

  • Corngood@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

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

  • NumG@sopuli.xyz
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    11 months 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.