7 ms·

I really like everything related to network-wide blocking of shitty online services that are enforced on us ! On top of blocking adds (which is great), I wish

by abricq 1y ago

I really like everything related to network-wide blocking of shitty online services that are enforced on us ! On top of blocking adds (which is great), I wish there were more / easier ways to do network-wide blocking of all sorts of aggressive infinite scrolling (in my case : youtube shorts and instagram reels). I often like to go on instagram to see posts / stories from the people I follow and I don't want to be suggested stupid videos that are especially designed to catch my attention. I know it's probably revealing a lack of strength on my side, but yeah, I often fall for watching a few of them and loosing 15 minutes of my life.

arnvidr 1y ago
Hit that "For you" at the top and select the "Following" feed. Only the posts from the people you follow, no suggested posts, no ads.
- rwmj 1y ago
  Until the company decides to unilaterally reenable that setting to "help you get more from their service".
- david_arcos 1y ago
  That's not persistent :(
- bossyTeacher 1y ago
  can't find that button
soraminazuki 1y ago
YouTube still provides RSS feeds for individual channels. Combine that with mpv's yt-dlp integration and you can avoid the official web frontend altogether. I don't know how long it's going to last though, with the current trend of rug pulls and enshittification.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  Pretty sure it's only gonna get deleted if either a) enough people use it so that a MBAs notice or b) the way it's accessing the data blocks a feature that an MBA wants
- desdenova 1y ago
  Or just use a localhost invidious instance.
- rwmj 1y ago
  Youtube have been gradually cracking down on yt-dlp by blocking IPs that download (presumably without watching the adverts, or some other method to fingerprint it). Currently it's mostly annoying as I have to rotate through IPs every few days. But I imagine it'll get worse and worse until I stop watching youtube.
  - account42 1y ago
    I've been using the same IP for ages and never had problems with yt-dlp as a whole - it's always just some specific videos where it won't work.
rfgil 1y ago
This has worked great for me to prevent the infinite scrolling on instagram: https://www.distractionfreeapps.com/index.html https://www.distractionfreeapps.com/index.html
- aembleton 1y ago
  I'm not going to trust that until its on F-Droid.
mtsr 1y ago
I feel this, particularly as a parent. It's difficulty watching your kids get lost in the algorithm. We regularly discuss this with them and they agree with our perceived harm, but it's just too difficult to resist. Heck, even I get lured into (doom)scrolling every now and then. I've setup ad-filtering using pihole, where possible, but I'd prefer not to block youtube as a whole. But I'm definitely considering that in the future, to protect my family.
- freehorse 1y ago
  Imo the best thing that can work is introducing delays to the loading of videos, increasing as time goes by. Youtube introduced sth like this to me, when they were presumable trying "punishing" users with adblockers, and it worked as a charm to get me disengage from the youtube rabithole. A lot of such addiction dynamics work based on how fast getting the reward is, and these interuptions disturb this.
wffurr 1y ago
Delete the app, use the webpage, and use a browser that allows user scripts. I found a good one that turns an Instagram page into just an image tag so you can just see the picture: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5014-un-instagram https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5014-un-instagram
- andrepd 1y ago
  It's 11 years old, I'm impressed that it even works.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  Wouldn't risk trying to extract from IG too much, I used to yt-dlp from it a lot and use scripts to extract the images because I like to archive references, nothing on a massive scale we're talking <20 times a month and I got a warning that I could lose my username if I "use automated scraping tools".
  - tecleandor 1y ago
    Oh! Were you using your user cookie? I use yt-dlp a couple times a month, but I think I'm always unauthenticated (although I guess they could match my IP address in their logs)
    - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
      I think the urls might be specific to your session in some cases. I’ve noticed some old IG posts I’ve put in bookmarking services say they’re expired. So passing to yt-dlp would be traceable back to me in that case. Definitely wasn’t cookies that’s what surprised me.
      - tecleandor 1y ago
        Ah OK, I was thinking about youtube, I re-read it and saw noticed you were talking IG. Yeah, I've noticed some IG URLs are suspicious: different from other users or opening related info that it shouldn't be there.
zimpenfish 1y ago
> I often fall for watching a few of them and loosing 15 minutes of my life. If you're on iOS, set a time limit (Settings → Screen Time → App Limits → Instagram). Doesn't stop the initial scrolling but the "you've run out of time" pop-up is a good breakpoint. You can bypass it and give yourself another 15 minutes but making that choice is also a good breakpoint / reinforcement.
duxup 1y ago
> that are enforced on us ! You don’t have to use them and you could pay for them. The users of the internet have made their call and they often don’t want to pay, so someone does. As a whole the users of the internet are not rewarding anyone for NOT showing ads. We want our content and we want if for free generally.
- Jgrubb 1y ago
  Every one of the streaming services that I paid extra to go ad free decided to push ads anyway.
  - duxup 1y ago
    And they got their subscriber still I guess…. As users of these services as a whole we reward this kinda thing and then are upset when it happens again. I don’t like any of this situation but I also think the user’s choices incentivize it.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Which choice could they have made differently here? They took the "pay for it" option that you suggested and then you still blamed them for giving the company negative incentives.
    - rchaud 1y ago
      They didn't though. Every single streaming service bar Netflix loses money. On top of that, they've all poisoned the well by creating as many subscription tiers as Dell has laptop SKUs and raising the price every 9 months so nobody knows what the service should cost. This ensures that people start and stop subscriptions just to watch a single series, instead of sticking with a single service all year.
      - friendzis 1y ago
        So it appears paying entrenched IP-hoarding organizations majority of your income further incentivizing their entrenchment is not the best business practice for a middlemen
fumeux_fume 1y ago
> I know it's probably revealing a lack of strength on my side... I think these tactics exploit our natural sense of curiosity and the aesthetics that surround it. So I don't think it's so much a lack of strength, but more of a jadedness we have build up and I think that's pretty bad. I respect the effort and creativity it takes to fight back and make the platform work for us instead of vice versa.
gosub100 1y ago
I wish they simply had a way to disable shorts. People have been clamoring for that option but yt ignores them because they know how addictive they are. I can't think of a more illustrative example of a conflict of interest and the contrast between the early days of computing that were driven by user demand.

by abricq 1y ago

arnvidr 1y ago

Hit that "For you" at the top and select the "Following" feed. Only the posts from the people you follow, no suggested posts, no ads.

rwmj 1y ago
Until the company decides to unilaterally reenable that setting to "help you get more from their service".
david_arcos 1y ago
That's not persistent :(
bossyTeacher 1y ago
can't find that button

soraminazuki 1y ago

YouTube still provides RSS feeds for individual channels. Combine that with mpv's yt-dlp integration and you can avoid the official web frontend altogether. I don't know how long it's going to last though, with the current trend of rug pulls and enshittification.

ffsm8 1y ago
Pretty sure it's only gonna get deleted if either a) enough people use it so that a MBAs notice or b) the way it's accessing the data blocks a feature that an MBA wants
desdenova 1y ago
Or just use a localhost invidious instance.
rwmj 1y ago
Youtube have been gradually cracking down on yt-dlp by blocking IPs that download (presumably without watching the adverts, or some other method to fingerprint it). Currently it's mostly annoying as I have to rotate through IPs every few days. But I imagine it'll get worse and worse until I stop watching youtube.
- account42 1y ago
  I've been using the same IP for ages and never had problems with yt-dlp as a whole - it's always just some specific videos where it won't work.

rfgil 1y ago

This has worked great for me to prevent the infinite scrolling on instagram: https://www.distractionfreeapps.com/index.html https://www.distractionfreeapps.com/index.html

aembleton 1y ago
I'm not going to trust that until its on F-Droid.

mtsr 1y ago

I feel this, particularly as a parent. It's difficulty watching your kids get lost in the algorithm. We regularly discuss this with them and they agree with our perceived harm, but it's just too difficult to resist. Heck, even I get lured into (doom)scrolling every now and then. I've setup ad-filtering using pihole, where possible, but I'd prefer not to block youtube as a whole. But I'm definitely considering that in the future, to protect my family.

freehorse 1y ago
Imo the best thing that can work is introducing delays to the loading of videos, increasing as time goes by. Youtube introduced sth like this to me, when they were presumable trying "punishing" users with adblockers, and it worked as a charm to get me disengage from the youtube rabithole. A lot of such addiction dynamics work based on how fast getting the reward is, and these interuptions disturb this.

wffurr 1y ago

Delete the app, use the webpage, and use a browser that allows user scripts. I found a good one that turns an Instagram page into just an image tag so you can just see the picture: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5014-un-instagram https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5014-un-instagram

andrepd 1y ago
It's 11 years old, I'm impressed that it even works.
whywhywhywhy 1y ago
Wouldn't risk trying to extract from IG too much, I used to yt-dlp from it a lot and use scripts to extract the images because I like to archive references, nothing on a massive scale we're talking <20 times a month and I got a warning that I could lose my username if I "use automated scraping tools".
- tecleandor 1y ago
  Oh! Were you using your user cookie? I use yt-dlp a couple times a month, but I think I'm always unauthenticated (although I guess they could match my IP address in their logs)
  - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
    I think the urls might be specific to your session in some cases. I’ve noticed some old IG posts I’ve put in bookmarking services say they’re expired. So passing to yt-dlp would be traceable back to me in that case. Definitely wasn’t cookies that’s what surprised me.
    - tecleandor 1y ago
      Ah OK, I was thinking about youtube, I re-read it and saw noticed you were talking IG. Yeah, I've noticed some IG URLs are suspicious: different from other users or opening related info that it shouldn't be there.

zimpenfish 1y ago

> I often fall for watching a few of them and loosing 15 minutes of my life. If you're on iOS, set a time limit (Settings → Screen Time → App Limits → Instagram). Doesn't stop the initial scrolling but the "you've run out of time" pop-up is a good breakpoint. You can bypass it and give yourself another 15 minutes but making that choice is also a good breakpoint / reinforcement.

duxup 1y ago

> that are enforced on us ! You don’t have to use them and you could pay for them. The users of the internet have made their call and they often don’t want to pay, so someone does. As a whole the users of the internet are not rewarding anyone for NOT showing ads. We want our content and we want if for free generally.

Jgrubb 1y ago
Every one of the streaming services that I paid extra to go ad free decided to push ads anyway.
- duxup 1y ago
  And they got their subscriber still I guess…. As users of these services as a whole we reward this kinda thing and then are upset when it happens again. I don’t like any of this situation but I also think the user’s choices incentivize it.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    Which choice could they have made differently here? They took the "pay for it" option that you suggested and then you still blamed them for giving the company negative incentives.
  - rchaud 1y ago
    They didn't though. Every single streaming service bar Netflix loses money. On top of that, they've all poisoned the well by creating as many subscription tiers as Dell has laptop SKUs and raising the price every 9 months so nobody knows what the service should cost. This ensures that people start and stop subscriptions just to watch a single series, instead of sticking with a single service all year.
    - friendzis 1y ago
      So it appears paying entrenched IP-hoarding organizations majority of your income further incentivizing their entrenchment is not the best business practice for a middlemen

fumeux_fume 1y ago

> I know it's probably revealing a lack of strength on my side... I think these tactics exploit our natural sense of curiosity and the aesthetics that surround it. So I don't think it's so much a lack of strength, but more of a jadedness we have build up and I think that's pretty bad. I respect the effort and creativity it takes to fight back and make the platform work for us instead of vice versa.

gosub100 1y ago

I wish they simply had a way to disable shorts. People have been clamoring for that option but yt ignores them because they know how addictive they are. I can't think of a more illustrative example of a conflict of interest and the contrast between the early days of computing that were driven by user demand.