For those who don't want to fund youtube, Youtube Vanced is a hacked version of the official client that provides all the features for free (no root required), and there are also various open source clients available.

Isn't youtube without ads exactly the business model we should be encouraging?

People are really vocal about being perfectly ok with paying for ad-free products and not pirating, until the exact moment they actually have to fork out money.

YouTube Premium still requires you to create a Google account and accept their ToS & privacy policy and provide them with validated personal & billing information.

I am personally not comfortable with this and would rather have absolutely no business relationship with such a company. I’m using an Invidious (https://github.com/iv-org/invidious) instance instead.

Would you be willing to pay extra for privacy? Seems like that could be a business model.

I wonder if the VPPA applies to Youtube?

I'm absolutely in favour of paying extra for privacy. However, it has to come from a company that I am willing to trust.

Google is an advertising company at its core and its bottom line relies on knowing as much about people as possible so that they can target better ads, thus I do not want to have any kind of business relationship with them. Their efforts to force users to opt into tracking (like dark patterns and the recent not-GDPR-compliant consent prompt) suggest me to steer well clear.

If they spin off YouTube as its own company, with its own account system (independent from Google) and ToS (that do not include anything regarding tracking - as it stands to sign up for YouTube Premium you do still need to agree to Google's ToS and privacy policy) I will definitely reconsider, but as it stands it is a hard no.

I was a youtube premium subscriber. They kept banning political youtubers, which is out of line with my values, so I quit being a subscriber.

I absolutely agree with the paying for no ads model, as I really, really like that model. The premium subscription was totally worth it, and the app with ads can be truly unbearable in comparison (but not so unbearable that I'm going to start paying them again).

I'd pay for YouTube Premium if it was just ad-free, and didn't bundle Red and Music. I'd easily pay 5$CAD/month for it, but at 15$CAD, it's a fairly steep price, and still doesn't remove all pop-ups and such.

Vanced provides the YouTube I want, I'd pay it that was available.

I would encourage creators to run their own in-video ads (avoiding unethical tracking) and collect funds directly from viewers (i.e. Patreon). This seems to be a much more stable way of collecting income, and doesn't expose them to the whims of YouTube's demonetization system.

I am completely seriously asking and 100% ignorant - isn't there a risk of getting your account banned? I assume Google can detect this, and also know who you are (since it's on Android)?

Related: i really like the "Enhancer for youtube" extension for Firefox, which also removes ads...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-...

I also use Youtube on Chromecast, and my phone. It's just easier to pay than to try to hack all different devices.

This, even assuming only your own devices. Now throw the technology unsavvy family's devices into the mix and then YouTube Premium becomes a no brainer.

I would very much like to set up a pi-hole but the moment something goes wrong pitchforks will be pointed at me.

God bless you

Slightly more friendly for sideloading books out the box; Kobo Glo HD

Its my favorite gadget.

Pretty sure kindle are better value though, and can still be hacked/sideloaded onto.

E-Ink is marvel in itself and it is disgustingly uncommon. I hope more products emerge that use them.

> Pretty sure kindle are better value though, and can still be hacked/sideloaded onto.

unfortunately toying with kindles not trivial, at least not with the latest models. last time I checked, you needed to do some hardware bypassing

These are among my top favorite purchases too. I love my Kindle, along with QC35 headphones, I can find oasis anywhere.

And YouTube Premium is awesome, it actually makes watching YouTube a pleasant experience and it comes with YT Music.

Totally agree on both. If you're going to get a Kindle, I recommend the Oasis--it's so much better than the other ones and worth the money if you read a decent amount. The yellow backlight is much easier on the eyes than the blue one.

Really? I'm surprised that you think the Oasis is worth the higher price considering just how much higher that price is.

What other reasons would you recommend it for?

I have had a Paperwhite for years, probably close to 10. I recently upgraded to an Oasis for my 30th birthday. It was an incredible improvement. The noticeably bigger screen is crisp and incredibly responsive. I and my wife had just gotten used to the delay of everything on the PW.

Additionally the brightness is much more fine grained in your control: there a many more brightness settings, and you can adjust it on a scale of harsh blue-white like the PW or a soft orange glow depending if you’re reading in the middle of the day or to try to abate your insomnia like I do.

I liked it so much, and my wife mentioned that she’d like one for Christmas so many times, that I just bought her one.

It’s water resistant which is very useful for me. I also like the physical buttons for changing the page— I often disable the touch screen so I don’t accidentally change the page and appreciate having the physical control, which the Paperwhite doesn’t have. Also the screen is higher resolution so everything looks nicer.

I agree 101% on Kindle. Bought mine (Oasis 2) 3 years ago and since then the amount of books I read skyrocketed. Absolutely worth every penny.

Pocketbook inkpad 3 gives you more screen area and control over content while using the same screen panel

Got FireHD 10" for (Kindle) books and comics, it's quite nice.