Google clamps down on VPN workarounds for cheaper YouTube Premium subscriptions
YouTube is canceling Premium subscriptions of members who used a VPN workaround to get Premium at cheaper rates than applicable. Read on!
Jesus Christ google, how much money are you spending to foil 0.000034% of your user base
The purpose, is to keep it difficult enough that the "honest" person doesn't get the idea to start doing it.
Same concept as putting a lock on your front door. It's not to stop thieves, it's to stop the average person from getting the idea to "just take a quick look".
By occasional going after workarounds AND making it public news. Your average computer user thinks it's not worth the hassle.
If they don't want honest people considering it, maybe they shouldn't raise the price by 80% in a single price change.
I paid for YouTube premium when it was first available. They guaranteed the price would never change as I was a first adopter. Then they did. Then they did it again. And then again.
Google can fuck off. They have all the money in the world and they need to extort the people who helped grow their business.
so they prefer that users use adblockers?
Well, no, they prefer people pay the subscription cost they set in each region.
Which they've shown they aren't willing to do...
Personally, YT premium is my only subscription I have, and wouldn't really have any others if money wasn't this tight. But I was paying before this recent anti blocker war, I prefer YT Music just because of the way it handles a bunch of the music remixed by seperate and probably not "official" artists. And with how much youtube I watch on mobile instead of my PC, messing with blocking wasn't very appealing to me, since the jump from YTmusic to full premium is less than almost any streaming sub.
But I have always watched/backgroundnoised a lot of youtube, so its not that much of pain. Realistically, this was bound to happen eventually, hosting that much content hasn't really gone down in costs as quickly as most tech overhead. But its a fairly complex line item, not just hardware & facilities, but all the law office hours related to copyright log is an ongoing and probably still growing cost for them and since they are not Disney thats a real cost I'd imagine.
As a side note, it just reminds me how shockingly unaware I am of how much they must value our personal data, that it only just now became worthwile to fight blockers with this much effort and PR/image depreciation.
Luckily they can't do this in the EU. As an EU-citizen, I have the right to subscribe in Romania, for example, and pay no more than a Romanian would.
It sounds kinda illegal. Can Coca-cola stop me from going to Denmark to buy for danish prices and claim I have to pay Norwegian prices?
It’s directly comparable to buying danish subscription and using the service from a danish exit. If my data originates in china and are vpn-ed to Denmark they have the same cost on providing me service as anyone else in Denmark
Edit: I’ve never been to China, but it’s like really far away from Denmark.
If you're a convenience store but pallets of Coca Cola, then they kind-of can. They can just blacklist you from buying Coca Cola in the foreign country.
It's also different because they're selling you continuous access one month at a time instead of a physical good you drink and they can't take away from you. I've been to places where service costs are lower for locals than for tourists, and this is told to you outright. Stuff like museums, taxis, etc. It's a similar idea YouTube has.
Prices are also almost never based on cost, they're based on what people will pay.
I live in Canada, and cars are more expensive here than in the USA. US dealerships near the border refuse to sell new cars to Canadians, even though it's legal for everyone as long as you make sure to pay duties on the way back. I'm guessing each brand has some rule against it.
Ultimately VPN users aren't a protected class so it's legal to discriminate.
I’m still not sure your car thing would match here - unless they refuse to sell you a car that you only use in the USA. I’m guessing these stores are brand owned? Why else would you refuse a sale - even if it’s useless to the buyer
I could see rights come into play - but they usually regulate within the nation.
I would think this is connected to name/address/payment not matching the country you claim to live in. If it’s VPN detection then a WiFi router doing the VPN would work fine.
Ultimately VPN users aren't a protected class so it's legal to discriminate.
This is what I've always found fascinating about companies and governments trying to block their usage.
All major firms/companies/governments use them, so, how the hell are they gonna stop them when their bosses get poked that's something's up 🙉
Fun times ahoy.
In the EU, this is illegal. As an EU resident, you have the right to subscribe to any service in another EU country.
Yeh - but it does not include efta
There's probably something in the terms about it, and it would take a very expensive legal battle to settle it. And I doubt it has enough legal merit to be taken on as a class-action lawsuit.
So, really, does it matter if it's illegal? With the asymmetrical power imbalance, they literally don't need to care about the laws. Realistically, no EU regulator is going to fine them for cancelling "a purchase made in India", either.
Newpipe and its forks for the win.
And LibreTube, they're also on Mastodon and even have a Lemmy community: !libretube@feddit.rocks
I can watch Youtube without ads using an adblocker or NewPipe. Why anyone buys Premium is beyond me.
Tubular is a fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock and ReturnYouTubeDislike integration. LibreTube is another great option, which uses the Piped backend. They also have a Lemmy community, and you can check them out on Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@libretube
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !libretube@feddit.rocks
Congrats, your subscription has been canceled
What subscription?
The ones mentioned in the headline?
Yesss, I know ;)
Oh there goes my back up plan for server side injection ads
I tried to get brazillian youtube premium or whatever and it just didn't work.
I did a South American country once too but the payment processor has a snafu and it stopped working after the 2nd month. I just spun up a personal invidious VM and moved on with my life.
Ok I'm using revanced anyway..
Newpipe over here
Tubular is better, it has SponsorBlock and ReturnYouTubeDislike integration
Isn't a cheaper subscription better than no subscription Google?
