The downward spiral of Google

[brilokuloj]

This goes hand-in-hand with the Reddit issues, but I figured I'd make this its own thread, since it keeps coming up.

Actually, what prompted me to start this thread was THIS bold move from YouTube:

I don't think I've seen them pull something quite this evil before.

I've written about YouTube already here. I have been watching YouTube less and less - it's hard not to when you become painfully aware of the blood it's powered on - but I genuinely don't know if blocking it would be possible for me.

I don't have the anti-adblocker popup(?) yet. People are saying it's easy enough to bypass. I still think it bodes poorly.

[brilokuloj]

Another one for the graveyard:

YouTube is killing Stories

YouTube is getting rid of Stories, a feature for temporary posts, beginning in June. Users won’t be able to post Stories starting June 26th, and existing posts will expire after seven days.

I personally detest Instagram Stories, but there's a lot about their implementation I think has value specifically for children using the platforms: you can see who's seen your Story, and you can set it to disappear; increasingly few internet services are intentionally self-destructive now, they merely pretend they'll hold on to all of your data forever until they change their mind about it (and then probably keep a lot of it anyway).

Either way, even if I didn't like it, there's people who probably did. And they made such a big deal out of having these features, it's also a blow to trust to just randomly pull them.

On the flipside, this made me laugh:

Though many platforms have adopted the story format first popularized by Snapchat, YouTube isn’t the first to axe its version. Remember Fleets, the ephemeral posts on Twitter that were gone within a year?

Fleets were AWFUL. I only saw them getting used for the dumbest shit and I was glad when they were gone.

I guess I should make my Twitter thread... but until then: Fleets would tell you which locked accounts had viewed your, uh, Fleet. Again, probably good for kids, but NIGHTMARISH for the average Twitter gossip addict.

(I also thought they had been added in late 2021, for some reason. They were a late 2020 addition.)

[brilokuloj]

Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome

Don't let Chrome's big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome's invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the "Privacy Sandbox," is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven't been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it's built directly into the Chrome browser.

Apple dealt a giant blow to Google's core revenue stream when it blocked third-party cookies in Safari in 2020. While it was a win for privacy, Google's not following suit until it can secure its advertising business. The Federated Learning of Cohorts and now the Topics API are part of a plan to pitch an "alternative" tracking platform, and Google argues that there has to be a tracking alternative—you can't just not be spied on.

Switch to Firefox I'm literally begging you