YouTube won’t let me watch this video with my VPN on. Is this a new thing?
I like how they make up a phony benefit to try to make it seem like you’ll get something out of it.
Try the Freetube or Grayjay client, they work for me with VPN.
Depends in the VPN. I’m having to use multi-hop now with Freetube but with that turned on it is working consistently for me again.
I spun up my own invidious container and that has made my connection far more consistent.
I’ve been paying for Proton VPN for a couple years now and I’ve never been blocked by YouTube.
I’m also using uBlock Origin and Firefox as a browser. YouTube takes like 5-10 seconds to load videos, thanks to their built-in delay timer when ads can’t play, but otherwise it works fine.
Honestly, I’d gladly wait 30 seconds staring at a black screen than watch a 10-second ad. So their delay timer is pointless.
They’re killing third-party client access, limiting adblockers, blocking VPNs, and forcing sign in more and more. I sincerely hate it but this was inevitable. They have their monopoly, this is just the “abuse that position and enshittify for more data and money” stage. I hope an alternative takes off because I refuse to play by their rules.
The day the finally kill adblockers and third party clients I’ll stop watching and I started to think I won’t miss it at all after barely open it in a week.
I find if I use my VPN and I’m not logged in, it says I can’t watch unless I log in. If I turn it off, it works. I think if you’re logged in, they can track you and monetize you. If you’re behind a VPN and they also don’t know who you are, they want to push you into telling them who you are.
What I’ve found as a workaround is to search videos using Duck Duck Go. It has a way you can watch YouTube stuff through DDG without being logged in. I imagine they’ll eventually figure out a way to patch that.
Ya so users like say @cobysev@lemmy.world and surely MANY others who don’t get nagged…
Wondered “what if some of us are browser fingerprinted so good they/their advertisers know we’re us, not bots, and pretend to let us stay anonymous” :(
