So I am wondering how to be bad at using websites such as YouTube. For example, currently I do most of my youtube viewing on a Ruko Tv, where I never sign it, never comment, and never subscribe. When I select a video and an advertisement that is longer than 5 seconds shows up I will hit the back button and select the video again. I repeat this process till I get a the 5 sec ad or the video starts.
I assume this is not how google (or YouTubers) wish me to access their platform, but is there anyway I could be more disruptive to the business model?
Here’s the idea: Deprive YT of their revenue and maximize their expenses.
Browse the site as usual, but never watch any videos. Instead, download them at maximum resolution. You’ll skip all the adds, and take the maximum amount of bandwidth.
The business stays profitable as long as people watch ads and don’t use bandwidth anywhere near as much as you could. Download a bunch of very long videos just to check if they’re worth watching. Ignore anything shorter than 10 minutes.
Make a channel and upload a bunch of long videos. A dash cam should be a pretty good source of data. Make sure your videos are so boring that even bots don’t like them. These videos are essentially just dead weight in the servers, but uploading them costs something anyway. Also, the storage isn’t free either, so 4K is the minimum.
You could also try reporting random videos and comments here and there. I’m pretty sure no human ever sees those inputs, but some machine learning model might. Messy data isn’t going to break the system, but you could make that speed bump a little higher.