[commoner]

Similar arguments have been employed against ad blocking. Users should be aware of the ramifications of their software decisions, but whether someone should download and use Google Play Services vs. MicroG, YouTube vs. NewPipe, etc. is the user's choice.

From a privacy perspective, MicroG and NewPipe are much less intrusive than Google Play Service and YouTube, because the open source apps send less user data to Google.

[izacus]

That would be fine if they'd be clean reimplementations of an API using their own backends. But advertising services which abuse SaaS infrastructure of a company is just not ok, especially in an article that's all about not using anything from Google.

I'd feel similarly about having someone advertise a way to crack Slack enterprise features instead of using something like Matternmost.

[bubblethink]

Newpipe is literally doing what the browser does, which is fair. The rest of the argument boils down to ad blocking. If you are a stickler, you could use youtube in a browser and get the ads.

[TeMPOraL]

> But advertising services which abuse SaaS infrastructure of a company is just not ok

A nitpick, but somewhat important: they're not services, they're products. Pieces of software. Alternative user agents. Very opinionated web browsers, if you like.

[bennofs]

But using FCM is enforced by apps. If they would roll their own, no app would work.

[izacus]

Not on LineageOS or any other ROM you have MicroG installed on.