[blibble]

good luck with that one

they can't even figure out how to block yt-dl

[whateveracct]

Worst case, yt-dlp will "pretend to watch the ad." Slower, sure. But I will happily decouple the downloading from the watching to avoid ads.

[Postosuchus]

TIL. Thank you!

[whateveracct]

oh sorry - I meant in theory (unless it does do this - in which case, cool!)

[josephcsible]

Can't figure out how to, or just haven't bothered to?

[meowface]

They probably could block yt-dl (or at least create an annoying cat-and-mouse game for them) if they really wanted to. They probably just don't care enough, or figure there are enough positive benefits to allowing it. Some people (including other content creators) will always have a legitimate need to download YouTube videos.