So, run Chromium?

That is the coldest take I’ve ever heard.

According to the Article:

Google in Russia has been inactive since 2022 after the search giant effectively pulled out of the country following Putin’s special military operation.

They didn’t start with that fine, it was just compounding interest

The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week.

And regardless, Russia can’t block Google’s operations in Russia because Google isn’t operating in Russia since the war. Russia is trying to fire Google when Google quit 2 years ago.

The most popular games will likely continue to get pirated, all this will do is guarantee that some small vintage games are lost to time.

Even worse. I’ve checked out digital eBooks and digital audiobooks from my local library. And I listened to those audiobooks for FUN. The AUDACITY!

Audacity is what I used to record those audiobooks so I could listen at my own pace, btw.

May I could check out a paper copy of those bits, would that be okay? Then it’s not a digital copy

I answered your question on another thread of the same topic, but I’ll answer it here too for anyone else who has the same question: The law is just about digital backups. Vintage stores are still legal, and if anything this would boost sales at a vintage stores. If the game you’d like to play is unavailable at a vintage store or on eBay (or wherever else) then it will be entirely inaccessible for you to play legally.

As someone who may or may not have stripped DRM from library books, they certainly never seemed to care about that. And it was never even to share, but rather to store for myself so I could read it at my own pace. And the worst part… I read it for RECREATIONAL USE

You’d better not also be reading books for fun. By their logic, any recreational use of books from a library should also be considered illegal.

Colonel*

I value YouTube, at most, at about $5 a month. I can easily do without it.

There you have it. If the cost of the service is not worth it, then users won’t buy it. Either enough users will pay for it that the service will stay as it is for the price it is, they will decrease the cost of the service, or improve the service they are offering. Or, given Google’s track record, just kill of the service entirely.

I will also point out that many users pay for Spotify for $11 USD a month. YouTube premium includes YT Music, which is a direct competitor to Spotify. So for users who pay for Spotify, it would be virtually $3 for ad-free YouTube. Of course this doesn’t work if you don’t pay for a music streaming service, but as far as services go it certainly isn’t unreasonably priced. Sure, it may be unfair that they don’t offer just a YT ad-free package, perhaps with all this backlash they will. Or perhaps not. It’s Google, they’ll do whatever they fuck they want.

While I think Google is a monster that needs to be destroyed, it’s silly to me that your two options are either block ads or leave. The third option would be pay for the service. If your only problem is the ads and not the tracking (which probably isn’t true, but it’s the only complaint you made in the comment), then paying for it is a valid solution. It shouldn’t be controversial to say video hosting costs money to run, which obviously includes YouTube. So giving it out for free is simply not a realistic option. You’re free to leave, but you won’t have anywhere else to go that meets the “free and no ads” requirement. If you realistically don’t want ads, you will have to pay. And if you’re fine with paying, YouTube is currently the platform with the most content to offer.

Honestly, I’m thankful paying is an option. I wish Google would offer a paid package overall to stop the tracking/data collection. I would literally just give them my money for actual privacy with their services.