And I’m sure it’s annoying you too. You can’t view a single YouTube video anymore anywhere one is posted, without that stupid notification popping up. Which forces you to have to go to the shitty YouTube site, log in, hope through whatever verification checks that there is and finally, you can watch the video.
Isn’t there a way anymore where people can just link videos and for them to play? Fuck you, Google.
Bots are a problem. No single measure completely gets rid of them. Each measure just removes some of the bots. I personally think accounts are a decent measure, everyone should have a password manager anyway that lets them automatically log in on all their devices.
The problem of course is the tracking that’s being done with the accounts, but I think the accounts themselves aren’t the problem.
That’s part of it, but it’s certainly ALSO a mechanism to encourage people to use an account, or to register if they haven’t, because that’s more trackable and monetisable.
Same reason why when you hit an X post or an Instagram post it normally lets you see a little tease but roadblocks you to sign in as soon as you start scrolling. They want you signed in for their own reasons.
If google wanted, they could implement a range of measures to disincentivise bots, like not counting views apart from signed-in users so there’s less reason for bots to be engaging with the platform, but that also is bad for their ad view monetisation metrics so they surely don’t want to do that. They’d rather inconvenience the user.
So I say tracking is the problem, and you say that tracking is the problem? Good that we agree :D
Then why the fuck do some sites require a CAPTCHA before letting me log in?
Because like I said, different measures hold back different bots.
If there are 3 bot softwares, maybe 1 can solve captcha and use accounts, 1 can only make accounts, 1 can only use captcha.
With only account login you get 2 bots, with only captcha you also get 2 bots, with captcha before login you only get 1 bot.
Excuse me but what sort of DDOS is being mitigated by requiring a CAPTCHA before allowing login?
That’s giving a middle finger to your existing users right at the front door.
Authenticating a registered user is so quick there’s no good excuse except laziness and indifference to user experience.
The DDOS of having your users scammed, spammed, them seeing illegal/harmful content, propaganda, whatever bots do.
Trying to get rid of bots is a worthwhile endeavor. How exactly you do it, and I criticize captchas as well, is up to debate, yes. But dismissing it completely just means you haven’t really noticed what those measures do. It’s like an IT department that just works and that management thinks is unnecessary.