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YouTube is experimenting with server-side ads
(lemmy.world)
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
You could probably train something like that on semi-reasonable consumer hardware. Ads often have a very distinctive style and tone, and you need only a single output - the probability of it being any given second being an ad. It would probably take a lot to run though, you better hope the people who install the extension have good PCs. And, it would probably never get 100% accurate, you'd have to put up with still seeing some ads and having to rewind when it skips over valid video.
it might even be ridiculously simple given that ads almost 100% of the time have louder audio than the content by design.
It's usually even easier than that... In my jurisdiction, ads have to be clearly labeled and identified. It should be relatively trivial to detect this label.