The original post: /r/piracy by /u/RADICCHI0 on 2025-06-07 13:53:53.
I need to vent, and this community feels like the place. The acronym stands for Hide In Plain Sight / Hide If Not Useful.
[The BIG Video Platform] has gone full scorched-earth with its adblocker crusade. it's escalated beyond scolding banners to the hard ultimatum: "Disable your adblocker or don't use our site." No polite requests, just straight-up denial of service if you're running an adblocker. No videos for you.
This is beyond frustrating. It's an aggressive, user-hostile move. It feels like a blatant attempt to strong-arm: either suffer through an increasingly unbearable ad load, or pay tribute for a premium tier just to get back basic functionality. I'm not interested in disabling my essential protection and I'm certainly not rewarding this kind of behavior with my subscription money.
This brings me to the HINU part of HIPSHINU: if all attempts to maintain a reasonable user experience fail, if their walls become too high or the cat-and-mouse game too exhausting, then perhaps the service itself becomes "Not Useful." At that point, "Hiding" it from our lives – simply avoiding the service altogether – becomes a valid (not ideal) tactic.
About the HIPS part: Hide In Plain Sight.
Given this escalation, "Hiding In Plain Sight" is another strategy. Continued access on our terms, right there on their platform, as it should be and has always been. No shutting us down. How can we maintain a clean, user-controlled experience by effectively being invisible to their blockade. We know there are various approaches people try – things like fresh browser sessions (incognito/private modes), tinkering with cookies, sometimes VPNs playing a role, and of course, the ever-evolving adblocker filter lists and scripts.
What are your thoughts on this nuclear option they've deployed? More importantly, how are we all approaching the "HIPS" aspect of this? What strategies, general or specific, are proving effective for staying one step ahead, bypassing their content wall, and continuing to Hide In Plain Sight while enjoying videos ad-free?
And lastly, do we even need to stress? After all, maybe our friends at the adblocker places are already working on it.
Stay savvy.