Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube(popsci.com)
popsci.com
Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube
https://www.popsci.com/diy/youtube-alternative-freetube/
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As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without.
Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever.
As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: I use Freetube. Please use it until abusive adverts and practices aren't a thing anymore.
Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever.
As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: I use Freetube. Please use it until abusive adverts and practices aren't a thing anymore.
In fairness to Google, costs to host video would scale with viewers. Unless creators are willing to pay increasingly excessive costs as their viewerbass grows (which I doubt) some kind of per-viewer cost (like ads) needs to be charged.
There's no guarantee creators can collect as much income without Google either. Google has proven they can get way more income from ads than pretty much everyone else, and even bug channels with sponsorships still derive a very large income portion from Google ads (based on what I've heard from LinusTechTips videos)
There's no guarantee creators can collect as much income without Google either. Google has proven they can get way more income from ads than pretty much everyone else, and even bug channels with sponsorships still derive a very large income portion from Google ads (based on what I've heard from LinusTechTips videos)
Then how are Vimeo doing it? They're fixed price.
The cost to serve the video file is much lower than what Google says it costs. Moving a terabyte of data is quite cheap to do, yet GCP, AWS and ilk continue to have eye-wateringly high data usage pricing.
> Then how are Vimeo doing it? They're fixed price.
They limit you to 2TB per month of bandwidth:
* https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan
If a video goes viral and you shoot past that you'll probably get a call from them.
You also have a finite amount of storage space available with them, which depends on the account tier you're at: no infinite storage like with Youtube. (And with 4K video nowadays, that can be burned through quickly.)
They limit you to 2TB per month of bandwidth:
* https://vimeo.com/upgrade-plan
If a video goes viral and you shoot past that you'll probably get a call from them.
You also have a finite amount of storage space available with them, which depends on the account tier you're at: no infinite storage like with Youtube. (And with 4K video nowadays, that can be burned through quickly.)
In this scenario you’d also have to pay for bandwidth since that’s the variable cost here. The more views you get, the more you pay. And obviously you wouldn’t get any money from YouTube for views since they aren’t making money from your videos.
Genuinely curious, would you still go for it?
Genuinely curious, would you still go for it?
> In this scenario you’d also have to pay for bandwidth since that’s the variable cost here.
For Google? You think Google get a monthly bill for their bandwidth?
For Google? You think Google get a monthly bill for their bandwidth?
Most of Google, AWS and ilks traffic is moved over settlement free peering and fixed cost infrastructure: https://www.lightreading.com/cable-technology/level-3-seals-...
Whether 100TB or 1500TB of data are delivered to one ISP at one peering point in a given month has minimal effect, that 10Gbps, 100Gbps or larger port is a fixed cost that will exist regardless of traffic.
Whether 100TB or 1500TB of data are delivered to one ISP at one peering point in a given month has minimal effect, that 10Gbps, 100Gbps or larger port is a fixed cost that will exist regardless of traffic.
Precisely. I used to rent dedicated servers in the early 2000s that gave me such options.
You'd need to pay based on traffic too not just video total. And have a system in place to add payment if your videos became hits. Would really curtail amateur uploads.
Conceivably an option for professionals with business models but hard to see it being a default for a service that wants traction.
Conceivably an option for professionals with business models but hard to see it being a default for a service that wants traction.
> hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month
$100 wouldn't even cover the storage mate. Let's say you've got 2 thousand hours of content (smallest amount that qualifies for "thousands")
At 2k resolution, that'd be around 30TB And you'll want to preprocess it to 1080p, 720p, 480p, so add another 15tb for the other resolutions.
And YouTube supports 4k, so if you're shooting at that resolution, you can add another 50tb on top.
Purely storage you're already looking at a ~$2500 monthly bill.
And then you're gonna have to host and serve it to hundreds of thousands of viewers, the bandwidth cost is gonna be astronomical. Every 100 hours of streamed content is gonna be another ~$100 on top. With a 15 minute video, that'd be 400 views.
And I significantly rounded down on every calculation as this is napkin math. If you'd use AWS S3 pricing for storage and egress you can safely double my dollar numbers.
$100 wouldn't even cover the storage mate. Let's say you've got 2 thousand hours of content (smallest amount that qualifies for "thousands")
At 2k resolution, that'd be around 30TB And you'll want to preprocess it to 1080p, 720p, 480p, so add another 15tb for the other resolutions.
And YouTube supports 4k, so if you're shooting at that resolution, you can add another 50tb on top.
Purely storage you're already looking at a ~$2500 monthly bill.
And then you're gonna have to host and serve it to hundreds of thousands of viewers, the bandwidth cost is gonna be astronomical. Every 100 hours of streamed content is gonna be another ~$100 on top. With a 15 minute video, that'd be 400 views.
And I significantly rounded down on every calculation as this is napkin math. If you'd use AWS S3 pricing for storage and egress you can safely double my dollar numbers.
You can get 4x22TB (60TB with RAID5) for ~120$ so for less than 250$ you get the storage with geo redundancy.
https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/sx65/
https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/sx65/
I think your pricing is quite a little bloated. Having said that, nobody can even in a lifetime produce thousands of hours of valuable content. But the fact that it's free to do so has content creators dump all their crap on youtube instead of being forced to cut it down to actually valuable 1% of it.
That seems like someone has some extremely comfortable margins, $2,500/month could buy me ~50TB of hard disk space at consumer prices. I'm sure that sort of estimate is undercalling the complexity of a storage operation, but nonetheless - there'd have to be some discounts to be found. If nothing else, Backblaze claims to be able to store that much for $300/month.
$100/month for 50TB probably isn't feasible but start compromising on resolution and something could be made to work.
$100/month for 50TB probably isn't feasible but start compromising on resolution and something could be made to work.
To get 50TB usable storage you're gonna need at least 100TB, otherwise everything will go down once a single disk fails until you've restored the raid.
Unless you want to be completely capped and unable to ever publish again you're gonna have to add at least a few TB (+10TB, 120TB total) and then you'll need a secondary storage for backup, so another 60 TB, 180TB total
At $320 per 16TB disk that can handle being active 24/7 (actually only ~14 TB usable, but let's ignore that) you're left with $3750 at the very least, ignoring that you'll have to continuously replace them, electricity is also pretty expensive with HDDs. House them in a server etc
You too are wildly off with your math, as I'm literally flooring every calculation. Realistic estimates by a professional are gonna be _way_ higher, especially because this kind of storage doesn't have the iops to serve video to multiple consumers. It'd be at best a NAS that can serve to maybe 2-4 ppl at a time
Unless you want to be completely capped and unable to ever publish again you're gonna have to add at least a few TB (+10TB, 120TB total) and then you'll need a secondary storage for backup, so another 60 TB, 180TB total
At $320 per 16TB disk that can handle being active 24/7 (actually only ~14 TB usable, but let's ignore that) you're left with $3750 at the very least, ignoring that you'll have to continuously replace them, electricity is also pretty expensive with HDDs. House them in a server etc
You too are wildly off with your math, as I'm literally flooring every calculation. Realistic estimates by a professional are gonna be _way_ higher, especially because this kind of storage doesn't have the iops to serve video to multiple consumers. It'd be at best a NAS that can serve to maybe 2-4 ppl at a time
> ...as I'm literally flooring every calculation.
But your calculations are for a different problem. You're not solving for "what is the best I can do for $100". You're solving for "what do I need to clone Google's infrastructure for thousands of hours of video footage".
Eg, you doubled the amount of storage space to avoid rebuilding RAIDs when a disk goes down. There is an obvious alternative - don't do that, let the RAID go down and rebuild it while eating the downtime. That sort of thing isn't a big deal for discount video hosting. Maybe even force people to keep their own backups.
But your calculations are for a different problem. You're not solving for "what is the best I can do for $100". You're solving for "what do I need to clone Google's infrastructure for thousands of hours of video footage".
Eg, you doubled the amount of storage space to avoid rebuilding RAIDs when a disk goes down. There is an obvious alternative - don't do that, let the RAID go down and rebuild it while eating the downtime. That sort of thing isn't a big deal for discount video hosting. Maybe even force people to keep their own backups.
I'm adressing the original comment (by movedx) of giving channels on YouTube the ability to disable ads and let the channel provider/creator eat the cost instead.
So yes, I'm basing my calculations on YouTubes service. What you're imagining is obviously an option for individuals that only want to serve to few individuals at a time, but is entirely offtopic to what was proposed here
So yes, I'm basing my calculations on YouTubes service. What you're imagining is obviously an option for individuals that only want to serve to few individuals at a time, but is entirely offtopic to what was proposed here
I think if you reread the comment you'll find that movedx didn't propose what you think he proposed. At no point did he suggest what you seem to be cost-estimating.
He suggested $100/month for 300 videos and noted that he was experienced in content creating.
He suggested $100/month for 300 videos and noted that he was experienced in content creating.
> As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without.
Literally the the first paragraph
Literally the the first paragraph
That is two sentences, but his post has a few more and those two don't say quite what you're interpreting them as. He didn't say that he expected YouTube to host all his content for $100/month. There are two separate ideas - one presenting credentials and the other was saying that he'd be happy to pay for hosting if he could avoid ads - but not that he'd expect to be hosting thousands of hours at YouTube quality for $100/month.
He didn't actually say or imply what you think he did. In fact a later part of the comment ("10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever.") clarifies that he meant what he wrote and it is something quite different to what you're picking out.
He didn't actually say or imply what you think he did. In fact a later part of the comment ("10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever.") clarifies that he meant what he wrote and it is something quite different to what you're picking out.
Okay, let's go with that. It's still very few views just for egress, as mentioned: with a 15min video that's something like 400 views on one video.
My point from the beginning was that $100/month is not enough to host a successful channel on YouTube. You absolutely can do it on vimeo, self hosted jellyfin or similar. Plenty of options around. It just get extremely expensive if you're serving content to hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers.
You can probably start at $10/month with a hetzner shared instance and 1tb storage and unmetered 1 Gigabit Ethernet. Gonna be fine for ~2 simultaneous viewers
I only addressed the storage first because his idea was so far outside of a realistic price. Storage cost is a rounding error on the invoice if you're serving videos to consumers with views as a semi successful YouTube channel gets
My point from the beginning was that $100/month is not enough to host a successful channel on YouTube. You absolutely can do it on vimeo, self hosted jellyfin or similar. Plenty of options around. It just get extremely expensive if you're serving content to hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers.
You can probably start at $10/month with a hetzner shared instance and 1tb storage and unmetered 1 Gigabit Ethernet. Gonna be fine for ~2 simultaneous viewers
I only addressed the storage first because his idea was so far outside of a realistic price. Storage cost is a rounding error on the invoice if you're serving videos to consumers with views as a semi successful YouTube channel gets
> You can probably start at $10/month with a hetzner shared instance and 1tb storage and unmetered 1 Gigabit Ethernet. Gonna be fine for ~2 simultaneous viewers
I think that is still overcooking it. Peertube has a FAQ on the subject [0], going off that it's probably achievable to have 1,000 concurrent users at ~$50/month+storage. Not commercially advisable, it is pretty obvious that everyone in the game ends up going ad-supported and that makes sense to me. But YouTube could in support something like that for small channels without too much trouble. The issue here for the median channel case doesn't look like costs in the >$1,000/month range as much as foregone revenue and operational complexity. The vast majority of content creators don't get hundreds of thousands of views.
[0] https://joinpeertube.org/faq#should-i-have-a-big-server-to-r...
I think that is still overcooking it. Peertube has a FAQ on the subject [0], going off that it's probably achievable to have 1,000 concurrent users at ~$50/month+storage. Not commercially advisable, it is pretty obvious that everyone in the game ends up going ad-supported and that makes sense to me. But YouTube could in support something like that for small channels without too much trouble. The issue here for the median channel case doesn't look like costs in the >$1,000/month range as much as foregone revenue and operational complexity. The vast majority of content creators don't get hundreds of thousands of views.
[0] https://joinpeertube.org/faq#should-i-have-a-big-server-to-r...
Especially if you can just serve 720p instead of 1080p during the "downtime".
I’m sure you’re right but how does Google afford to do it then? Do they have methods to drastically lower those costs? $2500 per month for each creator seems like it wouldn’t be a business worth running.
There are very, very few YouTube creators that actually have thousands of hours of video.
Even if it's a vtuber/live streamer they'd still have to publish ~6 hours every day for a full year to get to 2 thousand hours
It's pretty much the peak of the iceberg
Even if it's a vtuber/live streamer they'd still have to publish ~6 hours every day for a full year to get to 2 thousand hours
It's pretty much the peak of the iceberg
You literally skipped the part where I said I'd be happy to be limited to a set number of videos per channel.
You also need to be happy with a limited amount of views with that scheme/ videos going private after that, because storage is literally the cheapest cost. I used that as an example how far removed you're from a realistic price estimate
If you're just using YouTube for hosting - there's other ways to pay for that, Vimeo comes to mind.
What about if you're using YouTube as a hosting platform and viewer acquisition channel, but not as a monetization channel?
Then you'd have to pay for viewer acquisition part and no way in hell you're getting that kind of a platform with creators paying for development/hosting without advertising.
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As a youtube premium subscriber... since I'm already paying let me set my home screen only to my subscriptions.
Also let me opt-out of the algoritm.
Also let me opt-out of the algoritm.
I noticed my very old Youtube videos have degraded in quality. I'd rather pay monthly then be surprised to find out important videos I trusted to Google have been effectively destroyed.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? Do you have the original sources to compare to? Can you provide examples? Genuinely curious.
What do you think of something like nebula?
Yea, i also wonder how people feel about Nebula [1] as an alternative;
It seems the problem is, with YouTubes monopoly, other services have almost no chance to succeed because of the "Network Effect"...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_(streaming_service)
It seems the problem is, with YouTubes monopoly, other services have almost no chance to succeed because of the "Network Effect"...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_(streaming_service)
It's not the second biggest search engine in the world :(
"However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly."
"Freeloading" off a $2T company. Not really. What is really going on.
If Google was concerned about "freeloading" then they would not be encouraging people to store their data "in the cloud"; they would be encouraging them to store it on their own computers. Google wants people to upload data "for free" to Google servers. They design software and hardware to coerce people into uploading, e.g., "syncing".
It's not cool to invade peoples' privacy for profit. That is a social contract that has been broken.
Google could charge fees for storing peoples' data, these fees could cover the costs and allow for some profit, but then they would not be a $2T company. Only a relatively small number of people would pay. The Google customer is the advertiser not the uploader. Thus, this alleged "social contract" to allow Google to spy on people through their computer use, including surreptitiously sending data to Google, is motivated by greed.
That's the ugly culture.
"Freeloading" off a $2T company. Not really. What is really going on.
If Google was concerned about "freeloading" then they would not be encouraging people to store their data "in the cloud"; they would be encouraging them to store it on their own computers. Google wants people to upload data "for free" to Google servers. They design software and hardware to coerce people into uploading, e.g., "syncing".
It's not cool to invade peoples' privacy for profit. That is a social contract that has been broken.
Google could charge fees for storing peoples' data, these fees could cover the costs and allow for some profit, but then they would not be a $2T company. Only a relatively small number of people would pay. The Google customer is the advertiser not the uploader. Thus, this alleged "social contract" to allow Google to spy on people through their computer use, including surreptitiously sending data to Google, is motivated by greed.
That's the ugly culture.
What happens when Google stops giving unlimited cloud storage to educational institutions. This was answered yesterday.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530
Top comment: "If [the university computer science department's] cluster somehow ever runs out of disks, I'm happy to donate a terabytes worth, but like hell I'm giving money to big-G for cloud storage."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404530
Top comment: "If [the university computer science department's] cluster somehow ever runs out of disks, I'm happy to donate a terabytes worth, but like hell I'm giving money to big-G for cloud storage."
Don’t be torn. They could have offloaded the hosting using P2P tech, but they prefer to silo the world’s video library. Google is the parasitical leech.
I had a lot more sympathy for this argument a few years ago, but lately Google does enough short-term thinking all by itself that it seems fine to just take what you can get for as long as it does something that happens to be useful to you, amidst all the stuff it does that is useful only to itself.
Just be prepared for the good times to end at any moment.
Just be prepared for the good times to end at any moment.
Hey, you want a monopoly on information while at the same time operating the largest ad network in the world?
Then don't complain if people block your stupid ads and count yourself lucky that the government didn't split your megacorp into several tiny companies
The only morally wrong thing here is NOT blocking Google's ads
Then don't complain if people block your stupid ads and count yourself lucky that the government didn't split your megacorp into several tiny companies
The only morally wrong thing here is NOT blocking Google's ads
Why doesn't the government split the megacorp into several tiny companies? All this collusion between these otherwise unrelated companies is only good for Google.
Because breaking companies up seems to be more theatre and less useful outcomes. People call for it freely and usually don't have a theory of how it will actually help. And nobody seems to bring up evidence from past corporate breakups beyond "we did it ergo it was good" (which is suspicious logic).
On paper it looks something like a choice between one company with one shareholder or two companies with ... the same shareholder. It isn't clear what has really changed; the company was only ever a legal fiction anyway. If there were incentives to collude then they haven't gone away.
On paper it looks something like a choice between one company with one shareholder or two companies with ... the same shareholder. It isn't clear what has really changed; the company was only ever a legal fiction anyway. If there were incentives to collude then they haven't gone away.
People always say this but what is the practical way this would come into effect? Unless the intention is to simply kill either YouTube or Google, or both, how do you separate out YouTube in a way that is meaningfully "breaking up" with Google but that the separate entity could afford?
Exactly. But I would like to take it a step further -- anytime you visit a page anywhere on the internet, there is an unwritten social contract that you will not block ads or trackers. For this reason, adblock in itself is unethical and basically equivalent to piracy. Additionally, actors like Mozilla who build tracker-blocking tech into their browsers should be held accountable for encouraging this disgusting behavior.
Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.
Don't like the ads? Don't visit the site then. Simple as that.
When I started visiting resources on the internet there was an oft-written (and occasionally enforced!) social contract that the internet was not to be used for advertising at all. I personally never agreed for those terms to change so I'll continue to configure my enduser clients as I wish. (I do sometimes consume ads--sometimes they're good content.)
No, the burden is on you. The web is public by default. If you join it and think there is a burden on your visitors to pay you by viewing some bullshit that you serve them from some megacorporation who sells their identity, you are the one being unethical.
This is classic "big corporations are bad". Simply put, the internet would be dead if it were not for megacorporations as you call them, like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Google have provided an invaluable source of information all for free. The least you can do is watch some ads and let them harvest your data.
Google have provided an invaluable source of information all for free. The least you can do is watch some ads and let them harvest your data.
> This is classic "big corporations are bad". Simply put, the internet would be dead if it were not for megacorporations as you call them, like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Source?
Source?
That argument MAYBE worked 25 years ago when ads genuinely paid for hosting costs and nothing else.
But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.
So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?
But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.
So who's really being unethical here? The amoral ***** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect their privacy from being raped?
> But now it's intellectually dishonest at best. We're not serving static images with hyperlinks anymore, either, but full-blown malware that tracks people against their will.
> So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves?
No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users?
Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.
> So who's really being unethical here? The amoral *** who write this malware "because it's their job", or the people who are simply trying to protect themselves?
No one is forcing you to visit sites with "malware", you are equally as free to visit an alternative site that doesn't have ads or trackers. And call it what you will, that "malware" is essential for the web as we know it to survive. How else will Google be able to maintain the monopoly on video hosting if they can't harvest and profit off the data off freeloading users?
Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads and you get great perks to boot. And Google promises to respect your privacy so long as you use YouTube Premium.
> Also, for YouTube there is a simple solution: it's called YouTube Premium. You see no ads
I mean, only a Google search will reveal there's people still getting ads despite using YouTube Premium.
I mean, only a Google search will reveal there's people still getting ads despite using YouTube Premium.
>this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly
it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores.
What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar.
"hey everybody I discovered a secret hack to get a free donut with your coffee!!!"... how about just keep doing it yourself, donuts for life?
it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores.
What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar.
"hey everybody I discovered a secret hack to get a free donut with your coffee!!!"... how about just keep doing it yourself, donuts for life?
That definitely seems like the least ethical response to finding a free donut loophole? Unless it's not a loophole at all, but just a marketing tactic deployed by the coffeemaker.
you are responding to a comment that started by justifying parasitism. To make an effective counter argument along the lines you've chosen, you need to address that part of the comment and explain why parasites in nature don't "deserve" to exist, or at least show that they are also unethical. That is/ought to be something easy to prove, right?
Responding to a comment does not imply that one disagrees with the entirety or any part of said comment and does not necessitate crafting an effective counter argument. In fact, I am not making an argument as to parasitism, parasites, or their right to exist at all.
The closest thing I am making to an argument is that, as a human, if you find what you believe to be a bug in a system and you choose to exploit the bug repeatedly for your own gain while keeping it a secret to yourself, this is, in fact, the least ethical choice you, as a human, can make. (More ethical choices include: not telling anyone but walking away and never exploiting the bug again, telling the system maintainers about the bug confidentially, exposing the bug publicly, etc...)
And I guess, in some way, my response is implying that wanting other humans to make the least ethical choice in these sorts of situations and displaying animosity towards those who make a more ethical choice is a little bit strange.
The closest thing I am making to an argument is that, as a human, if you find what you believe to be a bug in a system and you choose to exploit the bug repeatedly for your own gain while keeping it a secret to yourself, this is, in fact, the least ethical choice you, as a human, can make. (More ethical choices include: not telling anyone but walking away and never exploiting the bug again, telling the system maintainers about the bug confidentially, exposing the bug publicly, etc...)
And I guess, in some way, my response is implying that wanting other humans to make the least ethical choice in these sorts of situations and displaying animosity towards those who make a more ethical choice is a little bit strange.
> the least ethical choice you, as a human, can make
you assigned me "human", but I identify as a parasite
i follow the laws of logic, and if the logic of the system gives me a donut, I will take the donut. if the logic changes and i don't get a donut, i will not complain. It is not unethical to follow the logic of the system.
now, as to you as a human, are you saying that you have never downloaded a youtube video to a file on your disk?
you assigned me "human", but I identify as a parasite
i follow the laws of logic, and if the logic of the system gives me a donut, I will take the donut. if the logic changes and i don't get a donut, i will not complain. It is not unethical to follow the logic of the system.
now, as to you as a human, are you saying that you have never downloaded a youtube video to a file on your disk?
No, I am not saying anything like that. I think we must be talking past eachother here.
Full donut disclosure.
Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)
Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)
That level of analysis is on par with arguing for robbing someone's house because they believe that social welfare is a good idea. To influence the world in a positive way (for yourself or others) it is necessary to look a little deeper into how to make situations sustainable.
"sustainable" while making the board $20bn quarterly profit, of course.
The social contract was to show ads. Gathering people's data even on websites they don't even own was not the social contract. Google broke the contract and to suggest otherwise is gaslightling. Google can either start blindly showing context-relevant ads with no tracking or they can eat the loss from those willing to use free services.
But there is more content than there are people who can watch it. What do you think happens when the production curve grows way past the consumption curve?
Genuinely curios. What happens?
Google will be forced to delete unviewed content more frequently, or start charging for hosting video. The latter of which would probably help reduce the amount of garbage content on YouTube.
A lot of garbage content on youtube is exactly because of google’s offered incentive to get users to produce more content. I wouldn’t be upset if clickbait garbage gets archived away.
Google just hosting the data is exactly what I want. Making them a monolith gives them too much leverage.
All we need is hosted APIs and frontend frameworks to wrap content as the user desires.
Charge API users for their bandwidth.
I don’t want Google also deciding what to boost to help them gobble up more human agency.
Reduce redundancy by making HR its own thing.
At the end of the day Google’s core engineering competency is load balancing date center use. The rest is behavioral economics research influenced gamification of our agency
All we need is hosted APIs and frontend frameworks to wrap content as the user desires.
Charge API users for their bandwidth.
I don’t want Google also deciding what to boost to help them gobble up more human agency.
Reduce redundancy by making HR its own thing.
At the end of the day Google’s core engineering competency is load balancing date center use. The rest is behavioral economics research influenced gamification of our agency
Do you think that any significant number of users are circumventing advertisements on YouTube?
No one has the right to control my client just because I visited their server. If Google doesn't want my client, they can easily block me.
Acting like people running custom clients are thieves or something is ridiculous.
No one has the right to control my client just because I visited their server. If Google doesn't want my client, they can easily block me.
Acting like people running custom clients are thieves or something is ridiculous.
Fortunately, YouTure offers the premium account for a small price I gladly pay. I want YouTube to be around, and I don't want it to turn to trash in a desperate attempt to turn a profit.
This also frees me from any qualms about using alternative clients, which are superior in certain situations.
This also frees me from any qualms about using alternative clients, which are superior in certain situations.
. There is an unwritten social contract here
It's not a contract though, its a dictatorship (which they have the right to do) but it's been getting worse and worse for the consumer, and is just another loss leader until who have consumers trapped and then start charging, abusing, etc... I'm with you in spirit, but google is not a good participant in this agreement as of late.
It's not a contract though, its a dictatorship (which they have the right to do) but it's been getting worse and worse for the consumer, and is just another loss leader until who have consumers trapped and then start charging, abusing, etc... I'm with you in spirit, but google is not a good participant in this agreement as of late.
Google itself is the leech and parasite. It has embedded itself into private correspondence, discovery of internet resources, and a ton of other things, going as far as vacuuming up offline credit card transactions to spy on people. Google and honor do not belong in the same sentence.
Hosting videos costs a lot of money and alternatives to Youtube will see only limited success as long as Google can subsidize the service with the money from the massive spy machine.
Causing maximum drain of resources for Google while providing as little as possible for their spy machine is the ethical choice. Let them bleed. Youtube is the largest obstacle to honest businesses that provide video hosting and viewing in exchange for money - instead of making money from spying on users in ways they are unable to fully comprehend and consent to.
Hosting videos costs a lot of money and alternatives to Youtube will see only limited success as long as Google can subsidize the service with the money from the massive spy machine.
Causing maximum drain of resources for Google while providing as little as possible for their spy machine is the ethical choice. Let them bleed. Youtube is the largest obstacle to honest businesses that provide video hosting and viewing in exchange for money - instead of making money from spying on users in ways they are unable to fully comprehend and consent to.
[deleted]
YouTube is similar to a free museum where the gift shop as the only source of revenue. How does the museum handle people who deliberately show up without money and exit via the main entrance?
From a business perspective the building is a shop. Anyone without money is provably there to just wander around looking at things. Doing this a lot is weird, especially given that 99% of visitors buy a coffee or a pencil to keep the museum going.
From a user perspective it’s a museum — the whole point is to wander around looking at things! Should it be required that you buy something, or at least be forced to exit through the gift shop?
From a business perspective the building is a shop. Anyone without money is provably there to just wander around looking at things. Doing this a lot is weird, especially given that 99% of visitors buy a coffee or a pencil to keep the museum going.
From a user perspective it’s a museum — the whole point is to wander around looking at things! Should it be required that you buy something, or at least be forced to exit through the gift shop?
The gift shop clerks analyse museum CCTV footage, as well as information obtained from your license plate and credit card (where you live, what you purchase) to better organise their gift shop, your local supermarket and the news you receive; in a way that’s more alluring to you so they can better organise your behaviour to purchase and think as desired.
Google can stop making the official experience terrible any time it wants. Until then they deserve nothing. Poor poor abused google definitely on the bottom of this abusive relationship.
> There is an unwritten social contract here.
Is this the same unwritten social contract which means we shouldn't use a mute button on ads? After all, the TV company gets paid to send ads to us, and muting those ads means less ad effectiveness.
Don't use the toilet during an ad break either.
Nor use the +15 seconds functionality on video recorder playback to skip ads.
You can see how the social contract for my entire life include the option to avoid ads, and even with 'freeloaders', the broadcast TV business model worked.
YouTube started long after Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. ("the Betamax case") established time shifting as an allowed practice in the US. Their business model, based on any implied social contract, must therefore include that possibility, eg, that people may watch content via downloaders.
They could respond by, for example, placing ads directly in the downloaded video steam. This would mean less profit, but no social contract requires customers to keep a company profitable.
And it would be odd indeed if broadcast TV had a more effective business model in the face of freeloaders than online video.
Is this the same unwritten social contract which means we shouldn't use a mute button on ads? After all, the TV company gets paid to send ads to us, and muting those ads means less ad effectiveness.
Don't use the toilet during an ad break either.
Nor use the +15 seconds functionality on video recorder playback to skip ads.
You can see how the social contract for my entire life include the option to avoid ads, and even with 'freeloaders', the broadcast TV business model worked.
YouTube started long after Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. ("the Betamax case") established time shifting as an allowed practice in the US. Their business model, based on any implied social contract, must therefore include that possibility, eg, that people may watch content via downloaders.
They could respond by, for example, placing ads directly in the downloaded video steam. This would mean less profit, but no social contract requires customers to keep a company profitable.
And it would be odd indeed if broadcast TV had a more effective business model in the face of freeloaders than online video.
It’s not ads, it’s tracking and profiling to better manipulate you
…by showing you more ads.
Is this an Electron app? I wonder why it can't be just a browser extension instead?
If it can hide videos with overexpressive faces on the title cards, I'm in.
The post mentions you can switch thumbnails out to be a random frame from the video, so yes, seems like it.
On desktop you can use YouTube Clickbait Remover for that
I use the dearrow extension to nuke the title cards
https://dearrow.ajay.app/
https://dearrow.ajay.app/
This is like someone turned the volume down in my brain. I had not seen this, very cool.
Freetube has this bundled in as a feature
On SmartTvs and AndroidTv use STN...
https://smarttubenext.com/
https://smarttubenext.com/
don't forget to donate something:
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube?tab=readme-ov-file#d...
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube?tab=readme-ov-file#d...
yup been using for 3/4 months now.
tho it is filled with bugs.
if you use extended screens, good luck.
and a few more like app crashing, unable to handle multiple app launches at once, and so on.
I am looking for a better open-source alternative tbh.
I am looking for a better open-source alternative tbh.
On Android, NewPipe is great (but it sometimes breaks when there are API changes).
NewPipe is another piracy app meant to steal content from YouTube creators. It is not great.
I assume this is in the wake of the cease & desist sent to Invidious (the engine behind Freetube) by the YouTube peeps: https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-orders-invidious-privacy-so...
Isn't this app still using Invidious public servers? The cat-and-mouse game continues.
It's an option that can be toggled on. By default it pulls from YouTube AFAICT.
In the age of LLM's, I with there was some way to automatically pull videos about particular topic, extract the information out of the transcript (skip the clickbait as well) and deduplicate. I spend so much time watching videos just to conclude "ah right, it's actually based on the same info previous 3 videos"
Or if you don’t want to see ads you could pay for it instead. Like an adult. Works great.
They present a perfectly valid choice to you, and it works great. It’s a reasonable enough price (not great but reasonable), but it supports the creators you watch with part of your subscription money.
Plus it has other benefits if you care, like free TV shows and movies and YouTube music. I don’t use that stuff but it is there.
They present a perfectly valid choice to you, and it works great. It’s a reasonable enough price (not great but reasonable), but it supports the creators you watch with part of your subscription money.
Plus it has other benefits if you care, like free TV shows and movies and YouTube music. I don’t use that stuff but it is there.
And it you don’t want to pay, and can’t handle ads, don’t use the service. I don’t understand why people think they are entitled to any content they want, when they want it, for free.
The problem is that I don't care. I've had it with everyone wanting "just" $9.99/mo. I watch a few random two-minute videos a day, that's not worth as much as Netflix to me. I don't want the TV shows, I don't want the music channels, I just want to watch my little videos without ads. How much are you making from me on ads? Just charge me that and remove them.
Then watch with ads. That’s a fair choice.
Why are you entitled to ad free viewing?
“It’s only a few so it’s ok I take something for nothing” is not a legal concept I think would hold up in other contexts.
Why are you entitled to ad free viewing?
“It’s only a few so it’s ok I take something for nothing” is not a legal concept I think would hold up in other contexts.
I don't think neither legality nor ad-free viewing entitlement are even factors in this conversation.
What I'm entitled to is to do whatever I want with every bit of data I download through my browser. The day this stops being the way things are, is the day the web dies, and I can't believe anyone (particularly here) could be defending that.
YouTube provides their data freely. You don't have to sign-up or accept a contract. You open a link and locally download said data. It's on my device, and I control my device, not Google. I can do whatever I want with the data I download, I can make the background pink, I can change some text for something else, and I can take out the parts that I don't like, like ads.
If YouTube wants to stop providing their data with no strings attached, they can. Reddit didn't like the way many of their users used their API, so they blocked it, and I don't use Reddit anymore. If someone doesn't like the way the open web works, they are free to leave, but they can't change the rules.
You ask why we are entitled to ad-free viewing. I ask why do you think Google is entitled to dictate what I do with the local files in my personal device. Do you feel entitled to open your browser's dev tools right now and modify this comment I just wrote?
What I'm entitled to is to do whatever I want with every bit of data I download through my browser. The day this stops being the way things are, is the day the web dies, and I can't believe anyone (particularly here) could be defending that.
YouTube provides their data freely. You don't have to sign-up or accept a contract. You open a link and locally download said data. It's on my device, and I control my device, not Google. I can do whatever I want with the data I download, I can make the background pink, I can change some text for something else, and I can take out the parts that I don't like, like ads.
If YouTube wants to stop providing their data with no strings attached, they can. Reddit didn't like the way many of their users used their API, so they blocked it, and I don't use Reddit anymore. If someone doesn't like the way the open web works, they are free to leave, but they can't change the rules.
You ask why we are entitled to ad-free viewing. I ask why do you think Google is entitled to dictate what I do with the local files in my personal device. Do you feel entitled to open your browser's dev tools right now and modify this comment I just wrote?
Would you take fruit from an unmanned fruit stand that just has a sign of how much money to put into the box / venmo? They have no security and no way to "enforce" that you pay! It's not about stealing at all, it's about me doing anything I want and am not physically prevented from doing! If they don't like it they should hire staff!
Not every proper behavior is enforced. You are always free to be a jerk. And it's pretty goofy to tie that to arguments about total personal freedom. Get outa here. You're violating the social contract. You're using a loophole to get much better treatment than "normal" people and in fact you make their experience worse as they have to watch more ads to make up the cost of serving stuff to you.
Also, would the internet be better if everyone acted like you? I think it would be in a significantly worse place if it was never possible to show an ad on the internet, if everyone was as free as you. So you get a massive benefit from others not using their "freedoms?"
"Screw 'em. If they put a fruit stand in my town, I get to take anything I want from it. It's my town. I don't have to follow their "please pay me" signs. I've always been able to take anything I want in my town. Even back when nobody would bring anything over for 'sale.'"
Cringe
Not every proper behavior is enforced. You are always free to be a jerk. And it's pretty goofy to tie that to arguments about total personal freedom. Get outa here. You're violating the social contract. You're using a loophole to get much better treatment than "normal" people and in fact you make their experience worse as they have to watch more ads to make up the cost of serving stuff to you.
Also, would the internet be better if everyone acted like you? I think it would be in a significantly worse place if it was never possible to show an ad on the internet, if everyone was as free as you. So you get a massive benefit from others not using their "freedoms?"
"Screw 'em. If they put a fruit stand in my town, I get to take anything I want from it. It's my town. I don't have to follow their "please pay me" signs. I've always been able to take anything I want in my town. Even back when nobody would bring anything over for 'sale.'"
Cringe
I think it's ridiculous to try to paint Google as a little fruit stand asking to "please pay me". Google has more money than god. They are an awful abusive company, and they do break all social contracts and abuse every loophole they can get away with.
If you're trying to use morality to defend your argument, then yeah, we just have different values. If Google wants to give me something for free and then, as you said, put a sign asking to please give them my money, I'm sorry, but I don't make donations to trillion dollars companies.
But again, I don't think any of that really matters. As I said, they are using the open web, they're free to stop anytime they want, but not to change the rules the web is based on.
If you're trying to use morality to defend your argument, then yeah, we just have different values. If Google wants to give me something for free and then, as you said, put a sign asking to please give them my money, I'm sorry, but I don't make donations to trillion dollars companies.
But again, I don't think any of that really matters. As I said, they are using the open web, they're free to stop anytime they want, but not to change the rules the web is based on.
I think it's ridiculous to frame what I said like this.
1) Answer the question. Would you ever steal physical goods from an unmanned fruit stand merely asking for money? If not, would you do it if the company owning the fruit stand was rich enough? Did enough bad things? If the fruit stand was _really_ big?
If you answer yes to any of those questions I no longer wish to talk. We truly do have different values.
2) The fruit stand is an analogy for building a business on the open web. You seem to have missed that. Do you think that the internet, that these companies, got to their importance in our lives because everyone is free to modify their packets? That is delusional. It's a quirk most people aren't even aware of, and the internet is as good as you think it is today in large part because they aren't. It's why the fruit stand keeps coming to your town and is the size that it is. It's why you spend so much time stealing from it. Framing your position as exercising inalienable internet rights is ridiculous.
3) Something else you seem to have missed is the parts where I highlight the implications of your philosophy. I'm starting to think that you are arguing in bad faith. What if everyone acted like you? You think that would lead to a better world? Specifically talk about the impact on your favorite YouTube creators. You think it's fine that you don't pay them anything for their effort? That they probably get paid a hair less when you watch their videos because you take the bandwidth without paying for it by watching ads? Why do you only mention the impact on Big Bad Google? Because its easier to launder your conscience that way?
To be clear, my stance is that blocking ads is theft but petty theft; a few cents. Getting all high and mighty about it, and especially getting _anywhere near_ sounding entitled, is ridiculous. Continue to steal a little but be humble about it.
1) Answer the question. Would you ever steal physical goods from an unmanned fruit stand merely asking for money? If not, would you do it if the company owning the fruit stand was rich enough? Did enough bad things? If the fruit stand was _really_ big?
If you answer yes to any of those questions I no longer wish to talk. We truly do have different values.
2) The fruit stand is an analogy for building a business on the open web. You seem to have missed that. Do you think that the internet, that these companies, got to their importance in our lives because everyone is free to modify their packets? That is delusional. It's a quirk most people aren't even aware of, and the internet is as good as you think it is today in large part because they aren't. It's why the fruit stand keeps coming to your town and is the size that it is. It's why you spend so much time stealing from it. Framing your position as exercising inalienable internet rights is ridiculous.
3) Something else you seem to have missed is the parts where I highlight the implications of your philosophy. I'm starting to think that you are arguing in bad faith. What if everyone acted like you? You think that would lead to a better world? Specifically talk about the impact on your favorite YouTube creators. You think it's fine that you don't pay them anything for their effort? That they probably get paid a hair less when you watch their videos because you take the bandwidth without paying for it by watching ads? Why do you only mention the impact on Big Bad Google? Because its easier to launder your conscience that way?
To be clear, my stance is that blocking ads is theft but petty theft; a few cents. Getting all high and mighty about it, and especially getting _anywhere near_ sounding entitled, is ridiculous. Continue to steal a little but be humble about it.
Hit the nail on the head. Adblock is morally equivalent to theft and always has been. Unfortunately, it has often been conflated with this noble idea of privacy, but it is generally understood the purpose of privacy tools is violate social contracts.
I said I'm happy to pay whatever they make from ads from me, where are you getting the "for nothing" part?
You don’t get to set the terms. Google has provided 3 reasonable ones: ads, subscription, don’t visit.
You can’t walk into Best Buy and demand a TV for $7 because that’s how much profit the company makes on it. You’ll be laughed at and security may suggest you go elsewhere.
You can’t walk into Best Buy and demand a TV for $7 because that’s how much profit the company makes on it. You’ll be laughed at and security may suggest you go elsewhere.
The web has provided another reasonable one: Block ads. This is Google's problem to deal with.
Theft of services is not a reasonable alternative.
I think so long as uBlock Origin and browsers like Brave and Firefox are normalized as OK to use, this kind of entitled behavior (that people don't recognize as theft) will unfortunately continue. There needs to be a kind of shift of mentality where people recognize this stuff is harmful.
toastercat(1)
Let's try it. 20 seconds to first start on a M2 mac mini, not amazing. Search takes about 3-5 seconds. Navigate to video another 3-5 seconds. No 4k. No casting. Can't change the playback speed. Can't jump on timeline with 0-9 keys. Doesn't sync to my other devices. Doesn't know about my membership perks, of course.
After a few minutes I would say this is easily the worst way to watch YouTube short of printing the videos out.
After a few minutes I would say this is easily the worst way to watch YouTube short of printing the videos out.
Exactly this. I also expected the app to have the shell UI downloaded locally and only fill it with fetched data, but the slow load times and blank pages make me think it really just is a browser. Somehow worse than your typical Electron app.
The 20 seconds first start is because it is only an x86_64 binary -- no native Arm build.
It's their fault for shipping Chrome instead of shipping HTML.
Is there a server-side Youtube client? I.e. the one that you install on a server and open in a browser.
https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends
Some of these are open source and easy to run, like https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
Some of these are open source and easy to run, like https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
The best way to watch YouTube is via the official YouTube site or app, because everything else is a potential DMCA violation and, if it blocks or skips ads, is tantamount to theft of service.
Doubtful it beats YouTube premium on my TV...
It definitely is. I switched to it primarily because the main website just takes up so much memory, needlessly.
I have no moral issue with this either. If Google wants money then they need to be more legitimate in their business dealings. No ignoring DMCA abuse, no ending user accounts with no appeal, no dark patterns period.
I have no moral issue with this either. If Google wants money then they need to be more legitimate in their business dealings. No ignoring DMCA abuse, no ending user accounts with no appeal, no dark patterns period.
When I made a comment on one video about the Ukraine war, Google instantly deleted my Youtube channel (that had nothing on it), citing the comment was against their community guidelines. After that I'm hesitant to use any of services that I pay Google for in the future, and taking steps to move away from them.
There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then Google won't host the videos, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy YouTube in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target).
If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if Google's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use YouTube - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make PeerTube work or investigate the long list of alternative video platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_video_platforms .