What absolute wankers! In case anyone’s adblock goes south, here are some YouTube alternatives:
For Watching YouTube
For Uploading
- PeerTube
- Idk, make a video blog or something.
For Android:
Newpipe or Tubular (Newpipe X Sponsorblock fork)
VueTube (still under development, the team is working slow because it’s pretty small, they have a few time to spend on it and they need devs, it’s a complete FOSS alternative to Vanced, and will have most of its features including optional Google log in with interactions)
If you need to login and have a full YouTube experience: Revancedapp
LibreTube is very good as well.
I tried it and I still prefer Newpipe, but it’s cool to have a lot of alternatives for everyone!
Newpipe is perfect for me, been using it for months, now when I want to watch a video, I don’t wind up watching whatever, I have a more purposeful experience.
Yes, Newpipe works great, I use both because I want to interact with my favorite creators and share my history and lists with the PC so I’m forced to log in, so the best option for that is a patched YouTube app like revanced (I used to use vanced until a few months ago when they definitely killed it).
I quite like SkyTube, too.
I haven’t tried it, but it’s cool there are more alternatives.
No revanced? I’ve been using it since vanced broke with an older update and it’s been working great for me
PeerTube is awesome. Also its federated with lemmy!
Thank you! Is Invidious going anywhere? I saw something about a DMCA takedown from YouTube.
I’d be surprised if Google completely stamped it out. They’re on Codeberg now, so that’ll make takedowns trickier. It’s also distributed, so taking down the Invidious websites is virtually impossible.
Also, while Google probably has pretty good lawyers, I’m not sure how well they’ll stand up if they go to court.
The official reason they gave for the takedown is also false. They claimed that invidious is using the youtube api without permission, which it isn’t.
deleted by creator
This is something I wanted since I have discovered Newpipe. Thank you, it’s very nice to have something like this on desktop
That’s pretty cool, actually! Nice work!
Relevant Tumblr post
youtube.com##+js(set,yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set,Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set,ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set,Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)Here it is in text format so ya’ll don’t have to type it out. I haven’t verified that it works but by the looks of it it just makes the Adblock sensor report a false negative. [edit, fixed some spacings that sneaked it’s way into the filter upon copying it earlier.]
The real mvp
The one thing the Reddit exodus has taught me, is that I’m almost eager for a reason to ditch my social media and either find something new or simply take back that time and do something more fulfilling anyway.
I’m so much happier not being constantly blasted with advertisements, that now when I have to go back on insta or FB for whatever reason, I can’t stand more than 30 seconds before I nope back off.
Looking forward to axing YouTube from my life next.
I left FB and Instagram about 3 years ago. At first I felt sad because I was “disconnected” from my large network of hundreds of people I know or have met. The truth was the majority of these “friends” weren’t actually participating in my life at all. Those networks for most part were just allowing for some sort of passive consumption of our lives and when I had finally left, it was great. The hour or so I would spend trying to “keep up” with everyone was given back to me and it was refreshing to catch up with friends because we actually get to catch up.
Recently though, I spun up an instance of a private social network just for my family using a web app called HumHub. There’s about 20 members and we use it just for our small family. No outsiders, no ads, no spam, just us. It takes me back to a time where social media was simple.
deleted by creator
I just watched Wendover’s video on how they built Nebula. Most of the content I watch is on that platform, so I’d be happy to just ditch YouTube if they move forward with this.
I just watched Wendover’s video on how they built Nebula. Most of the content I watch is on that platform, so I’d be happy to just ditch YouTube if they move forward with this.
deleted by creator
Time to go to PeerTube. (federated! Bonus)
It’s definitely not ideal, but since YT has become my primary video media content, and it’s also my music streaming services. The cost has value for my family.
I am technical enough to get things like revanced installed, or others. Even for our set top boxes.
The amount of energy truly prevent tracking is endless. For me premium does pay the content creators more for my views and I don’t see/hear any platform ads.
It’s not ideal, but every other streaming service you sign into is profiling you too.
Inside my house/Network I do run pihole, and I use brave browser and it’s shield, as well as unlock origin.
Ideal? No, I’d rather everything be free but that’s not reality
I am 43 and I remember growing up, people in the early days of the internet were calling people in my age group (late genx/early millenial) a generation that will be “impossible to advertise to.” For me, it’s rang very true. I can’t think of a single time I ever saw an ad for anything and it made me want to spend money on a product or service. But I guess that hasn’t been the norm, or ads would be dead.
But I guess that hasn’t been the norm, or ads would be dead.
They’re alive because of all the tracking data they use now. Targeted ads are significantly more effective than their counterparts.
Early GenXer here. Am the same way. Have always hated ads in any form. Except maybe print ads. Especially in the old days in mags like Electronic Fun & Games or something. Even targeted ads are useless to me. If there’s something I’m interested in, I’ll search it out and find what I need. I don’t need some company scraping my data and telling me what I want. I run a Pihole, use ad blockers and YouTube specific apps to block ads and always will
I dunno, I’m 40 and have definitely bought things because of ads. Highly targeted ones on Instagram have introduced me to a lot of cycling gear I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. It seems like most of the youtube ads are pretty bad though
Yeah, that kind of thing I usually try to filter past but exceptionally rarely sometimes something catches me.
It’s been better since breaking a bunch of collection methods and adding garbage data to throw them off but, you know. Id rather just be happy with what I have and mindful/selective when getting new stuff - ads bloat that in a way I don’t appreciate, I guess.
Same age group, a little more aversion to ads. Big ads spenders are at a disadvantage in my selection process.
Google can be counted on to make everything worse at all opportunities.
Corporations in general. Reddit with their API prices, Adobe with their montly subscription for rotating pages in the Adobe Reader, Netflix with their lockdown on account sharing… Capitalism yay!
Everyone’s out for their pound of flesh and man, does it hurt. 🥴
Well, at least we can count on them to cancel this initiative in short order.
don’t be evil
They got rid of that motto years ago, and it’s been quite a ride ever since.
They didn’t, it’s still at the very end of their code of conduct.
Really? I just remembering that it was a big deal with they dropped it. Maybe it’s still there but no longer the motto?
Youtube is a prime example of why monopolies are bad
Decentralize! FEDERATE EVERYTHING!
I agree, the internet needs to go back to its roots. Putting your eggs in one basket is just a bad idea.
At some point the ratio of convenience to quality got all out of whack. Most people I know use maybe three different platforms at most and get angered by all of them. My internet experience peaked when I was checking 20 extremely specific forums regularly and using in-game chat 90% of the time (vent/teamspeak were reserved for raid night).
As much as I dislike ads, “Company wants to make revenue from its product” is not a prime example of why monopolies are bad.
Youtube has done a lot more bad shit than push ads everywhere
deleted by creator
Why? Can you elaborate?
If a company has no competition, being a monopoly, it’s basically free to do whatever it wants. Youtube controls the video streaming market of the internet. If they choose to not pay content creators, to run 10 ads in a row every 3 minutes, or to ban content creators for saying something their automods think is a bad word, what will you do? Where else will you turn? Odds are there’s nothing for you on Vimeo. So you either make do with how Youtube operates, or you don’t get to watch cat videos, or video essays on WW2, or playthroughs of Super Mario Sunshine, or what have you.
I had as context in mind that they won’t allow you to watch videos without paying for it via subscription or advertisment
Bring able to skip 5 seconds into a 14-30 second ad isn’t a huge inconvenience. When doing something AFK the ad ends in a reasonable amount of time so you’re right back to your background music or whatever. I’ve never taken issue with that. I’m not a huge fan of the newer strategy that run two ads in a row, but it’s still tolerable. What I deplore is the occasional infomercial ad that’ll run for anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 hours without intervention. Those are the reason I run an ad blocker on the desktop.
On mobile there’s fewer options. Running adblock on Firefox works for now, but if that gets neutered I won’t cry. Another option is to install an app that works with the YouTube app to automatically skip ads after five seconds. If youtube takes action against those apps I’ll spend a lot less time on YouTube.
This harkens to the current reddit situation. I’m only here because I got tired of their incessant “get our app” prompts on mobile and just started looking into getting an app right when the shit hit the fan. Forcing intrusive advertising on users is a great way to alienate them.
maybe you missed the part where they are not only trying to get rid of adblockers, but also are trying to change over to at least 30 seconds of unskippable ads
I will just avoid their bullshit by using a different YouTube front-end.
deleted by creator
And also, are people who are determined not to watch advertising going to be the ones that cave and buy some crap if you can force them to watch it?
Exactly - If anything ever happens to permanently disable my ability to block advertisements, I’ll drop that service cold and never look back.
I don’t think google cares if you buy stuff or not. They are just selling ads.
But I agree with overall idea: if the ads become unavoidable, I’ll just stop watching youtube.
What if… We all got YouTube Premium, is Google then earning more or breakeven, when they cannot sell or display ads? I mean, there are companies paying Google to display there ads, that revenue would be gone.
They are still going to sell your data even if you get Premium.
I’ve seen it explained this will just hurt the metrics by which companies measure as effectiveness. Funny that another evil will be the one to tackle this one.
Companies are going out of their way to ignore the fact that “the easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” - Gabe Newell
I consider adblocking to be in the same boat. Piracy/Adblocking only exists because it’s not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. By making the free version even more intrusive ON PURPOSE, they’re not pushing as many people to buy a subscription as they are pushing people to install adblockers. If YouTube only ever showed a quick 10-15 sec ad at the very beginning of a video, I’d be less inclined to go out of my way to find and install an adblocker (and maybe even eventually just buy a subscription) than if they force feed me back to back, 30-second, unskippable ads.
It’s the same with those stupid fucking commercials that run ALL the time and try and be as annoying as possible. If I find your ad to be annoying and frequent and shoved down my throat all the time, I will vehemently and actively go out of my way to AVOID that product, not be more inclined to buy it.
Decreasing the convenience of ad blocking, makes the subscription more convenient in comparison.
A percentage of people will genuinely sub from this, they don’t exactly lose any bandwidth from those who don’t.
No built in sponsorblock automatically kills it for me.
It’s been years since I saw an ad on YouTube.
It’s really annoying and I was even surprised when I got to know they have implemented multiple ads on a single video.
Last time I saw an ad was when it was a single ad in the beginning of the video.
A prediction…
YouTube: Show them this ad. Browser: Sure. OK they watched it. YouTube: Really? That was too fast. It was a three minute ad! Browser: Oh, right. Well they’ve definitely watched it now. YouTube: You sure? Browser: Totally.
Something that youtube can do is open the ad on a background tab, muted and with width and lenght as minimum as possible. People don’t want to see that shit, but want the ad revenue, so I guess it’s a win/win situation?
“We want to inform viewers that ad blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, and make it easier for them to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience,” the company said in its email to The Verge.
Wow, thanks, YouTube! I always had such a hard time disabling my ad blocker - I’m so glad you’ve made it easier for me!
Really, though, I don’t see this ending well for YouTube. I’d bet there’ll be an ad blocking option that works to bypass this within a week.
Within a week? I think my ad blocker already handles it; I haven’t noticed ads on YouTube ever, on my own devices, and haven’t seen their latest messaging either.
It’s the sheer patrimony of statements like these that really annoy me. I get that things have costs and they also have to deliver a profit; that’s just business. But why can’t they just have the guts to openly say that rather than dress it up in all the bullshit
I was always shocked at how much better twitch was at getting around Adblock compared to YouTube. I mean, google is thee advertising company. But even twitch’s was breakable
I mean, since we’re all here, PeerTube is federated with Lemmy! There are limited numbers of creators on PeerTube right now, but maybe if we can link more videos from there on lemmy and upload some ourselves, we can get the platform into a healthy state. Not that there is nothing there, there is a decent amount uploaded already.
PeerTube won’t take off unlike Lemmy did and still does. People won’t switch from YouTube to PeerTube because the creators they watch aren’t there. Also the YouTube Algorithm is what people make use YouTube in the first place.
Reddit isn’t creator based and doesn’t necessarily need an Algorithm since the users choose what to see anyways. So the Lemmy experience isn’t actually that mich worse than the reddit experience
Creators also need to make money. I doubt Peertube has ad revenue to split with them.
In fairness to YouTube, creators do keep about half the money (in exchange for YouTube hosting the content).
I don’t think that’s thaat much of a deal. Most youtubers also need additional revenue streams like patreon and mearch and sponsorships.
It’s a really good point. It’s both the algo and the creators the keep us there.
Discoverability is something youtube’s alogrithm really gets right, and something lemmy, or the fediverse in general, just sucks at right now.
YT algo is hot garbage, I always have to check the channels of the creators I follow manually. I donate through Patreon and I would be happy to bump up my donations to make it easier for them to move to PeerTube
I am constantly on YouTube. I have a stable of creators I follow and watching them has replaced the time I would have spent on other streaming services. It’s how I chill.
So I signed up for YouTube Premium and watch it on my TV with no ads. I have no complaints. I get full HD videos, streamers get paid, YouTube gets paid, and everyone is happy.
If one of your reasons for using YouTube premium is “streamers get paid”, you should probably look into things a bit further.
The vast majority of YouTube premium revenue goes towards music publishers who, statistically, don’t have any relation to the content you watch, and contribute nothing towards it.
The content you watch likely still has embedded advertising because YouTube has some of the worst, if not the worst, rates paid to people who actually create the videos on their platform (this means there’s no such thing as “ad free YouTube” without using an ad blocker, even if you pay for premium)
I also use YouTube music instead of Spotify or Apple so I am fine with music rights holders getting paid. I haven’t seen any ads on my premium and I have had it for years and use it on my laptop, tvs, and tablets. The only ads I see are the sponsored segments in videos that not even an ad blocker can block because it’s part of the video done by the creator themselves.
check out a Firefox extension called SponsorBlock. It’s updated by users but is pretty current and can be set to skip past self promotion and in video advertising.
Sponsor block is pretty good for those. But yeah I’m also a YouTube premium member for similar reasons, also had a Google music sub back in the day that converted over.
Just hate that some browsers in app can’t find my login on android and play the ad rather then running the YouTube app.
I mean, that’s great and I’m glad you’re happy with that but:
-
This is a privacy forum and that is the opposite of privacy. Every video, like, click, and comment you submit is still used to profile you. There’s no opting out.
-
I love watching YT videos but the actual interface is fucking horrific: I can’t filter out the garbage I don’t want to watch like Shorts, podcasts, and live videos. This would be very simple for YouTube to ad.
They hijack my search results if the video I’m looking for is not in the top 5 to show me more “suggested” videos.
My home feed, instead of showing content relevant to my interests that I’ve expressed using likes and subscriptions, is full of garbage clickbait and videos I already watched 1 time 8 years ago, and the same fucking videos that are already in my subscription feed. It’s ridiculous how bad they are at this.
-
If I’m paying for a service I expect to not see ads and YT premium does nothing about in-video ads.
-
The actual creators are paid a tiny fraction of what YT is, despite providing the vast majority of the value. And YT treats them like garbage anyway.
When there is a competing subscription service that solves these problems and works well, I’ll be happy to sign up for that. Until then I’ll keep using LibreTube and YT can eat a Weiner.
- That happens whether you’re subscribed or not.
- Sort of agreed, not really relevant to the parent comment though. 3+4. You can’t have both “no ads allowed in-video” and “creators are paid a majority share of the money we make serving the video”. YouTube was (and still is if I understand it correctly) barely profitable, and if it is profitable right now I’m sure it is because of the worst kind of data-mining.
It is way harder to provide an effective platform for content than it is to deliver actual content, especially as effort/content has close to zero effect on vitality/attention/profitability, while the aspects we want in a platform (especially in regards to privacy) are entirely unprofitable. As someone who uses adblock and generally dislikes the corporate aspect of YouTube I at least has to acknowledge that YouTube has to make money somehow, and that in-video sponsors seems like a win-win for everyone involved, especially when you can skip them pretty much effortlessly.
Normally I wouldn’t even comment this shit, but as we are (hopefully) part of a shift to actual community driven platforms (fediverse in general), I think we have to aggressively discuss how to monetize these platforms enough so that they don’t actively drain the wallets of the people maintaining them, and this is a very relevant aspect of that discussion.
Hopefully not too ranty, extremely inebriated.
YT can eat a Weiner.
I think this is the most important thing in this whole thread
- That happens whether you’re subscribed or not.
- Sort of agreed, not really relevant to the parent comment though. 3+4. You can’t have both “no ads allowed in-video” and “creators are paid a majority share of the money we make serving the video”. YouTube was (and still is if I understand it correctly) barely profitable, and if it is profitable right now I’m sure it is because of the worst kind of data-mining.
It is way harder to provide an effective platform for content than it is to deliver actual content, especially as effort/content has close to zero effect on vitality/attention/profitability, while the aspects we want in a platform (especially in regards to privacy) are entirely unprofitable. As someone who uses adblock and generally dislikes the corporate aspect of YouTube I at least has to acknowledge that YouTube has to make money somehow, and that in-video sponsors seems like a win-win for everyone involved, especially when you can skip them pretty much effortlessly.
Normally I wouldn’t even comment this shit, but as we are (hopefully) part of a shift to actual community driven platforms (fediverse in general), I think we have to aggressively discuss how to monetize these platforms enough that they don’t actively drain the wallets of the people maintaining them, and this is a very relevant aspect of that discussion.
Hopefully not too ranty, extremely inebriated.
- That happens whether you’re subscribed or not.
- Sort of agreed, not really relevant to the parent comment though. 3+4. You can’t have both “no ads allowed in-video” and “creators are paid a majority share of the money we make serving the video”. YouTube was (and still is if I understand it correctly) barely profitable, and if it is profitable right now I’m sure it is because of the worst kind of data-mining.
It is way harder to provide an effective platform for content than it is to deliver actual content, especially as effort/content has close to zero effect on vitality/attention/profitability, while the aspects we want in a platform (especially in regards to privacy) are entirely unprofitable. As someone who uses adblock and generally dislikes the corporate aspect of YouTube I at least has to acknowledge that YouTube has to make money somehow, and that in-video sponsors seems like a win-win for everyone involved, especially when you can skip them pretty much effortlessly.
Normally I wouldn’t even comment this shit, but as we are (hopefully) part of a shift to actual community driven platforms (fediverse in general), I think we have to aggressively discuss how to monetize these platforms enough that they don’t actively drain the wallets of the people maintaining them, and this is a very relevant aspect of that discussion.
Hopefully not too ranty, extremely inebriated.
- That happens whether you’re subscribed or not.
- Sort of agreed, not really relevant to the parent comment though. 3+4. You can’t have both “no ads allowed in-video” and “creators are paid a majority share of the money we make serving the video”. YouTube was (and still is if I understand it correctly) barely profitable, and if it is profitable right now I’m sure it is because of the worst kind of data-mining.
It is way harder to provide an effective platform for content than it is to deliver actual content, especially as effort/content has close to zero effect on vitality/attention/profitability, while the aspects we want in a platform (especially in regards to privacy) are entirely unprofitable. As someone who uses adblock and generally dislikes the corporate aspect of YouTube I at least has to acknowledge that YouTube has to make money somehow, and that in-video sponsors seems like a win-win for everyone involved, especially when you can skip them pretty much effortlessly.
Normally I wouldn’t even comment this shit, but as we are (hopefully) part of a shift to actual community driven platforms (fediverse in general), I think we have to aggressively discuss how to monetize these platforms enough that they don’t actively drain the wallets of the people maintaining them, and this is a very relevant aspect of that discussion.
Hopefully not too ranty, extremely inebriated.
-
I’ve blocked their ads for years. I support content creators by buying merchandise and with Patreon.
After hearing about this, I’ve decided to give YouTube Premium a try. It seems like an easier and more consistent way for me to support creators. I watch YT almost daily, and get a lot of value from it. I hate ads and refuse to watch them, but Premium users don’t see them.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for walking away from YouTube over this. But for me at least, this was kind of a no-brainer.
I know Google tracks users and targets us with ads. I’m deep in their ecosystem anyway, and rely on their services for work, hobbies, and managing my data. I am stuck with them, unfortunately.
I do block what I can (Meta, Microsoft, Amazon) with Pi Hole and browser extensions. But there’s no total escape from an internet footprint, short of dropping off the grid. I’m dependent on Alphabet to live my lifestyle, for better or worse.
The biggest pain with premium is how prevalent in video ads are. Not fun to pay and still see ads anyway.
I wouldn’t mind if they were right at the start or at the end. But they’re always either 30 - 60 seconds in or in the middle of the video and so many of them are over a minute.
Sponsorblock can help with that … if you’re watching through something that can use it.
If we’re lucky, in time (and with enough YouTube premium subscribers) the need for YouTubers to have 3rd party sponsorships will decrease.
I know this is really bad. And I know they need to make money somehow. But on precedent I just refuse to pay for YouTube premium, having been there since the beginning. Before adverts started showing, and everyone predicted they’d plague us with ads until charging you to get rid of them.
Also a part of me refuses to believe Google can’t afford to run YouTube without adverts.
If we’re lucky, in time (and with enough YouTube premium subscribers) the need for YouTubers to have 3rd party sponsorships will decrease.
Why would creators ever say no to more money?
Because ad spots don’t fit in well to videos. And they are a pain to negotiate and often (depending on the partner) limit what can be in the videos.
Yeah, but come on man, at the end of the day video makers won’t care and why should they. They aren’t exactly making art over there.
I get that people have to get payed somehow. But without public funding, it is always going to devolve into some kind of shitshow.
… that’s why YouTube premium is a thing. Over 50% of the monthly subscription is distributed among the creators you view in a month.
Okay, but I dont want to pay any of them.
I realize that this is a catch22, but this is where we are at. I really only want to view footage from creators that are willing to give it to me for free without ads. Youtube provided a technical infrastructure for that for about two decades, and it looks like they can’t anymore. Fine, but it has clearly been proven that we as a society can make this happen, and I will patiently wait for it to be a thing again. Or I will find something else. But I am not paying a monthly subscription.
Honestly, if I could pay 800 dollars for lifetime access to YouTube, I probably would. Weird right? Thats like 8 years of YouTube premium all at once. YouTube might even shut down in 8 years. But whatever, its not my job to figure these things out and honestly I’m unbothered by it. At the end of the day, I am confident that intwrnet based media will emerge stronger from this.
At the end of the day it is about honesty - are you a small creator reading an ad because that is how you support your business, or are you a large faceless corporation giving me free shit so that I will unknowingly be bound by a EULA that is designed to be impossible to understand, all for the purpose of trying to extract money from me later? Ill take the former, every time.
I’m in the same situation, and I agree. I even got the premium lite plan for 7€ which I find really reasonable with the quality of the content and the amount I watch. I’d rather pay YouTube and content creators than Netflix or Disney anyway.
If they will actually do that, I’ll pay for a subscription. To Nebula.
I actually pay for Nebula already and it has been great so far for me. I use it a lot more than Youtube and you don’t need to sift through a bunch of garbage to find something decent to watch. They just need to add more content creators.
What percentage of yt creators are over there? I pay for premium, but yt is literally my primary video media consumption so I get value out of it. I also use yt music as my streaming service.
What percentage of yt creators are over there?
Of all creators on YT? A tiny fraction. Less than one hundredth of one percent.
Of the creators that I personally watch? Probably about a quarter to a half. Most of my favourite urbanist channels, excellent history and news channels, lots of amazing media criticism from a variety of angles. And some very fun game shows.
Nebula isn’t actually trying to be a general competitor to YouTube. It’s curated to be high quality content creators. To a pretty good extent, you can guarantee that if they’re on Nebula, they’re a good creator—maybe not to your personal taste (there are plenty on there that I have no interest in), but at least good in their niche. All their creators are part owners of it (in a meaningful way, not in a “one share out of a company with millions of shares” kind of way), so they only let in creators that they think they can trust.
And all that, for a price that’s less per year than YouTube Premium is for just 2 months. For me, it’s a no brainer.
Not that many sadly and from my understanding you need to be invited by them to join. There is 240 currently if it loaded and counted them correctly for me. They have a list of them here. It works for me because a lot of them make exactly the content I am interested into, but might not work or you or anyone else depending on taste.
It would be the same for me. Most of the channels I watch advertise Nebula, unless they advertise Floatplane. With these two I would have >90% of my Youtube watch time covered.
I actually used to have YT Premium because I’m a strong believer that nothing is free, so you either pay with data or money (on anything slightly commercial, not counting FOSS projects made as hobby or under foundations etc. as things get more complex then. But even then I pay/donate for some stuff in the same way of reasoning).
Yet I cancled the YT Premium subscription. Simply for one reason, privacy. I don’t mind paying, but then I don’t want just no adds, I also want no tracking. I pay with money, so I don’t want to pay with data as well having a whole profile made.
Switched to NewPipe with sponsorblock on phone and TV and FreeTube on PC. Got a redirect extension in FireFox automatically sending YT videos to either Invidious or Pipe.
Would definetely prefer to pay than being tracked…
But i also feel like the time is mature to produce a new type of web where nor ads, nor user payments are required, i think we’ll get there some day…
No ads and no user payment?
So… who pays to keep the servers going? Who pays to produce the content?
That stuff is expensive! We’re paying for it somehow.
There are a few options and none of them are great.
First we have to split between paying for content and paying for the delivery.
There is already a platform where people pay for the delivery by letting their device be part of the delivery system. That’s Bittorrent. You can download by uploading. I don’t see why something like the Bittorrent protocol couldn’t be adapted to a Youtube like platform. And if the platform only serves a frotend that helps you find the correct torrent and then streams the content in a video player, the demands on the server would be low enough that it could be run using ddonations or something like that. It would basically be a legal version of the Pirate Bay.
For content creation on the other side, that’s a whole different can of worms. Content creation takes much more money. I see only two alternatives to ads, sponsorships and direct payments: government-sponsored content and unpaid content.
Government-sponsored content like e.g. BBC stuff is good, but it doessn"t nearly fill every niche that Youtubers etc. currently cover.
Unpaid content could work for some media, e.g. there are a lot of great books or music made by hobbyists without commercial aspirations, but making high-production-value videos without propper funding is just not going to happen at scale.
So all in all, I don’t see a future where we aren’t going to pay for content in any way.
An issue with the torrent scheme is efficiency. Networks of home computers will suck down considerably more power from (potentially) less than ideal energy sources than dedicated servers in well-planned locations (i.e. near reliable renewable energy sources, with backup generators). I don’t see a way to have this without involving large institutions, whether private or public.
Regarding media creation, there’s a middle ground between direct payment and government-sponsored: Universal Basic Income, or a related scheme of generic grants for art/education producers. Ensuring people don’t starve or become homeless as they start projects or grow large enough to be sustained by direct payments from an audience could foster this sort of growth.
Yeah, when you talk about ideal, home computers will not win. When you talk about an industry that overprovisions servers by ~50% and doesn’t even turn these overprovisioned servers off when they don’t need them, an industry that lobbies against any push to force them to put solar on their roofs, that lobbies against mandatory haste heat reuse and all that, I believe that a network of home computers will not be much more wasteful. Especially considering that the PCs are ildeing already anyway.
The problem with government-sponsored is, that we have to pay for it anyway. Unless you live in the Emirates, governments usually don’t have a money surplus and they need to make money through taxes. So wheter you pay through taxes or through direct contributions, there isn’t too much of a difference there.
What about using tecnologies such as Bitcoin and blockchain to find a sustainable mechanism of income for creators / server owners?
Miners already have an economical incentive to build a network and keep expanding it: they literally get paid for producing and maintaining computer power, and why is it working? Because Bitcoin was the first and only available example that made what gold did, but better in a time that was really needed…
We just need to include the web into the equation, building a web and a mechanism of incentives (i would say based on bitcoin) that works better than the current web! Easier said than done that’s sure!
We need to think about what every social media platform would want to use because works better than ads and all the other incentives/income methods.
If Satoshi did it, i don’t see why can’t we do it too…
If you have an android phone with a Google account, you’re being tracked already.
As I be see it, I’m going to be tracked by everything on the internet whether I like it or not. So in the case of YouTube, I may as well support the creators I watch hours of content from.
Software doesn’t has to be this way. Humans define their own way and the Fediverse is showing us this.
You get tracked if you give up and accept the privacy invasions because “the internet is just like that”. Get a phone with an unlocked bootloader, remove the stock Android and install GrapheneOS/LineageOS/CalyxOS.
I totally understand where you are coming from, as I to pay for YT premium. However; when it comes to tracking, it is one of the few applications that I don’t think works very well without it. Part of why I enjoy it most of the time is the interesting content the algorithm suggests, that I wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.
I don’t know the solution to that problem… Maybe the tracking stays within the YT world only, and isn’t sold or used anywhere else?
