- cross-posted to:
- news@kbin.social
- youtube
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- news@kbin.social
- youtube
- technology@beehaw.org
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When you have a goose that produces a reliable daily supply of golden eggs do you:
- keep collecting your daily egg
or - see if giving it a good kick or two gets you more eggs
“But what about profits”
enshittification at play
Doctorow is a very smart man.
“The ~$10MM in profit we booked last year is not enough!” The curse of infinite growth.
Youtube most likely never made any money. Hosting these vast amounts of video is expensive. Google stopped telling us how much they money youtube made them lose. You would think they would start bragging when they could make a profit off of it.
That being said, this still sucks of course.
Although they don’t profit directly from youtube, it’s a strategy they take to impede competition from arising and keeping their name as the main one. It’s the kind of strategy only multibillionaire companies can do, and, in my opinion, something that should be restricted, because it affects smaller businesses to the point of becoming inviable.
More notably, its a strategy they can do when borrowing costs are functionally zero.
A lot of this shit is just the consequence of Fed Rate Policy. No more cheap money means these loss leaders are actually being expected to generate profit, not to just act as clearing houses for propaganda.
I agree. Amazon is infamous for that strategy as well. They either buy competitors or make a loss until the competitor is bankrupt.
As YouTube increases the number and length of ads, the amount of traffic behind blockers rises accordingly.
This is also just… a function of the evolving digital space. The consolidation of the internet ownership sphere and the modernized APIs/coding tools afford server-side content warehouses more and more power over what the end user receives.
Because AWS owns all the fucking rack space, because ISP monopolies are the defining feature of western net access, and Microsoft force-feeds people their proprietary interfaces, we’re moving away from the point where clients control what they display and closer to the point where everything’s just a dumb-terminal for big business.
We’re effectively backpeddling from Web 2.0 to Terrestrial TV.
- keep collecting your daily egg
oh boy, I wish youtube kills itself like reddit is doing right now so decentralized alternatives can become widely adopted
YouTube is a bit of a different animal.
YouTube allows creators to monetize content - so there’s a sense of shared success. Channels from Tom Scott or Captain Disillusion are amazing, because their production in part relies on that revenue model.
YouTube also understands that without paying for popular content, you won’t get the consistent cavalcade of medium content from people that want to earn a living or notoriety through YouTube. And that include anything from videos of cats falling over, blogs about life in remote places, DIY home improvement or niche guitar technique lessons.
Meanwhile on Reddit, if a user gets thousands of upvotes and a million page views for a short story they wrote exclusively for the platform, Reddit won’t pay them a cent. The very thought is laughable.
The other thing to consider is that the technology just doesn’t exist for there to be a viable ‘federated’ YouTube. YouTube has 800 million videos - many in HD and many are hours long. That’s a big ask in terms of storage and maintenance - even several thousand videos.
Video compression has a long way to go before that changes. For now, it makes sense for leave that storage to the companies with resources.
Text, however… well, all of Wikipedia can fit on around 20 gigs - 60 million odd articles. And for the record, that can pretty much fit on an iPod from 2002.
I do wish that YouTube wasn’t a monopoly. Twitch is the only thing that’s close, and it has it’s own special lane for live streaming. Back in the old days, there was some competition - including Google Video. But that went away when Google bought YouTube. I guess there’s Vimeo, but they’ve got a very different approach.
I mean, the Justice Department is suing Google for monopolizing ad tech - and I think we could see antitrust laws used in the next few years to breakup YouTube. Maybe the successor companies would federate - like when Bell was broken up into what became Verizon and ATT - who now directly compete for customers.
The other thing to consider is that the technology just doesn’t exist for there to be a viable ‘federated’ YouTube.
Well, Peertube exists. But I agree it is very hard to get close to the amount of videos YouTube hosts without it becoming too expensive. But that is even true for companies like Google, which is why they are pushing these changes. It seems like people need to accept that a video platform must either show ads, make you subscribe, or receive substantial donations.
I almost can’t believe Wikipedia is only 20GB btw. Does that include all the pictures on there?
Does that include all the pictures on there?
It can’t. 60 million odd articles with pictures only taking 20GB? I doubt it. Just the text taking up so few space that I can believe.
Yeah that’s what I thought. That means the server load and cost must be significantly higher than what 20GB implies. It still would probably not come close to YouTube though, but it does make the donation model seem more realistic.
I almost can’t believe Wikipedia is only 20GB btw. Does that include all the pictures on there?
That’s English compressed text only, decompressed text is closer to 90GB
Which is still pretty low tbh, considering the massive amount of information on Wikipedia in English
@pinwurm @manned_meatball I wonder if if Nvidia Video Upscaling and similar tech could also help 480p videos turn HD. That could help bandwidth reduction but it isn’t a solution as much as a workaround.
I think the day will come when YouTube caps uploads or stops them entirely. Maybe limiting user’s uploads for videos that don’t get high viewership. Eventually this model can’t go on forever, I can’t even comprehend how it’s profitable currently.
YouTube is very profitable.
Targeted ad revenue is massive - and Google owns both the platform and ad delivery system (AdSense). As well, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV exist.
YouTube Premium has 50 million subscribers.
YouTube TV is great for live sports and has something like 6 million subscribers now (compared to Comcast who has around 15 million TV subscribers). It’s only going up. At $73/mo, that earns them $5.25 Billion a year in subscription fees alone.While they have high expenses, they’re rolling in money.
As data compression gets better and hardware becomes cheaper - YouTube’s operating costs get cheaper… which means bigger paychecks for execs.
Right there with you on that one. The biggest problem is video hosting is a pain in the rear, particularly at such a grand scale. Hopefully, video hosting platforms will go niche, thus reducing bandwidth costs for each platform and “YouTube” will be the whole federation.
Decentralized services also cost money to operate. Servers, bandwidth, developers. Where is the money for that supposed to come from?
LBRY solves it by creating their token and rewarding peers for storing and serving the media. The same goes for most P2P solutions, there’s no entity that has to pay for the costs, all the network shares it. More users and peers mean higher resources, but the individual costs remain roughly the same.
Is there a video platform that works in the fediverse as well? Feel like if we are doing alternatives that we should use things that are all based off of similar decentralized tech.
Beautiful!
We’re getting closer to the prophetic 4chan post
That was a wild read. The 4chan guys can write better dystopias than Hollywood.
Is there an image that has better quality? It’s illegible.
Please drink a verification can for better resolution
glug glug glug?
PIRACY DETECTED!
Say “Larry page is better than Steve jobs” into your nearest android phone.
Then I’m going to begin not fucking watching YouTube.
Also
youtube-dl/yt-dlp(ormpvdirectly) if you just want to play and/or download videos and don’t care about the UI or subscription stuff.That’s not bulletproof either. I remember I used to watch Twitch using mpv, but I stopped around the time Twitch started experimenting with injecting ads in the stream directly… So I would get them even in mpv. They probably stopped experimenting with that, but it’s technically possible for them to do.
Isn’t that something they can also target and shut down? Either through legal action or blocking calls from unverified sources?
There is a federated version of YouTube…
But storing video is a massive challenge, way harder than dealing with a Lemmy or Mastodon instance.
My rational mind realises it’s such an expensive system to run that it’s reasonable for them to charge or show ads. The problem is they’ve been extremely aggressive with ads and pushing subscriptions, to the point where I’m pretty resentful of the idea. Plus they’ve neglected so many things (like allowing aggressive copyright predators and refusing to implement sensible human-based appeals processes) that they really should have dealt with and instead embraced an algorithm that I’m pretty sure is at least partially responsible for the radicalisation of large groups of people.
I… don’t mind paying for shit. I just don’t want to give them money.
Also: wow there’s federated video sharing? Bet that’s not cheap to run.
Also: wow there’s federated video sharing? Bet that’s not cheap to run.
It’s called PeerTube for the record.
No videos listed there.
I’ve been paying for YouTube since it was YouTube Red. Then they increased the price of the family plan by 50% and I quit paying. Adblocking has been working well. This news about YT blocking adblocking came out a few weeks ago and since then I have been watching and listening via YT non-stop.
I think the other issue is that giving them money doesn’t stop some of the ads iirc
The federated version also breaks one of YouTube’s bigger strengths: Just browsing for something interesting.
even google is having difficulty storing video.
lol
Yeah, good luck making me watch ads trough newpipe
The great thing about using free open-source software is the immunity from corporate shenanigans.
Well, all the open-source Reddit clients are pretty drastically affected by Reddit’s shenanigans.
RedReader isn’t actually. Reddit granted them an exemption, partially because it’s FOSS
Damn straight - they can take my NewPipe from my cold dead hands :-)
Alphabet killbots have been dispatched to your location. Remember to enable sponsorblock in the settings.
Newpipe or even better, LibreTube, for even more privacy (and included sponsorblock!).
YouTube demands NewPipe to pay $1b…
Haha
As fill-in ads are a vector for computer viruses and other malware I for one will NOT be disabling my ad blocker unless YouTube is willing to provide a lifetime subscription to something like Life Lock and make me whole for anything lost to whatever malware arrives as a part of an ad.
Where else can I watch sci-show, Linus-tech-tips, and all the other channels I subscribe to?
Just use newpipe. It’s youtube without the ads. Doesn’t have casting support, but it allows you to download the videos. You can also listen/download to the audio of videos, without fetching the video.
Newpipe will probably be blocked as well if youtube is doing this. Honestly not sure why youtube hasn’t blocked yt-dlp and others already.
It’s not easily block able as it scrapes the YouTube website. They’d have to stop having a website for that to happen.
The problem with scraping is that while it’s difficult/impossible to block completely, it’s pretty easy to keep making changes to your site to disrupt scrapers. The work required by the scraper to adapt to those changes is usually way more than the work you put in to disrupt them.
So if a commercial site wants to make scraping unreliable and impractical, they almost certainly can.
It’s also easy for the NewPipe devs to update their app and make it work again. This has been going on for years already.
deleted by creator
More for fedi :)
deleted by creator
I’m not a 100% sure but I think newpipe uses a scraping method instead, so its harder to block since it pretends its a regular user
@beatniak @blank_sl8 recently many yt-dlp User Interfaces stopped working, I couldn’t download certain videos. So maybe the cat and mouse is about to begin.
this particular cat and mouse has been going on for a long time.
Although I get the impression it’s not particularly aggressive.
There was a while there about a year ago where newpipe seemed to break every week and you had to install the next patch version from github. It’s not like newpipe had to develop some new workaround or something, just changed class names or something.
I do wonder how much of an impact command line youtube downloaders have on them. I can’t imagine much since the typical user couldn’t operate it. A few years ago the RIAA tried to take yt-dl down, and did for a while, but it was deemed meritless so it’s back up.
Removed by mod
When will companies finally understand that some people won‘t watch ads no matter what tricks they employ. I‘d rather watch no video at all than a single ad. If that is their goal, fine.
And the percentage of people using ad blocking has to be crazy low. I’ve never seen another person in public with ad blocking. Every time I happen to see someone watching youtube, there’s ads playing.
Yeah I worked in IT support for a time and most seemed not even aware it is a thing, let alone installed it. Mostly the other IT people and a few others.
That’s likely their goal. At least some percentage of ad blocking users will disable the adblock and for those that won’t, they’ll save server costs.
For corporations that care only about quarterly stock price this makes sense. They don’t care about the long term damage to the ecosystem (adblocking users still contribute in many ways).
Yeah probably. I‘m not gonna pretend like I contribute a ton to Youtube, but I‘m still an audience member and being advertised to by the content (like sponsorships, trailers, hype and product placement). All that heavy handed blocking and banning approach does for me is push me towards researching alternatives. Similar to how I went from piracy -> Netflix -> piracy.
They have really gone all out on the whole enshittification process during the past couple of years, haven’t they?
Falling rate of profit etc. etc.
Should be fun to watch this accelerate during the incoming recession.
Just wait until they figure out how much more $$$$ they can make by putting all content behind microtransactions:
Imagine a world where, instead of grappling with complex tokens and crypto jargon, you have a digital wallet connected to your Web browser. This wallet would automatically handle microtransactions as you browse and consume content, creating a seamless and simplified experience, reminiscent of exchanging tokens at a funfair or arcade
This transition to the Great Paywall isn’t just about the monetization of content; it’s about balancing the scales and recognizing the value of content creators in the digital ecosystem. In the next chapter of the Web, users aren’t just passive consumers but active participants whose attention carries tangible value.
Let’s not forget that, if we do go down the microtransaction hell of an internet path, we’d be screwing things up big-time for the coming generations…
Seems like it’s profit squeezin season on every major platform.
VC cash is drying up, and other investors are getting leery of the Silicon Valley funding model. Investors are demanding a path to profitability soon or right now.
Nebula is really good at this point. Almost everything I enjoy watching is one there now.
Seems like one of the best options to support your favorite creators.
Just FYI for anyone reading: Invidious and Piped are great YouTube mirrors, and Piped even blocks in-video sponsor sections!
We need a Lemmy not that comments on all YouTube links and gives an invidious link instead
Hopefully we get a decent alternative soon
PeerTube exists but it is not popular. It has a lot of potential though
It’s about to have more potential for growth.
They are past the growth stage - now its the milking stage.
YouTube is the only Google service I use on a regular basis. Happy to leave them behind if they continue with this type of behavior.
It would be less convenient, but it is what it is and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s ads.
We did the Twitter to Mastodon migration. Now we are doing the Reddit to Lemmy/kbin migration. When are we doing the YouTube to Peertube migration?
That’s impossible or at least very difficult, right now. Video content is very expensive. LBRY is the only feasible option.
Or people could just host their own peertube instance with banner ads instead of preroll/mid video ads and maybe add a donation/subscription system.
add a donation/subscription system.
At this point you could just subscribe to YouTube.
But YouTube is privately owned and not an open source platform that each creator has full control over
Not wanting to pay youtube does not mean not wanting to pay creators.
Great, now YouTube is being further enshittified.
