With Reddit shutting down its API setting a precedent in the corporate tech world (and Reddit was a major outlier in that a ton of their users are technical minded and support third party clients, YouTube does not have that kind of userbase and will not get backlash for it), Twitter doing whatever the fuck they’re doing, and Google already hellbent on destroying ad blockers, the days of Newpipe, Invidious, and Freetube are numbered. Wouldn’t be surprised if they implement Netflix level DRM tomorrow that makes alt clients impossible. I say savour your alt clients while you can guys, you won’t be able to soon.
While Lemmy has been a great alternative to Reddit for me, there just is not a viable alternative to YouTube unfortunately. PeerTube and Odysee do not have even 2% of the same variety of content that YouTube does, and with it now being impossible to make a Google account without a phone number (to subscribe to content creators), I might have to drop YouTube or try to set up some sort of RSS feed for all my favorite YouTubers if that is even possible.
The more we use Odysee the more will it seem like a valid alternative.
Personally I watch videos from the creators that have mirrored their YT channel to Odysee.
I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally different about Odyssey than YouTube. They’re both private companies. Odyssey is just in a growth phase. And YouTube is in Post Monopoly face. If Odyssey becomes very popular I see them acting exactly like YouTube acts.
Switching to the growth phase companies is one of the few options we have though.
I’m sure you are right in that after a few years of success the next private company will too enter the money grabbing phase.
That will open the market up for yet a new contender still in the growth phase.
Round and round we go.
It’s open source and decentralized, will hopefully make a difference.
I suggest subscribing to YouTube via RSS (yes, YouTube still has an RSS feed for channels and playlists). I’ve been doing this for years and it works great. You can use your RSS reader or an add-on like Livemarks to discover the feed.
If you subscribe via RSS, you can then easily substitute the feed URL for any other platform, if the creator happens to upload their content to platforms other than YouTube.
Even though the videos are hosted on different platforms, you still have a single feed in a single location with all new videos thanks to RSS. You’re also able to manage a “watch later” list with your RSS reader.
Frankly, I’ve had it with band-aid solutions like alt clients. Gonna say it now: if you claim to be a FLOSS/open web supporting creator and you’re still exclusively using YouTube, you obviously value revenue over FLOSS or open web. Yes I’m gatekeeping FLOSS/open web with that statement, but corporate tech is actively trying to destroy both, and if you side with them, why shouldn’t you be called out for it? Don’t have to quit YouTube IMO, but at least mirror on Peertube if you care.
I’m subscribed to 94 channels on PeerTube and get barely one new video to watch every 2 days. This is both a problem that the people just don’t post anything but also that for some reason new videos just don’t show up even if I subscribe to them, that especially happens with TILvids channels for some reason.
Also here is the very short list of PeerTube instances I found which are not about conspiracy theories or nazi shit:
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Floss is Foss but with L for Libre.
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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html
Don’t let Richard Stallman hear you unless you want him to interject again…
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Vimeo is still around, and has a ton of content. It’s still no match for YouTube of course, but if Google pull the same shit like Reddit did, then I’d imagine a decent chunk of creators would migrate to Vimeo.
https://www.tubearchivist.com/