The one thing really keeping me from getting off Google is YouTube. For everything else there are good alternatives. But YouTube really is the only viable player in the online video game.
>The one thing really keeping me from getting off Google is YouTube. For everything else there are good alternatives. But YouTube really is the only viable player in the online video game.
The thing I hate most is ads. And YouTube (unless you pay them) gets ever more aggressive with showing ads.
The pre-roll ads are bad enough, but interrupting a playing video with a couple of ads (as happened to me the other day) is way beyond the pale.
I guess I need to take a closer look at integrating youtube-dl into my Mythtv environment and otherwise just ignore YT (as I do all of Google's other herding tools).
It's usually the content creator who chooses how many ads run in a video and where they appear. I can't really blame them for putting in enough ads to make a living off of it. And nobody is forcing you to watch the ads -- you can get rid of them for $12/mo. Or are you saying that you expect people to produce quality content for you for free?
>And nobody is forcing you to watch the ads -- you can get rid of them for $12/mo. Or are you saying that you expect people to produce quality content for you for free?
They are not. And I generally don't. In fact, I rarely watch YouTube. When I do, it's generally to find a specific song or video clip (both usually decades old) to forward along to someone else.
In those situations, I would be shocked if the "owner" of the content (the YT channel owner) had actually paid license fees to the actual copyright owner.
As for paying $12/month to get rid of ads, that seems an awful lot like a protection racket. "It'd be a real shame if you had to waste all that time watching ads. We don't care about the money, we just want to help you make your viewing experience better."
Given that the video in question[0] wasn't actually created (or even directly licensed) by the owner of the YT channel, your point is moot for that particular piece of content.
As for actual content creators, I absolutely believe they should be fairly compensated for their work.
However, simply repackaging the work of others isn't "content creation."
Regardless, I make every effort to shun all platforms that attempt to show me ads. That's my choice. Because I don't care to be presented with a bunch of garbage or pay the same people who profit from it to not see such crap.
If there's something I want, I'll buy (not stream or rent or license) it.
There's far too much of that going on and I refuse to support it. If I buy music or a phone or a car or a tractor or seed or anything else, I should be able to use it as I see fit, without restriction, data exfiltration or a bunch of scum trying to sell me stuff.
I am still looking for a decent Google Maps alternative. And not about navigation, I never use that, what I care about it's reviews. TripAdvisor is okish when it comes to restaurants but Google just have the advantage of having review for ANYTHING. Still haven't found a competitor that does anything close to that.
I'm always surprised at the lack of content on OpenStreetMaps, 99 times out of 100 when you click a point of interest there are no photos, reviews, or even a basic description
Yeah I still use youtube sometimes, but I do it without an account. You do lose a lot, like remembering what you watched and better recommendations, but you also win some, like Google not remembering what you watched :)
I created a dedicated throwaway gmail account just for YouTube premium, it was the last/only service on Google I was still using. It seems they've killed off all of the working public invidious instances.
