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.
NewPipe at least already doesn’t use the API, it scrapes the website.
… Which it just occurred to me might be one of the reasons Google is pushing that web integrity thing. Dang.
All the web integrity thing would do is force them to use a specific client when accessing YouTube to scrape their site.
Putting shit out on your publicly accessible website enables all who access it to download anything you make available there.
This is just regular cat and mouse.
If my YouTube experience goes away, my hobbies will get some tlc. My reddit experience barely faltered with my transition to Lemmy
We’ve been through all of this before and we’ll go through all of it again.
All the web integrity thing would do is force them to use a specific client when accessing YouTube to scrape their site.
The problem is none of the attested browsers will let you to use them in this way.
We already have DRM for video on the web. I believe it would be a similar problem to getting WideVine L1 content from e.g. Netflix in an open source app.
Ask me why I invested in Vimeo.
But seriously, it will just make competitors thrive.
I’ll pay for a nebula subscription before I sit through a single YouTube ad.
Yea I think, if newpipe stops, I would switch to nebula. It would even help my yt addiction and I would support my youtubers without giving a share to youtube.
I’ve tried nebula because a video I wanted to watched on yt was released earlier there. That was the only video on the whole platform worth watching. It’s clickbait, you pay for.
Practical Engineering, Real Engineering, Real Science, Joe Scott, Climate Town… Dude in that screen grab of just 15 videos I’m ready to watch about 60% of them.
Maybe you dont have a wide range of interests?
https://talent.nebula.tv/creators/
So many of my current YouTube subscriptions are on that list. 12 tone? Tom Scott? Adam Neely? Mary Spender? Real life lore? Leagle Eagle? The 1 Janitor? Invisible People? neo? JJ McCullough? Tier Zoo? Up & Atom? Charles Cornell? Strange Parts? Half as interesting? Not Just Bikes? Practical Engineering? HBomber guy? Minute physics? Tantacrul? Medlife Crisis?
Some of youtubes best creators are on nebula.
Tom Scott I watch on YT, Real engeneering is pretty good too.
Maybe I will give it another go, and try to ignore the thumbnails… and titles… :D
I like the Engineering dud, but this video looks a typical. Do they also have their yt videos on the platform or just other stuff.
Yep… Bummer, but completely in character and expected.
Invidious doesn’t use YouTube’s API. It merely requests content from YouTube either directly or through a proxy. So, I don’t think it’ll disappear forever unless the developers stop working on it. It’s probably gonna be a game of cat and mouse where YouTube figures out how to break Invidious, and the devs keep finding a workaround.
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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 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.
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.
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.
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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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Oh, thought this was an article with facts and figures, no someone’s doomsaying and fear mongering…
Many YouTube’s third party clients don’t use an API and having a public API with built in ads is a gold mine that many of YouTube’s embeds rely on for revenue. Doubt they’ll destroy that anytime soon.
Along with that, many of YouTube’s top creators are already looking for alternatives, floatplane, nebula etc… It just takes a mass exodus to kick start them. And you bet Google is aware of that.
I have clarified the title.
Google isn’t going to kill YouTube’s API any time soon. It’s how billions of videos are viewable in apps and pages across the internet. They make far more money on that than any lost revenue by people using third party apps. Shutting down API access would be one of the most impactful events to the internet in history. Major lost viewership and advertising revenue coupled with extreme consumer backlash. Most devastating would be developer backlash, as they would all need to scramble to find alternatives.
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I welcome the rise of their replacements.
Well there’s Kodi’s Netflix interface, looks pretty alternative to me: https://github.com/CastagnaIT/plugin.video.netflix
There’s always a way
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You can’t save anything unless there’s a YouTube competitor. Google can do whatever it wants.
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But at the same time, not enough people use 3rd party YouTube apps to cause any significant backlash if they deny api access
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Nah, we’ll just switch to webscraping if APIs get locked behind a paywall. Let’s see how those sites handle it when millions of people are using a scraping based client in the future. I can imagine it feeling a lot like being the victim a relentless ddos attack.
This is exactly what the proposed Web Integrity API seeks to prevent. That’s what makes it terrifying.
Hmm, so no API, no scraping, nothing but some ad infested privacy invading unusable mess. I guess isolating from the whole web is becoming an increasingly appealing option.
Show me me a 10ft wall, I’ll show you a 12ft ladder.
No matter what they try, there will always be someone that manages to completely bypass those bullshit blocks.
They successfully went after Vanced 2 years ago so it’s shouldn’t be too far fetched for them.
They went after vanced because they made money (they tried selling nfts) from from modifying google’s proprietary code. NewPipe team wrote everything themselves and dont make money from google code (they probably make no money at all)
Welp, time to “Archive” some good YouTube videos :)
Nooo, I just recently discovered NewPipe 😔
