this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yep... Bummer, but completely in character and expected.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

requests content from Youtube

You mean through an API

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But pretty much in the same way as the YouTube's frontend requesting content from YouTube's backend. This is an equivalent of you loading a video on YouTube then going to developer tools and copying links from the Network tab. AFAIK all tools (Invidious, Piped, yt-dl) work this way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes. The problem is, it's easy for google to break it again and again and again. I think we should just end Youtube

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Depending on the definition, loading a web page might me called an API, but that’s not what people mean when they talk about APIs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

all of these are scrapers, so they will work unless YouTube gets rid of its web version

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Or if Google implements some kind of feature that requires your browser to vouch that it's not gonna play shenanigans with the page.

Nah, nobody would be that crazy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would this new thing they’re doing to chrome stop it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's exactly the sort if thing they could use it for

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Or until they implement a trust model that denies access to uncertified user-agents?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Nooo, I just recently discovered NewPipe 😔

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As long as youtube has RSS, you can still get videos.

I built this https://codeberg.org/mister_monster/YouTube2Peertube many years ago to help people resolve these problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Git data underlying this repository cannot be read. Contact the administrator of this instance or delete this repository.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've never seen that problem before, but if you're having trouble the codeberg repo is a mirror of a github repo I published it to first, https://github.com/mister-monster/youtube2peertube

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm worried about a snowball effect too, but unlike reddit I don't think enough people use 3rd party YouTube apps to justify denying api access

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

But at the same time, not enough people use 3rd party YouTube apps to cause any significant backlash if they deny api access

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is exactly what the proposed Web Integrity API seeks to prevent. That's what makes it terrifying.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can't save anything unless there's a YouTube competitor. Google can do whatever it wants.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

I have clarified the title.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They successfully went after Vanced 2 years ago so it's shouldn't be too far fetched for them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's a common theory that the only reason they went after Vanced is because the Vanced team tried to monetize the mod by introducing NFTs

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Many people in modding and fan communities convince themselves that companies only go after projects if they try to make money, but we also see that happening with free projects all the time, if they get enough attention.

Seeing that Google is already sending warnings to people who try to watch YouTube with adblockers, I don't think that's what made the difference.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

And yet here I am using Revanced, which is even better than Vanced was

https://revanced.app/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

At this point maybe we should all just make onion sites popular I mean isn’t the majority of the internet down there anyways? Fuck YouTube, Facebook,(enter clear net greedy company here) shit keeps getting worse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Was talking to a friend who is a senior tech dude about the YT viewing habits of our kids. Asked if he had any recommendations for alt clients and he said… just pay for YT premium 🙃

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

To be fair, the guy just probably didn't want to become your tech support for life. :P

If you care, you can try this, assuming you meant clients for TV: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Don't want your kids seeing ads that are absolutely not for kids? Easy! Just pay us!"

Seriously it's so hypocritical that they demonetize swearing yet show gambling, alcohol, and even the occasional barely-not-porn sexualized ad without a second thought.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not hypocrisy, it's for $. $ means it's not hypocrisy. Haven't you been paying attention?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah because I would love to pay for attention

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

pay for attention

Isn't that basically what their "superchat" feature in YouTube live is? Pay money to force the host to read your comment? IDK I've never used it and don't intend to.