It might be a little surprising given what I literally just said, but I am not unreservedly in favor of just grabbing someone else’s content from someone else’s server and then playing it without the ads that pay for the hosting bills for the origin server.
I realize I’m probably in the minority in that, but I feel like a fully off-Youtube video hosting solution might be a better way.
being a yt-dlp user myself, who runs a media server for mostly YT content.
I can say that google deserves it. They store like 2-3x the amount of data that they need to be storing per video. 11 files for a single video 1080p to 4k. All different bitrates, some barely different than any others. (i realize it’s for codec support, but like, seriously?)
especially when they run predatory ads, force services into youtube premium that you don’t want, just generally do not respect the creator base and certainly not the viewer base. Honestly i think google deserves to lose money right now.
Yeah, I was gonna say something about Nebula / Curiositystream. I actually think that that + somewhere to play music would take care of 95% of what I use Youtube for.
In this case, the someone else is Alphabet megacorp. I wouldn’t waste any concern on them. The content is still hosted by YouTube, just played through the invidious instance.
To do away with all those concerns, you could self-host invidious, or donate to the instance you choose to use if self-hosting is outside of your technical prowess. If you want to support certain creators, donate to them directly instead.
It might be a little surprising given what I literally just said, but I am not unreservedly in favor of just grabbing someone else’s content from someone else’s server and then playing it without the ads that pay for the hosting bills for the origin server.
I realize I’m probably in the minority in that, but I feel like a fully off-Youtube video hosting solution might be a better way.
being a yt-dlp user myself, who runs a media server for mostly YT content.
I can say that google deserves it. They store like 2-3x the amount of data that they need to be storing per video. 11 files for a single video 1080p to 4k. All different bitrates, some barely different than any others. (i realize it’s for codec support, but like, seriously?)
especially when they run predatory ads, force services into youtube premium that you don’t want, just generally do not respect the creator base and certainly not the viewer base. Honestly i think google deserves to lose money right now.
Google is the 4th richest company in the world… Besides they don’t deserve a dime from you, fuck them.
I just bought a Nebula subscription. I can’t say they’re a replacement for YT, but they have good content.
Yeah, I was gonna say something about Nebula / Curiositystream. I actually think that that + somewhere to play music would take care of 95% of what I use Youtube for.
In this case, the someone else is Alphabet megacorp. I wouldn’t waste any concern on them. The content is still hosted by YouTube, just played through the invidious instance.
To do away with all those concerns, you could self-host invidious, or donate to the instance you choose to use if self-hosting is outside of your technical prowess. If you want to support certain creators, donate to them directly instead.