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You'd think Google would prioritize shipping the ability to replace the underlying video file for a video since it's impossible to do so: https://support.google

You'd think Google would prioritize shipping the ability to replace the underlying video file for a video since it's impossible to do so: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/55770?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/55770?co=GENIE.Pla... But no. You can trim your video. You can delete it entirely, and suffer the consequences. But you can't simply fix and replace a video that may have had erroneous content and videos which had been "patched" by annotations in the past will now appear without context (aside from descriptions perhaps). That's some impressively lousy product stewardship, and I say this as someone who mostly disliked annotations as most people here seem to.

wild_preference 8y ago
Video URLs always pointing to the same content is a critical guarantee for a service like Youtube.
kasparsklavins 8y ago
I'm sure there's no way that could be abused.
AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
I think that it is great that they do not give the ability to replace the video. If I am linking a video that I watched in the past to someone I expect it to contain what I watched, not something entirely different. Same for upvotes, what if someone replaces a video with content that I find misleading and that I would not have up voted?
jakeogh 8y ago
If I send a someone a video it should not be ambigious if we saw the same thing.
jakobegger 8y ago
I totally understand that youtube doesn't want people replacing video files. That feature would be abused like hell. What's wrong with uploading a new video "Original Title [Update Nov 2018]", and linking to that in the description?
- rocqua 8y ago
  View counts, and any learning 'the algorithm' has done to understand how popular the original title was, get lost.
  - onion90 8y ago
    I think that's part of the problem. Does a new video, which may have nothing to do with the originial video, really deserve the views and popularity of the old video?
  - SifJar 8y ago
    But if it was allowed, view counts & popularity learning could be assigned to a completely different video that is uploaded as an "edit"
    - verroq 8y ago
      How is that different to just allowing editing of the video content itself?
      - gkoberger 8y ago
        They're saying you could upload a pirated episode of Game of Thrones, get 100k views, switch the content and title to "My Newest Vlog!", and keep the views.
        yorwba 8y ago
        How is that different from uploading half a pirated episode of Game of Thrones and replacing the other half with your newest vlog? People could try it, but I think they'd notice that lots of views can be a bad thing if most viewers react negatively. If it happens anyway, view counts could be disaggregated into "total" and "since last update".
        jstanley 8y ago
        But you can do exactly that on your own website, and for some reason we don't have an epidemic of bait-and-switch blogs. Why would it be different on YouTube?
arkitaip 8y ago
No way they would allow you to replace the video, it would open them up to all kinds of abuse and trolling.
- kiriakasis 8y ago
  even if at times google did replace their own videos.
  - anticensor 8y ago
    Landlord privilege applies.
lmilcin 8y ago
I have disabled annotations long, long time ago. I was tired being forced to click on those silly boxes to uncover the content beneath. On the other hand I don't see why Google couldn't just disable adding new annotations but left old annotations in peace. Maybe there is some underlying technical reason why they don't want annotations.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  I imagine it's for consistency. The fewer unused features they continue to support going forwards, the simpler it becomes to develop the websites, mobile apps, and set-top box experiences. YouTube is already pretty fragmented as it is, with each device having a different experience. Since viewing is increasingly a mobile thing, and the mobile site sucks, I would be more than pleased to see some consistency coming across their platform.
  - snaky 8y ago
    > the simpler it becomes to develop the websites, mobile apps, and set-top box experiences That's most limiting factor for such an hobby weekend side project of one lonely developer which we all know YouTube is.
    - zapzupnz 8y ago
      tl;dr Google may have money and YouTube may be one of their main sites, but there's always more to development than "but c'mon, they can afford it" or "surely they have enough engineers". I understand what you're saying but based on what we've heard from ex-Googlers about user interface/experience design within the company, that people who've not got the first idea about good design are thrust into the role of designing user interfaces and user-facing features, I think it's a minor miracle we have what we have already — and what we have isn't great. Plus, look at the variety of users and devices on YouTube. From those who watch 5K video on 27" high-resolution monitors backed by grunty graphics and powerful processors, to cheap $29 Android phones that barely keep the battery from draining to zero within a couple of minutes just showing a 360p video, and all the devices in between. Between Google's issues with user interface/experience design on a company level and the fact that YouTube needs to cater to so many different kinds of people and devices, there's clearly more than meets the eye when it comes to the hidden scale of YouTube. Since Google basically prints money, I don't think money could be the issue. Since Google is overflowing with engineers, I don't think throwing more engineers at the problem would help. Rather, I think that removing annotations is a good sign that Google is trying to do something smarter: manage the scale of YouTube. The removal of just one feature, like annotations, lifts a heavy burden from the main site team, the mobile site team, the mobile apps teams, and everything else. It brings platform consistency, meaning some actually new and innovative features can finally get some of that precious engineering time, rather than the inelegance of supporting what was always a janky feature that could only become jankier as devices became more diversified.
simias 8y ago
You can't change your video after uploading for the same reason you can't change your submission on websites like Reddit after submitting it. It would be too easy to bait-and-switch. I can understand that it's frustrating for honest uploaders but that makes total sense to me. In general people just mention that there's an updated video in the title or description and you can redirect yourself there if you want. A bit lo-tech but it works well in practice IMO.
- cowsandmilk 8y ago
  > for the same reason you can't change your submission on websites like Reddit after submitting it but you can edit posts on reddit...just not the title
  - ttsda 8y ago
    You can't edit the link, only self posts
ggg9990 8y ago
Your non-lousy product stewardship would let me replace the video file of a John Carmack tech talk with an Amway recruiting video?
- VonGallifrey 8y ago
  Yes. Why not? If the 1st Video was your upload to begin with why shouldn't you be able to replace your video with a different Video? This is a very useful feature for people since it would give creators the ability to fix errors in their videos without creating the confusion that happens when creators try to do this currently. Every single time when I saw a reupload it had tons of comments saying something to the effect of "Didn't I see this before?" or "Didn't you upload this Yesterday?" and the creator commenting X times: "Sorry it is a reupload to fix Audio/Editing/Facts" Can you then replace a John Carmack tech talk with a Amway recruiting video? Yes, but there was nothing stopping you right now from uploading that Amway video and simply calling it "John Carmack tech talk" anyways.
  - joombaga 8y ago
    But now I can watch a correctly titled "John Carmack tech talk", send the link to a friend, and they'll wonder why I'm trying to recruit them to Amway.
    - VonGallifrey 8y ago
      Right now the system is so that I have sent links to friends and they replied: "Can't find it" Both are minor things, but I am in favor of creators being in control over their videos. Especially since it would get used to correct accidental misinformation and things like that. I just don't see much harm in the ability even if the video creator could completely switch content.
      - ggg9990 8y ago
        Elon Musk tweets: “Check out this guy’s video of a Tesla he saw at the racetrack.” GM pays the guy $100K to update the video to a GM ad.
jonknee 8y ago
That would be disastrous for YouTube. Imagine embedding a video on your website only to find out later that it had been replaced with spam? So little gain for a huge abuse opportunity.
assane101 8y ago
Some are saying replacing video could be abused. What if they that came with Youtube resetting the views count ?

wild_preference 8y ago

Video URLs always pointing to the same content is a critical guarantee for a service like Youtube.

kasparsklavins 8y ago

I'm sure there's no way that could be abused.

AnaniasAnanas 8y ago

I think that it is great that they do not give the ability to replace the video. If I am linking a video that I watched in the past to someone I expect it to contain what I watched, not something entirely different. Same for upvotes, what if someone replaces a video with content that I find misleading and that I would not have up voted?

jakeogh 8y ago

If I send a someone a video it should not be ambigious if we saw the same thing.

jakobegger 8y ago

I totally understand that youtube doesn't want people replacing video files. That feature would be abused like hell. What's wrong with uploading a new video "Original Title [Update Nov 2018]", and linking to that in the description?

rocqua 8y ago
View counts, and any learning 'the algorithm' has done to understand how popular the original title was, get lost.
- onion90 8y ago
  I think that's part of the problem. Does a new video, which may have nothing to do with the originial video, really deserve the views and popularity of the old video?
- SifJar 8y ago
  But if it was allowed, view counts & popularity learning could be assigned to a completely different video that is uploaded as an "edit"
  - verroq 8y ago
    How is that different to just allowing editing of the video content itself?
    - gkoberger 8y ago
      They're saying you could upload a pirated episode of Game of Thrones, get 100k views, switch the content and title to "My Newest Vlog!", and keep the views.
      - yorwba 8y ago
        How is that different from uploading half a pirated episode of Game of Thrones and replacing the other half with your newest vlog? People could try it, but I think they'd notice that lots of views can be a bad thing if most viewers react negatively. If it happens anyway, view counts could be disaggregated into "total" and "since last update".
      - jstanley 8y ago
        But you can do exactly that on your own website, and for some reason we don't have an epidemic of bait-and-switch blogs. Why would it be different on YouTube?

arkitaip 8y ago

No way they would allow you to replace the video, it would open them up to all kinds of abuse and trolling.

kiriakasis 8y ago
even if at times google did replace their own videos.
- anticensor 8y ago
  Landlord privilege applies.

lmilcin 8y ago

I have disabled annotations long, long time ago. I was tired being forced to click on those silly boxes to uncover the content beneath. On the other hand I don't see why Google couldn't just disable adding new annotations but left old annotations in peace. Maybe there is some underlying technical reason why they don't want annotations.

zapzupnz 8y ago
I imagine it's for consistency. The fewer unused features they continue to support going forwards, the simpler it becomes to develop the websites, mobile apps, and set-top box experiences. YouTube is already pretty fragmented as it is, with each device having a different experience. Since viewing is increasingly a mobile thing, and the mobile site sucks, I would be more than pleased to see some consistency coming across their platform.
- snaky 8y ago
  > the simpler it becomes to develop the websites, mobile apps, and set-top box experiences That's most limiting factor for such an hobby weekend side project of one lonely developer which we all know YouTube is.
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    tl;dr Google may have money and YouTube may be one of their main sites, but there's always more to development than "but c'mon, they can afford it" or "surely they have enough engineers". I understand what you're saying but based on what we've heard from ex-Googlers about user interface/experience design within the company, that people who've not got the first idea about good design are thrust into the role of designing user interfaces and user-facing features, I think it's a minor miracle we have what we have already — and what we have isn't great. Plus, look at the variety of users and devices on YouTube. From those who watch 5K video on 27" high-resolution monitors backed by grunty graphics and powerful processors, to cheap $29 Android phones that barely keep the battery from draining to zero within a couple of minutes just showing a 360p video, and all the devices in between. Between Google's issues with user interface/experience design on a company level and the fact that YouTube needs to cater to so many different kinds of people and devices, there's clearly more than meets the eye when it comes to the hidden scale of YouTube. Since Google basically prints money, I don't think money could be the issue. Since Google is overflowing with engineers, I don't think throwing more engineers at the problem would help. Rather, I think that removing annotations is a good sign that Google is trying to do something smarter: manage the scale of YouTube. The removal of just one feature, like annotations, lifts a heavy burden from the main site team, the mobile site team, the mobile apps teams, and everything else. It brings platform consistency, meaning some actually new and innovative features can finally get some of that precious engineering time, rather than the inelegance of supporting what was always a janky feature that could only become jankier as devices became more diversified.

simias 8y ago

You can't change your video after uploading for the same reason you can't change your submission on websites like Reddit after submitting it. It would be too easy to bait-and-switch. I can understand that it's frustrating for honest uploaders but that makes total sense to me. In general people just mention that there's an updated video in the title or description and you can redirect yourself there if you want. A bit lo-tech but it works well in practice IMO.

cowsandmilk 8y ago
> for the same reason you can't change your submission on websites like Reddit after submitting it but you can edit posts on reddit...just not the title
- ttsda 8y ago
  You can't edit the link, only self posts

ggg9990 8y ago

Your non-lousy product stewardship would let me replace the video file of a John Carmack tech talk with an Amway recruiting video?

VonGallifrey 8y ago
Yes. Why not? If the 1st Video was your upload to begin with why shouldn't you be able to replace your video with a different Video? This is a very useful feature for people since it would give creators the ability to fix errors in their videos without creating the confusion that happens when creators try to do this currently. Every single time when I saw a reupload it had tons of comments saying something to the effect of "Didn't I see this before?" or "Didn't you upload this Yesterday?" and the creator commenting X times: "Sorry it is a reupload to fix Audio/Editing/Facts" Can you then replace a John Carmack tech talk with a Amway recruiting video? Yes, but there was nothing stopping you right now from uploading that Amway video and simply calling it "John Carmack tech talk" anyways.
- joombaga 8y ago
  But now I can watch a correctly titled "John Carmack tech talk", send the link to a friend, and they'll wonder why I'm trying to recruit them to Amway.
  - VonGallifrey 8y ago
    Right now the system is so that I have sent links to friends and they replied: "Can't find it" Both are minor things, but I am in favor of creators being in control over their videos. Especially since it would get used to correct accidental misinformation and things like that. I just don't see much harm in the ability even if the video creator could completely switch content.
    - ggg9990 8y ago
      Elon Musk tweets: “Check out this guy’s video of a Tesla he saw at the racetrack.” GM pays the guy $100K to update the video to a GM ad.

jonknee 8y ago

That would be disastrous for YouTube. Imagine embedding a video on your website only to find out later that it had been replaced with spam? So little gain for a huge abuse opportunity.

assane101 8y ago

Some are saying replacing video could be abused. What if they that came with Youtube resetting the views count ?