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Not everyone is familiar or comfortable with the command line. A lot of my friends don't use youtube-dl for this exact reason. They end up messaging me, asking

Not everyone is familiar or comfortable with the command line. A lot of my friends don't use youtube-dl for this exact reason. They end up messaging me, asking me to download files for them.

xwdv 7y ago
Why not just create a simple phone number with twilio that they can text a url to and then it fires a script to download that video and upload it to s3 for them? Shouldn’t take more than an hour IMO.
- kevinzg 7y ago
  There are various Telegram bots that receive a YouTube URL and send the audio as an mp3 file.
- halfjoking 7y ago
  If it wasn't for the copyright infringement this wouldn't be a bad business idea. One video per day is free - if you want extra "credits" pay for it on the website.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    It doesn’t really matter, if you get a dmca takedown just delete that file. But I doubt you will, especially if it’s just your friends hosting it.
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  Mainly because I actually like talking to my friends, and I'm often interested in whatever video/music they want me to download for them. I have no desire to automate my interactions with my friends, especially for something that's easy enough for me to do and only takes a minute of my time.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    You could just look at the logs to see what kind of stuff they download. And since they know it’s automated they will likely download even more stuff. If you see something interesting then maybe you can start a conversation with them at that point.
nacs 7y ago
There's already a bunch of websites that do this if they can't use youtube-dl -- why are they messaging you when they can literally go to one of these sites and paste the URL in to get the video?
- anbop 7y ago
  If you’ve trained a computer illiterate person well, they will not go to sketchy ad-ridden websites and download files to their PC and double click them.
- sharcerer 7y ago
  Name 1 which works flawlessly. No ads. On a side note, is it possible to port this CLI program to Android or web? My mom needs a downloader and the Firefox ext which I used till now , doesn't work all the time.
  - fock 7y ago
    install termux, install youtube-dl, define a "handler"-script, share the link with termux
fock 7y ago
I understand this too, but being on HN, familiarity with the CLI probably can be taken for granted. For all the other people this will stop them from using shady sites, but even some of them might like to have some more options included in such program... For the current feature-level there is 0 reason to do a bloated electron app - just do your 100 lines of code with tray integration for all the major OS (with a GUI) (Java might even have systray integration)

Not everyone is familiar or comfortable with the command line. A lot of my friends don't use youtube-dl for this exact reason. They end up messaging me, asking me to download files for them.

xwdv 7y ago

Why not just create a simple phone number with twilio that they can text a url to and then it fires a script to download that video and upload it to s3 for them? Shouldn’t take more than an hour IMO.

kevinzg 7y ago
There are various Telegram bots that receive a YouTube URL and send the audio as an mp3 file.
halfjoking 7y ago
If it wasn't for the copyright infringement this wouldn't be a bad business idea. One video per day is free - if you want extra "credits" pay for it on the website.
- xwdv 7y ago
  It doesn’t really matter, if you get a dmca takedown just delete that file. But I doubt you will, especially if it’s just your friends hosting it.
toomanybeersies 7y ago
Mainly because I actually like talking to my friends, and I'm often interested in whatever video/music they want me to download for them. I have no desire to automate my interactions with my friends, especially for something that's easy enough for me to do and only takes a minute of my time.
- xwdv 7y ago
  You could just look at the logs to see what kind of stuff they download. And since they know it’s automated they will likely download even more stuff. If you see something interesting then maybe you can start a conversation with them at that point.

nacs 7y ago

There's already a bunch of websites that do this if they can't use youtube-dl -- why are they messaging you when they can literally go to one of these sites and paste the URL in to get the video?

anbop 7y ago
If you’ve trained a computer illiterate person well, they will not go to sketchy ad-ridden websites and download files to their PC and double click them.
sharcerer 7y ago
Name 1 which works flawlessly. No ads. On a side note, is it possible to port this CLI program to Android or web? My mom needs a downloader and the Firefox ext which I used till now , doesn't work all the time.
- fock 7y ago
  install termux, install youtube-dl, define a "handler"-script, share the link with termux

fock 7y ago

I understand this too, but being on HN, familiarity with the CLI probably can be taken for granted. For all the other people this will stop them from using shady sites, but even some of them might like to have some more options included in such program... For the current feature-level there is 0 reason to do a bloated electron app - just do your 100 lines of code with tray integration for all the major OS (with a GUI) (Java might even have systray integration)