5 ms·

I think this is a great take, with one exception: I think the loss of (free) ad-supported YouTube would be a devastating loss for the world at large.

by ketzo 3y ago

darthrupert 3y ago
How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility. But there is also TikTok, which is even worse. So yeah, in that way you could be right. If only we could pay for the things we use, and only that.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  YouTube has been such a big boon to the world in helping people learn. The amount of people who have learnt several skills from YouTube enabling them to make a living is very very large. I know several people who had non STEM education and taught them CS via YouTube and went on to have good SWE careers. Whole of MIT OCS is hosted on Youtube. All of Khan Academy videos are also hosted on Youtube.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    They could be hosted elsewhere. Why should free education material that is already funded by donations be locked behind ad based hosting? Hosting is not that expensive if you're using only those services. Especially in the countries where it's mostly being used.
    - crop_rotation 3y ago
      Hosting is very expensive, e.g https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr... That is why almost nobody bothers to do it themselves outside of big tech.
      - meindnoch 3y ago
        No it's not. Just use PeerTube.
        inemesitaffia 3y ago
        No you don't. There's Bunny CDN though
      - trimethylpurine 3y ago
        I've personally run servers for several businesses in the streaming education space. And one business that serves over 40,000 concurrent connections. The entire business fits into 1.5 racks at a local DC. The monthly cost is under $5,000 for the service, space, and cooling. There is an initial cost to purchase some servers, switches, etc. I'd be surprised if Khan academy had much more than that many active connections. It's really just not that expensive, no matter how much AWS wants to sell you on that falsehood.
    - ketzo 3y ago
      > not that expensive yeah, but it’s hard to overstate how much less expensive “free” is than anything else. I don’t know how you do free video hosting for the entire world without YouTube’s model.
      - ndriscoll 3y ago
        ipfs or torrents integrated into the browser. The "sharing economy" and p2p were huge back before corporations figured out how to get it under control and corral people back onto centralized, ephemeral streaming platforms. Instead of a "like" people could give a video a pin, and then they'll have their own offline copy as long as they want it, and also help share it.
        ThatPlayer 3y ago
        I think the bigger issue with p2p nowadays is the move to portable devices. The majority of people nowadays are on phones if not laptop and tablets. P2P has the user giving up their storage, battery life, and data. It works fine in more niche applications, but it'll never be mainstream. It's probably not even possible on iOS devices because of the limitations in background processes.
        ndriscoll 3y ago
        My phone is linked to my desktop and can send tabs. No reason it couldn't proxy p2p connections (and pins) though my desktop. Or more generally torrent/ipfs gateways could be a thing people pay for (or ISPs might offer to reduce their own transfer costs by caching popular content), making it easy for mobile users while keeping the fundamental technology distributed. Mobile devices could also pin directly to cloud storage. There's a massive design space here if we didn't already have google dumping on the market. Or if we didn't allow media companies (who don't want p2p) to monopolize providing Internet service. And if government subsidies and spectrum licenses came with an ipv6 mandate so we could ditch NAT.
      - trimethylpurine 3y ago
        If you are talking about educational content for the entire world, I would argue that it's a significantly smaller achievement, than a service where everyone is watching cat videos all night. Free education is a niche market for a niche audience. YouTube is hardly the correct platform for that.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      What do you mean funded by donations? People making educational YouTube videos have their income from YouTube advertising and Premium subscribers. People having utility from their videos should pay for them. I find it incredible that people accept and support enormous amounts of tax money from workers go to pay for worthless schools, while at the same time they are grinding their teeth at the suggestion that they pay a few dollars for incredibly well made educational videos. Why does the screeching teacher or professor deserve a high monthly salary, good job security and a good pension, while the person making educational videos that improve people's lives all over the world deserve to have her videos pirated by hackers?
      - trimethylpurine 3y ago
        See the post I was replying to. Khan Academy, MIT free courses, etc. Those are in fact funded by donations. If you check the viewership numbers on individual course videos, it is unlikely they are generating a positive revenue from YouTube payouts. As for being upset that people don't want to pay, I think I can help with that. People don't want to pay TWICE. We already donated to Khan or MIT. Why are we also paying YouTube to obfuscate FREE content? Khan should choose a different method of delivery. YouTube is not a proper platform for educational videos.
        carlosjobim 3y ago
        Those are but two of thousands of channels publishing educational videos. The vast majority of them are dependent on money from YouTube for their income. Would Khan or MIT be able to host and deliver their videos at a price that would make it worthwhile to ditch YouTube, or would that take away donator money from other functions?
        trimethylpurine 3y ago
        It allows all of those channels to join a competing platform that's better suited for education, rather than piggy backing on a platform built for watching nonstop cat videos. Education and YT are not remotely good for each other. Imagine that college is free, and you're studying to become a doctor. Every seven minutes during your O. Chem lecture, Kanye West jumps in front of the professor to tell you how much he likes Pepsi. It's the wrong platform.
- remus 3y ago
  > How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility. I think this is true, but youtube is also a platform where people can share video content with a big chunk of the internet connected world for zero money. I think that's pretty cool, particularly when I think about all the small accounts I follow whose content just wouldn't be available without youtube (or a similar platform).
Cilvic 3y ago
I agree that GP is a great take on the situation. I'm less sure that humanity is incapable of finding another way to foster the creativity and the education/entertainment value the world gets out of youtube. I'd love to see us try and only go back to advertising if that is indeed the only/best way. Yes ad-supported YT is "free" of direct cash payment, but how much do we (society) "pay" in form of thoughts that we wouldn't have had where it not for an advertiser to force it onto us. I sometimes wonder if advertising is a kind of corruption and will be outlawed / considered inhumane at some point in the future.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
It would be a great benefit to society if it weren't free. It would stimulate competition in the space, allow varied ideas to thrive as different media ecosystems and market research models could flourish. The few entities in control of marketing at large are in control of what free thought is perceived to be acceptable or preferred in society regardless of whether or not it reflects any truth about how we actually feel about anything. The above causes people with extreme ideas to feel a sense of entitlement towards specific political stances which breeds intolerance towards opposing views, which leads towards greater political divisiveness. All of those things are in opposition to the values of a society based on sharing ideas and critically thinking about political issues.
lamontcg 3y ago
I'd pay for YT if it wasn't run by Google. Google wants to track me and sell the data and wants me to pay for it, and I'm not willing to be abused that badly.
- leosanchez 3y ago
  I payed YouTube premium for 2 months. When they come up with Web Integrity API and Topics API I felt guilty. Felt like I am funding something bad
- nmz 3y ago
  They'll have your data regardless if you pay for the service or not. And nothing is free, they need to pay for the service, now, if you do pay for the service they should enable more privacy.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > if you do pay for the service they should enable more privacy. They're never doing that. I pay for ad-free Kagi search. I'd pay for an ad-free YT competitor. It would need to be run by someone other than Google though since I'd never trust them if they said they were giving me more privacy.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      For the educational side of YouTube, Nebula is great. The platform is very robust (it streams HD video at 2x speed with no difficulty), and it's run by the guy behind one of the largest educational youtube channels. Most of the great educational options are available there, and creators even strip out sponsorships before uploading, so you're getting a truly ad free experience.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Google does not sell your data. Your data is their most valuable weapon, they use it to target ads. They wouldn't sell it for anything, it's more valuable to them to hold it.
dantyti 3y ago
It's not a given that YouTube would be lost. For example, I could see a world where it was collectively 'nationalized' by the UN, made ad-free and accessible to all.
globular-toast 3y ago
Nah, rubbish. We've been able to do high quality video with P2P protocols for decades at this point. We have the bandwidth and the storage just sitting there. The only reason we haven't developed a system like YouTube is because we have YouTube. But take YouTube out of the picture and we're very ready for something like Wikipedia for videos. Let's not forget that just 20 years ago we didn't even have a free encyclopaedia. I'm assuming, of course, when you talk of a "devastating loss" you mean the educational videos not the brain rotting shite like "Mr Beast" or hours upon hours of gameplay footage.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  And how do creators get paid for the videos shared by P2P?
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    They don't. I don't want paid for content. If you will only make a video because you want to get paid for it then please, don't make the video. Many people will make videos without expecting payment. See YouTube, for example.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      > I don't want paid for content. Then the solution for you is extremely simple: Do not go to youtube.com Then you won't have to be bothered by any videos that people made with the expectation of being paid. But what are you doing in a discussion about YouTube? You're free to make as many videos as you please and share them by P2P. YouTube is a partner for video creators for distributing their videos. You are not in that partnership in any way.
      - ilkke 3y ago
        You are offering a "solution" to a sentence taken out of the larger context. Poster is arguing for a platform for videos that are not made for payment.

I think this is a great take, with one exception: I think the loss of (free) ad-supported YouTube would be a devastating loss for the world at large.

by ketzo 3y ago

I think this is a great take, with one exception: I think the loss of (free) ad-supported YouTube would be a devastating loss for the world at large.

darthrupert 3y ago

How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility. But there is also TikTok, which is even worse. So yeah, in that way you could be right. If only we could pay for the things we use, and only that.

crop_rotation 3y ago
YouTube has been such a big boon to the world in helping people learn. The amount of people who have learnt several skills from YouTube enabling them to make a living is very very large. I know several people who had non STEM education and taught them CS via YouTube and went on to have good SWE careers. Whole of MIT OCS is hosted on Youtube. All of Khan Academy videos are also hosted on Youtube.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  They could be hosted elsewhere. Why should free education material that is already funded by donations be locked behind ad based hosting? Hosting is not that expensive if you're using only those services. Especially in the countries where it's mostly being used.
  - crop_rotation 3y ago
    Hosting is very expensive, e.g https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr... That is why almost nobody bothers to do it themselves outside of big tech.
    - meindnoch 3y ago
      No it's not. Just use PeerTube.
      - inemesitaffia 3y ago
        No you don't. There's Bunny CDN though
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      I've personally run servers for several businesses in the streaming education space. And one business that serves over 40,000 concurrent connections. The entire business fits into 1.5 racks at a local DC. The monthly cost is under $5,000 for the service, space, and cooling. There is an initial cost to purchase some servers, switches, etc. I'd be surprised if Khan academy had much more than that many active connections. It's really just not that expensive, no matter how much AWS wants to sell you on that falsehood.
  - ketzo 3y ago
    > not that expensive yeah, but it’s hard to overstate how much less expensive “free” is than anything else. I don’t know how you do free video hosting for the entire world without YouTube’s model.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      ipfs or torrents integrated into the browser. The "sharing economy" and p2p were huge back before corporations figured out how to get it under control and corral people back onto centralized, ephemeral streaming platforms. Instead of a "like" people could give a video a pin, and then they'll have their own offline copy as long as they want it, and also help share it.
      - ThatPlayer 3y ago
        I think the bigger issue with p2p nowadays is the move to portable devices. The majority of people nowadays are on phones if not laptop and tablets. P2P has the user giving up their storage, battery life, and data. It works fine in more niche applications, but it'll never be mainstream. It's probably not even possible on iOS devices because of the limitations in background processes.
        ndriscoll 3y ago
        My phone is linked to my desktop and can send tabs. No reason it couldn't proxy p2p connections (and pins) though my desktop. Or more generally torrent/ipfs gateways could be a thing people pay for (or ISPs might offer to reduce their own transfer costs by caching popular content), making it easy for mobile users while keeping the fundamental technology distributed. Mobile devices could also pin directly to cloud storage. There's a massive design space here if we didn't already have google dumping on the market. Or if we didn't allow media companies (who don't want p2p) to monopolize providing Internet service. And if government subsidies and spectrum licenses came with an ipv6 mandate so we could ditch NAT.
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      If you are talking about educational content for the entire world, I would argue that it's a significantly smaller achievement, than a service where everyone is watching cat videos all night. Free education is a niche market for a niche audience. YouTube is hardly the correct platform for that.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    What do you mean funded by donations? People making educational YouTube videos have their income from YouTube advertising and Premium subscribers. People having utility from their videos should pay for them. I find it incredible that people accept and support enormous amounts of tax money from workers go to pay for worthless schools, while at the same time they are grinding their teeth at the suggestion that they pay a few dollars for incredibly well made educational videos. Why does the screeching teacher or professor deserve a high monthly salary, good job security and a good pension, while the person making educational videos that improve people's lives all over the world deserve to have her videos pirated by hackers?
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      See the post I was replying to. Khan Academy, MIT free courses, etc. Those are in fact funded by donations. If you check the viewership numbers on individual course videos, it is unlikely they are generating a positive revenue from YouTube payouts. As for being upset that people don't want to pay, I think I can help with that. People don't want to pay TWICE. We already donated to Khan or MIT. Why are we also paying YouTube to obfuscate FREE content? Khan should choose a different method of delivery. YouTube is not a proper platform for educational videos.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        Those are but two of thousands of channels publishing educational videos. The vast majority of them are dependent on money from YouTube for their income. Would Khan or MIT be able to host and deliver their videos at a price that would make it worthwhile to ditch YouTube, or would that take away donator money from other functions?
        trimethylpurine 3y ago
        It allows all of those channels to join a competing platform that's better suited for education, rather than piggy backing on a platform built for watching nonstop cat videos. Education and YT are not remotely good for each other. Imagine that college is free, and you're studying to become a doctor. Every seven minutes during your O. Chem lecture, Kanye West jumps in front of the professor to tell you how much he likes Pepsi. It's the wrong platform.
remus 3y ago
> How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility. I think this is true, but youtube is also a platform where people can share video content with a big chunk of the internet connected world for zero money. I think that's pretty cool, particularly when I think about all the small accounts I follow whose content just wouldn't be available without youtube (or a similar platform).

Cilvic 3y ago

I agree that GP is a great take on the situation. I'm less sure that humanity is incapable of finding another way to foster the creativity and the education/entertainment value the world gets out of youtube. I'd love to see us try and only go back to advertising if that is indeed the only/best way. Yes ad-supported YT is "free" of direct cash payment, but how much do we (society) "pay" in form of thoughts that we wouldn't have had where it not for an advertiser to force it onto us. I sometimes wonder if advertising is a kind of corruption and will be outlawed / considered inhumane at some point in the future.

trimethylpurine 3y ago

It would be a great benefit to society if it weren't free. It would stimulate competition in the space, allow varied ideas to thrive as different media ecosystems and market research models could flourish. The few entities in control of marketing at large are in control of what free thought is perceived to be acceptable or preferred in society regardless of whether or not it reflects any truth about how we actually feel about anything. The above causes people with extreme ideas to feel a sense of entitlement towards specific political stances which breeds intolerance towards opposing views, which leads towards greater political divisiveness. All of those things are in opposition to the values of a society based on sharing ideas and critically thinking about political issues.

lamontcg 3y ago

I'd pay for YT if it wasn't run by Google. Google wants to track me and sell the data and wants me to pay for it, and I'm not willing to be abused that badly.

leosanchez 3y ago
I payed YouTube premium for 2 months. When they come up with Web Integrity API and Topics API I felt guilty. Felt like I am funding something bad
nmz 3y ago
They'll have your data regardless if you pay for the service or not. And nothing is free, they need to pay for the service, now, if you do pay for the service they should enable more privacy.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > if you do pay for the service they should enable more privacy. They're never doing that. I pay for ad-free Kagi search. I'd pay for an ad-free YT competitor. It would need to be run by someone other than Google though since I'd never trust them if they said they were giving me more privacy.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    For the educational side of YouTube, Nebula is great. The platform is very robust (it streams HD video at 2x speed with no difficulty), and it's run by the guy behind one of the largest educational youtube channels. Most of the great educational options are available there, and creators even strip out sponsorships before uploading, so you're getting a truly ad free experience.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Google does not sell your data. Your data is their most valuable weapon, they use it to target ads. They wouldn't sell it for anything, it's more valuable to them to hold it.

dantyti 3y ago

It's not a given that YouTube would be lost. For example, I could see a world where it was collectively 'nationalized' by the UN, made ad-free and accessible to all.

globular-toast 3y ago

Nah, rubbish. We've been able to do high quality video with P2P protocols for decades at this point. We have the bandwidth and the storage just sitting there. The only reason we haven't developed a system like YouTube is because we have YouTube. But take YouTube out of the picture and we're very ready for something like Wikipedia for videos. Let's not forget that just 20 years ago we didn't even have a free encyclopaedia. I'm assuming, of course, when you talk of a "devastating loss" you mean the educational videos not the brain rotting shite like "Mr Beast" or hours upon hours of gameplay footage.

carlosjobim 3y ago
And how do creators get paid for the videos shared by P2P?
- globular-toast 3y ago
  They don't. I don't want paid for content. If you will only make a video because you want to get paid for it then please, don't make the video. Many people will make videos without expecting payment. See YouTube, for example.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    > I don't want paid for content. Then the solution for you is extremely simple: Do not go to youtube.com Then you won't have to be bothered by any videos that people made with the expectation of being paid. But what are you doing in a discussion about YouTube? You're free to make as many videos as you please and share them by P2P. YouTube is a partner for video creators for distributing their videos. You are not in that partnership in any way.
    - ilkke 3y ago
      You are offering a "solution" to a sentence taken out of the larger context. Poster is arguing for a platform for videos that are not made for payment.