4 ms·

And users have a right to demand rights, reform and otherwise organise to work around such abhorrent practices.

dylan604 3y ago
Users don't have a right to use YT. They have to privilege to use the website in the terms YT offers it. Users have the right to try to "cheat" the system, and YT has the right to make the cheating difficult.
- epgui 3y ago
  > Users don't have a right to use YT. The question here is not whether they have a right to use it, but whether they should have a right. All rights are invented, created essentially out of thin air, to protect things people care sufficiently about. All rights were at some point not rights.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    I think this conversation is being taken to weird directions. To me, a website is a company's digital version of a brick-n-mortar store. There is an understood and accept concept of the store is the business' property. There is no right for you to enter a store and you can lose your privilege by not behaving yourself. Why we do not afford a website this same concept is lost on me.
    - epgui 3y ago
      When you do business with the phone company, you can draw the same analogy. And yet these often/usually have special relationships with governments owing to the critically important infrastructure involved.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        What critical service does YT provide that it should even be considered for being considered a critical anything?
        epgui 3y ago
        So first, let's consider what I am not talking about. That would be videos of cats, entertainment, etc. Things that could more easily be argued to be important would be stuff like academic content or news content. At this point Youtube is a part of the broader internet infrastructure (as are many other large social networks), and you can make an argument that it's a bit like any other utility (roads, phone lines, fiber op cable, GPS satellites, etc).
        dylan604 3y ago
        nothing you just offered as critical is critical. government offers schooling. if you wish to seek additional, that is offered in other ways. when i went to school, YT didn't exist. yet, i still sought out additional resources that were available outside of school. this argument carries no weight with me. news content is available in other places. these news sources choose to offer their content on YT because that's where the audience is. if YT were to no longer exist, the news content would still be available elsewhere. again, no weight here either. considering YT part of the infrastructure means to me that you are very confused on what infrastructure is. YT utilizes that infrastructure. if YT didn't exist, it does not mean that the internet wouldn't work. it would not prevent anyone from accessing other resources utilizing the actual infrastructure of the internet. so either, this word has a confused meaning for you, or you're just beyond hypothetical and not realizing it. i realize some people would feel like the internet was broken if social media sites were down, but they'd eventually get over it if they were to never come back
        epgui 3y ago
        I think we disagree about the importance of these things, but that's okay. However... There is plenty of academic literature which explores the concept of social media as infrastructure. I didn't come up with the idea, I only pointed to it. I won't point to any specific document, but there is plenty of related material here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=social+media+infrastructure&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=soci... Or, take a look at the wiki page for "infrastructure" to get a rough sense of how broad the concept really is.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I'd say you're biting off way too much by framing it as users "cheating". If anything Youtube is "cheating" by pushing users into running malware that undermines users' own interests. Furthermore while I don't necessarily agree that users have a "right" to Youtube, I do believe that sensible antitrust enforcement would require Youtube to make its service client-agnostic, and prohibit this current practice of bundling a proprietary client with the service.
- linuxandrew 3y ago
  > Users don't have a right to use YT. They have to privilege to use the website in the terms YT offers it. Users should have a right to use a client that doesn't serve up ads. A monopoly like Google/YouTube should't be allowed to block users on a right that they should have, to control their client and a right to privacy. In many countries they are parts of contracts that are simply not enforceable because they are overwritten by legislation. YouTube is, by the way, basically a monopoly on user-created videos (except perhaps for shorts) and network effects prevent true competition. The argument that users should "go elsewhere" is pretty distasteful if you ask me. I like to be a part of culture and if someone sends me a link to a YouTube video I should be able to watch it. Copyright reform and P2P liberalisation would really help in this regard.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  As long as YouTube is on the public web, users do indeed have a right to use it.

Users don't have a right to use YT. They have to privilege to use the website in the terms YT offers it. Users have the right to try to "cheat" the system, and YT has the right to make the cheating difficult.

epgui 3y ago
> Users don't have a right to use YT. The question here is not whether they have a right to use it, but whether they should have a right. All rights are invented, created essentially out of thin air, to protect things people care sufficiently about. All rights were at some point not rights.
- dylan604 3y ago
  I think this conversation is being taken to weird directions. To me, a website is a company's digital version of a brick-n-mortar store. There is an understood and accept concept of the store is the business' property. There is no right for you to enter a store and you can lose your privilege by not behaving yourself. Why we do not afford a website this same concept is lost on me.
  - epgui 3y ago
    When you do business with the phone company, you can draw the same analogy. And yet these often/usually have special relationships with governments owing to the critically important infrastructure involved.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      What critical service does YT provide that it should even be considered for being considered a critical anything?
      - epgui 3y ago
        So first, let's consider what I am not talking about. That would be videos of cats, entertainment, etc. Things that could more easily be argued to be important would be stuff like academic content or news content. At this point Youtube is a part of the broader internet infrastructure (as are many other large social networks), and you can make an argument that it's a bit like any other utility (roads, phone lines, fiber op cable, GPS satellites, etc).
        dylan604 3y ago
        nothing you just offered as critical is critical. government offers schooling. if you wish to seek additional, that is offered in other ways. when i went to school, YT didn't exist. yet, i still sought out additional resources that were available outside of school. this argument carries no weight with me. news content is available in other places. these news sources choose to offer their content on YT because that's where the audience is. if YT were to no longer exist, the news content would still be available elsewhere. again, no weight here either. considering YT part of the infrastructure means to me that you are very confused on what infrastructure is. YT utilizes that infrastructure. if YT didn't exist, it does not mean that the internet wouldn't work. it would not prevent anyone from accessing other resources utilizing the actual infrastructure of the internet. so either, this word has a confused meaning for you, or you're just beyond hypothetical and not realizing it. i realize some people would feel like the internet was broken if social media sites were down, but they'd eventually get over it if they were to never come back
        epgui 3y ago
        I think we disagree about the importance of these things, but that's okay. However... There is plenty of academic literature which explores the concept of social media as infrastructure. I didn't come up with the idea, I only pointed to it. I won't point to any specific document, but there is plenty of related material here: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=social+media+infrastructure&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=soci... Or, take a look at the wiki page for "infrastructure" to get a rough sense of how broad the concept really is.
mindslight 3y ago
I'd say you're biting off way too much by framing it as users "cheating". If anything Youtube is "cheating" by pushing users into running malware that undermines users' own interests. Furthermore while I don't necessarily agree that users have a "right" to Youtube, I do believe that sensible antitrust enforcement would require Youtube to make its service client-agnostic, and prohibit this current practice of bundling a proprietary client with the service.
linuxandrew 3y ago
> Users don't have a right to use YT. They have to privilege to use the website in the terms YT offers it. Users should have a right to use a client that doesn't serve up ads. A monopoly like Google/YouTube should't be allowed to block users on a right that they should have, to control their client and a right to privacy. In many countries they are parts of contracts that are simply not enforceable because they are overwritten by legislation. YouTube is, by the way, basically a monopoly on user-created videos (except perhaps for shorts) and network effects prevent true competition. The argument that users should "go elsewhere" is pretty distasteful if you ask me. I like to be a part of culture and if someone sends me a link to a YouTube video I should be able to watch it. Copyright reform and P2P liberalisation would really help in this regard.
asadotzler 3y ago
As long as YouTube is on the public web, users do indeed have a right to use it.