2 ms·

This is absolutely terrible news. It's been pretty clear this was coming, and I think fairly clear that this is part of a very high-level strategy for Google.

This is absolutely terrible news. It's been pretty clear this was coming, and I think fairly clear that this is part of a very high-level strategy for Google. They've been investing heavily in all aspects of this for years now, on the client and server side. It reeks of enshittification to me, but more than that I think we're just about to enter the era of locked/closed tech. A Youtube without DRM does almost feel like an anachronism when you consider the rest of the landscape. Most people willingly buy devices that severely limit what they can do, so I'm not expecting any real pushback from consumers either. Those of us who really care about this will probably just find ourselves faced with a choice: digitally divide (and deprive) ourselves for our principles, or be forcefully shoved into the same box as the lowest common denominator users. Assuming non-evil motivations on the G executives part, I do wonder if AI was the final straw here. In order to build their "moat" on Gemini they need to make it so data collectors can't get to Youtube videos. Only "real" way to ensure that is to DRM things. X/Twitter, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and many others have taken steps as well for similar reasons. I'm sure it's something they wanted to do anyway so maybe AI is more an excuse than a reason, but it's surely not nothing.

RachelF 2y ago
AI is probably the threat executives understand. There are also some pretty good third party YT clients like GrayJay https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/ These let you follow creators across various video platforms in one app. Bad for YT lock-in that Google wants.
unqueued 2y ago
I wish more were done to push back against this consolidation of power by these platforms. We're like frogs that have been stoking the fuel of our own pot. It used to be that DRM was considered to be in conflict with the browser, because it was not acting on behalf of the user. If you must have DRM, then it is on the platform to shoehorn it in through an external plugin, like Silverlight. When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. If we make DRM a switch that can simply be thrown, then it will become the norm, not the exception. And there have been proposals for years to DRM fonts and other absurdities. If a company insists on using DRM, then they should have to shoulder the burden of doing something that a browser was never support to support. The nightmare that we're racing toward is you will only be permitted to cache a trickle of video at a time and your TPM attestation hardware must include a token in every HTTP request. Your browser will just be a software cablebox. They aren't happy about URLs either and would love to require that if you want to share a reference to something, you have to do it on their terms, like generating a url in their app with a hash that expires and limited in how many times it can be viewed. I'm sure influencers will still have the privilege of unlimited sharing. They've been slowly rolling this infrastructure out for the last decade. These are not isolated inconveniences, these are coffin nails.
- gruez 2y ago
  >When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. The alternative is that people complain "netflix doesn't work on firefox", switch to chrome instead, which is even worse.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    That's almost certainly their rationale, bit I'm not convinced it's sound. Firefox's market share is pretty dire anyway, and many people watch Netflix through phones and tv apps now, rather than their actual browser, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't an issue at all.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - unqueued 2y ago
    > The alternative is that people complain "netflix doesn't work on firefox", switch to chrome instead, which is even worse. So what if users complain? How is it better for Firefox to do something bad just because Google is doing something bad? Firefox is supposed to provide an alternative to what's out there. Firefox also didn't support some popular proprietary Internet Explorer features, and they never attempted to. For a time, much of MySpace didn't work as well in Firefox. But I'm glad that Firefox didn't cave, even if some users complained that they couldn't make the scrollbars neon green or make music autoplay. Not letting Microsoft or Google dictate how they implement a web browser worked out really well for them. Chasing proprietary platforms has ruined them. At the time EME was adopted Firefox was much more popular, I think 20% back in 2012. Video platforms were using Silverlight for DRM. There's a good chance that EME would not have gotten off the ground if Mozilla didn't embrace it, or at least not as quickly. Mozilla should have taken a stand and refused to support EME when they had the chance. They would be better off than they are now. And there's a good chance Netflix would not have thrown away a double digit percentage of subscribers. Instead they embraced DRM and now they have nothing.

RachelF 2y ago

AI is probably the threat executives understand. There are also some pretty good third party YT clients like GrayJay https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/ These let you follow creators across various video platforms in one app. Bad for YT lock-in that Google wants.

unqueued 2y ago

I wish more were done to push back against this consolidation of power by these platforms. We're like frogs that have been stoking the fuel of our own pot. It used to be that DRM was considered to be in conflict with the browser, because it was not acting on behalf of the user. If you must have DRM, then it is on the platform to shoehorn it in through an external plugin, like Silverlight. When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. If we make DRM a switch that can simply be thrown, then it will become the norm, not the exception. And there have been proposals for years to DRM fonts and other absurdities. If a company insists on using DRM, then they should have to shoulder the burden of doing something that a browser was never support to support. The nightmare that we're racing toward is you will only be permitted to cache a trickle of video at a time and your TPM attestation hardware must include a token in every HTTP request. Your browser will just be a software cablebox. They aren't happy about URLs either and would love to require that if you want to share a reference to something, you have to do it on their terms, like generating a url in their app with a hash that expires and limited in how many times it can be viewed. I'm sure influencers will still have the privilege of unlimited sharing. They've been slowly rolling this infrastructure out for the last decade. These are not isolated inconveniences, these are coffin nails.

gruez 2y ago
>When Firefox adopted EME extensions, I knew it was the beginning of the end; they were rolling out the red carpet for DRM. The alternative is that people complain "netflix doesn't work on firefox", switch to chrome instead, which is even worse.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  That's almost certainly their rationale, bit I'm not convinced it's sound. Firefox's market share is pretty dire anyway, and many people watch Netflix through phones and tv apps now, rather than their actual browser, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't an issue at all.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- unqueued 2y ago
  > The alternative is that people complain "netflix doesn't work on firefox", switch to chrome instead, which is even worse. So what if users complain? How is it better for Firefox to do something bad just because Google is doing something bad? Firefox is supposed to provide an alternative to what's out there. Firefox also didn't support some popular proprietary Internet Explorer features, and they never attempted to. For a time, much of MySpace didn't work as well in Firefox. But I'm glad that Firefox didn't cave, even if some users complained that they couldn't make the scrollbars neon green or make music autoplay. Not letting Microsoft or Google dictate how they implement a web browser worked out really well for them. Chasing proprietary platforms has ruined them. At the time EME was adopted Firefox was much more popular, I think 20% back in 2012. Video platforms were using Silverlight for DRM. There's a good chance that EME would not have gotten off the ground if Mozilla didn't embrace it, or at least not as quickly. Mozilla should have taken a stand and refused to support EME when they had the chance. They would be better off than they are now. And there's a good chance Netflix would not have thrown away a double digit percentage of subscribers. Instead they embraced DRM and now they have nothing.