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> I’ve paid for YouTube Premium from the beginning (remember YouTube Red?) and it has been a mostly great service for 10+ years. I struggle to see the differen

by troupo 1y ago

> I’ve paid for YouTube Premium from the beginning (remember YouTube Red?) and it has been a mostly great service for 10+ years. I struggle to see the difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads. It's the same shitty recommendation algorithm. It's the same "you will watch shorts or else". It's the same nerfed unusable search. It's the same "we randomly decided that your bandwidth isn't enough, here's a 480p version of the video you're currently watching".

xp84 1y ago
> difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads. Yeah. That's the difference. That's literally it, the rest is window dressing. You are choosing the monetization strategy: ads or money. If you're not living paycheck-to-paycheck, and you watch a lot of YouTube, paying $13 or whatever is the sensible choice. Yes, lots of things about the product suck, as you've described. But the content on it is good and the recommendation algorithm is pretty good, at least in its obvious goal of bringing me to new-to-me channels on a regular basis.
tshaddox 1y ago
Yes, it’s mostly just the ads. There are some nice-to-haves like video downloads and background audio on the iOS app. I almost never use search, recommendations, or shorts, but I’m sure you’re right to criticize those features.
- Eavolution 1y ago
  Can you download the videos to mp4 or is it some proprietary DRM thing that only plays on YouTube? If not that just sounds like a worse version of yt-dlp
  - tshaddox 1y ago
    Definitely the latter. On the iOS app you choose videos to download, and I believe they only work for 30 days without Internet access. I use yt-dlp for videos I want to archive, but I use the YouTube app downloads for one-off stuff like loading up my iPad before a flight.
  - stiray 1y ago
    https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe
    - Y_Y 1y ago
      I've stopped recommending this (except for in-person to friends) because it's so valuable, and I'm seriously worried about it getting stomped by YouTube.

by troupo 1y ago

xp84 1y ago

> difference between Youtube Premium and regular Youtube with the exception of ads. Yeah. That's the difference. That's literally it, the rest is window dressing. You are choosing the monetization strategy: ads or money. If you're not living paycheck-to-paycheck, and you watch a lot of YouTube, paying $13 or whatever is the sensible choice. Yes, lots of things about the product suck, as you've described. But the content on it is good and the recommendation algorithm is pretty good, at least in its obvious goal of bringing me to new-to-me channels on a regular basis.

tshaddox 1y ago

Yes, it’s mostly just the ads. There are some nice-to-haves like video downloads and background audio on the iOS app. I almost never use search, recommendations, or shorts, but I’m sure you’re right to criticize those features.

Eavolution 1y ago
Can you download the videos to mp4 or is it some proprietary DRM thing that only plays on YouTube? If not that just sounds like a worse version of yt-dlp
- tshaddox 1y ago
  Definitely the latter. On the iOS app you choose videos to download, and I believe they only work for 30 days without Internet access. I use yt-dlp for videos I want to archive, but I use the YouTube app downloads for one-off stuff like loading up my iPad before a flight.
- stiray 1y ago
  https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe
  - Y_Y 1y ago
    I've stopped recommending this (except for in-person to friends) because it's so valuable, and I'm seriously worried about it getting stomped by YouTube.