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If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

codedokode 1y ago
There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  - Enforce views of ads (not debating the validity of this reason, but this is the entire reason Youtube exists, to sell and push ads)
- baxuz 1y ago
  Then they should allow a download API for paying customers.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    It's not YT's content though.
  - codedokode 1y ago
    Music labels publish the music on YT in exchange for ad revenue, they won't be happy if someone would download their music for free, and making music is expensive, google how much just a single drum mic costs and you need lot of them.
    - baxuz 1y ago
      > for paying customers
      - codedokode 1y ago
        YT shares income from subscriptions with music labels? I didn't hear about this, and even if they shared the download must be paid much higher than a view because after downloading a person could potentially listen for a track hundred times in a row.
        diet_mtn_dew 1y ago
        Youtube premium includes Youtube Music, which is alphabet's streaming service, and I assume that they are paying the same fees as everyone else.
        codedokode 1y ago
        > as everyone else "Everyone else" do not allow to download music in an unencrypted format, so it makes sense if YT doesn't allow also.
  - balder1991 1y ago
    But even if you’re a paying customer, the creator is only paid if you watch it on the platform.
- transcriptase 1y ago
  >AI companies Like Google? >scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades?
  - codedokode 1y ago
    > Like Google? Like Google competitors obviously. > Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades? Yes, but if you allowed to index your site (companies even spent money to make site better indexable), Google used to bring customers and AI companies bring back nothing. They are just freeloaders.
- Chris2048 1y ago
  Who says these are valid?
- supriyo-biswas 1y ago
  Why is this being downvoted? Are people really gonna shoot the messenger and fail to why a company may be willing to protect their competitive position?
supriyo-biswas 1y ago
At least for YouTube, viewbotting is very much a thing, which undermines trust in the platform. Even if we were to remove Google ads from the equation, there’s nothing preventing someone from crafting a channel with millions of bot-generated views and comments, in order to paid sponsor placements, etc. The reasons are similar for Cloudflare, but their stances are a bit too DRMish for my tastes. I guess someone could draw the lines differently.
- rwmj 1y ago
  I'm sure that's a problem for Youtube. What does it have to do with me rendering Youtube videos on my own computer in the way I want?
  - pwg 1y ago
    > What does it have to do with me rendering Youtube videos on my own computer in the way I want? It doesn't. That interferes with google's ad revenue stream, which is why YT continues to try to make it harder and harder to do so.
  - bitwize 1y ago
    You don't have that right. When you view copyrighted content, you do so at the pleasure of the licensor.
    - rwmj 1y ago
      How you watch copyrighted content has never been something that copyright has controlled.
      - bitwize 1y ago
        If the content needs to be copied or downloaded in order to be watched, you may do so exclusively under terms set by the licensor, period. You may not even get fair use rights, as to get the content in the first place you might have to agree to terms of service waiving them, and being found to use the content in an unapproved way would be grounds for cutting off your access.
jasode 1y ago
>If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web I disagree with the framing of "us vs them". It's actually "us vs us". It's not just us plebians vs FAANG giants. The small-time independent publishers and creators also want to restrict the web because they don't want their content "stolen". They want to interact with real humans instead of bots. The following are manifestations of the same fear: - small-time websites adding Anubis proof-of-work - owners of popular Discord channels turning on the setting for phone # verification as a requirement for joining - web blogs wanting to put a "toll gate" (maybe utilize Cloudflare or other service) to somehow make OpenAI and others pay for the content We're long past the days of colleagues and peers of ARPANET and NFSNET sharing info for free on university computers. Now everybody on the globe wants to try to make a dollar, and likewise, they feel dollars are being stolen from them.
- johnebgd 1y ago
  It’s like we are living in an affordability crisis and people are tired of 400 wealthy billionaires profiting from peoples largess in the form of free data/tooling.
- skydhash 1y ago
  > small-time websites adding Anubis proof-of-work Those were already public. The issue is AI bot ddos-ing the server. Not everyone has infinite bandwith. > owners of popular Discord channels turning on the setting for phone # verification as a requirement for joining I still think that Discord is a weird channel for community stuff. There's a lot of different format for communication, but people are defaulting to chat. > web blogs wanting to put a "toll gate" (maybe utilize Cloudflare or other service) to somehow make OpenAI and others pay for the content Paid contents are good (Coursera, O'Reilly, Udemy,...). But a lot of these services wants to have free powered by ads (for audience?). --- The fact is, we have two main bad actors: AI companies hammering servers and companies that want to centralize content (that they do not create) by adding gatekeeping extension to standard protocols.
- jrochkind1 1y ago
  i want my content borrowed/shared, and I still need to be engaged in this stuff because the poorly behaved distributed bots that have arisen in the past year are trying to take boundless resources from my site(s), that I cannot afford.
mtrovo 1y ago
I don't know, it's really hard to blame them. In a way, the next couple of years are going to be a battle to balance easy access to info with compensation for content creators. The web as we knew it before ChatGPT was built around the idea that humans have to scavenge for information, and while they're doing that, you can show them ads. In that world, content didn't need to be too protected because you were making up for it in eyeballs anyway. With AI, that model is breaking down. We're seeing a shift towards bot traffic rather than human traffic, and information can be accessed far more effectively and, most importantly, without ad impressions. So, it makes total sense for them to be more protective about who has access to their content and to make sure people are actually paying for it, be it with ad views or some other form of agreement.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Don’t worry! Ads are coming to AI. The big AI push next will be context, your context all the time. Your phone will “help” and get all your data to OpenAI… “It looks like you went for a run today? Good job, you deserve a treat! Studies show a little ice cream after a long run is effectively free calories! It just so happens the nearest Dairy Queen is running a promotion just for the next 30 minutes. I’m getting you directions now.”
  - bitwize 1y ago
    This is why contra Louis Rossman, Clippy was not a good thing for humanity.
  - codedokode 1y ago
    It would not be that much of a problem if ads promoted healthy and tasty food but they will probably promote an ice-cream made from a powder and chemicals emulating taste of berries rather than from milk and fresh-picked berries.
    - therein 1y ago
      It still would be. Loss of agency. Ads are text and images you see. Native advertising in a chatbot conversation is a third party bidding their way into your conversation. Machine showing you an ad versus injecting intention into your context are very different things.
gjsman-1000 1y ago
Everything trends towards centralization on a long enough period. I laugh at people who think ActivityPub or Mastodon or BlueSky will save us. We already had that, it was called e-mail, look what happened once everyone started using it. If we couldn't stop the centralization effects that occurred on e-mail, any attempt to stop centralization in general is honestly a utopian fool's errand. Regulation is easier.
- numpad0 1y ago
  e-mail can't handle 24/7 1k posts/sec traffic which Twitter was about. A more appropriate analogue is IRC.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  I am a big supporter of AT Protocol, and I contribute some money to a fund to build on it. Why laugh at running experiments? Nothing will "save us," it is a constant effort as long as humans desire to use these systems to connect. Email exists today, and is very usable still as a platform that cannot be captured. The consolidation occurred because people do not want to run their own servers, so we should build for that! Bluesky and AT Protocol are experiments in building something different, with different use cases and capabilities, that also cannot be captured. Just like email. You can run your own PDS. You can run your own stack from PDS to users "end to end" if you so choose. You can pay to do both of these tasks. No one can buy this or take it away from you, if it is built on protocols instead of a platform someone can own and control. Regulation would be great. The EU does it well. It is lacking in the US, and will be for some time. And so we have to downgrade to technical mitigations against centralization until regulation can meet the burden.
  - ohdeargodno 1y ago
    [dead]
th0ma5 1y ago
Weird people talking about small time creators wanting DRM I've never seen that... Usually they'd be hounding for any attention? I don't know why multiple accounts are seemingly independently bringing this up, but maybe it is trying to muddy the waters? This concept?
eek2121 1y ago
The fact you shoved Cloudflare in there shows your ignorance of the actual problems and solutions offered.

codedokode 1y ago

There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
- Enforce views of ads (not debating the validity of this reason, but this is the entire reason Youtube exists, to sell and push ads)
baxuz 1y ago
Then they should allow a download API for paying customers.
- dylan604 1y ago
  It's not YT's content though.
- codedokode 1y ago
  Music labels publish the music on YT in exchange for ad revenue, they won't be happy if someone would download their music for free, and making music is expensive, google how much just a single drum mic costs and you need lot of them.
  - baxuz 1y ago
    > for paying customers
    - codedokode 1y ago
      YT shares income from subscriptions with music labels? I didn't hear about this, and even if they shared the download must be paid much higher than a view because after downloading a person could potentially listen for a track hundred times in a row.
      - diet_mtn_dew 1y ago
        Youtube premium includes Youtube Music, which is alphabet's streaming service, and I assume that they are paying the same fees as everyone else.
        codedokode 1y ago
        > as everyone else "Everyone else" do not allow to download music in an unencrypted format, so it makes sense if YT doesn't allow also.
- balder1991 1y ago
  But even if you’re a paying customer, the creator is only paid if you watch it on the platform.
transcriptase 1y ago
>AI companies Like Google? >scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades?
- codedokode 1y ago
  > Like Google? Like Google competitors obviously. > Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades? Yes, but if you allowed to index your site (companies even spent money to make site better indexable), Google used to bring customers and AI companies bring back nothing. They are just freeloaders.
Chris2048 1y ago
Who says these are valid?
supriyo-biswas 1y ago
Why is this being downvoted? Are people really gonna shoot the messenger and fail to why a company may be willing to protect their competitive position?

supriyo-biswas 1y ago

At least for YouTube, viewbotting is very much a thing, which undermines trust in the platform. Even if we were to remove Google ads from the equation, there’s nothing preventing someone from crafting a channel with millions of bot-generated views and comments, in order to paid sponsor placements, etc. The reasons are similar for Cloudflare, but their stances are a bit too DRMish for my tastes. I guess someone could draw the lines differently.

rwmj 1y ago
I'm sure that's a problem for Youtube. What does it have to do with me rendering Youtube videos on my own computer in the way I want?
- pwg 1y ago
  > What does it have to do with me rendering Youtube videos on my own computer in the way I want? It doesn't. That interferes with google's ad revenue stream, which is why YT continues to try to make it harder and harder to do so.
- bitwize 1y ago
  You don't have that right. When you view copyrighted content, you do so at the pleasure of the licensor.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    How you watch copyrighted content has never been something that copyright has controlled.
    - bitwize 1y ago
      If the content needs to be copied or downloaded in order to be watched, you may do so exclusively under terms set by the licensor, period. You may not even get fair use rights, as to get the content in the first place you might have to agree to terms of service waiving them, and being found to use the content in an unapproved way would be grounds for cutting off your access.

jasode 1y ago

>If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web I disagree with the framing of "us vs them". It's actually "us vs us". It's not just us plebians vs FAANG giants. The small-time independent publishers and creators also want to restrict the web because they don't want their content "stolen". They want to interact with real humans instead of bots. The following are manifestations of the same fear: - small-time websites adding Anubis proof-of-work - owners of popular Discord channels turning on the setting for phone # verification as a requirement for joining - web blogs wanting to put a "toll gate" (maybe utilize Cloudflare or other service) to somehow make OpenAI and others pay for the content We're long past the days of colleagues and peers of ARPANET and NFSNET sharing info for free on university computers. Now everybody on the globe wants to try to make a dollar, and likewise, they feel dollars are being stolen from them.

johnebgd 1y ago
It’s like we are living in an affordability crisis and people are tired of 400 wealthy billionaires profiting from peoples largess in the form of free data/tooling.
skydhash 1y ago
> small-time websites adding Anubis proof-of-work Those were already public. The issue is AI bot ddos-ing the server. Not everyone has infinite bandwith. > owners of popular Discord channels turning on the setting for phone # verification as a requirement for joining I still think that Discord is a weird channel for community stuff. There's a lot of different format for communication, but people are defaulting to chat. > web blogs wanting to put a "toll gate" (maybe utilize Cloudflare or other service) to somehow make OpenAI and others pay for the content Paid contents are good (Coursera, O'Reilly, Udemy,...). But a lot of these services wants to have free powered by ads (for audience?). --- The fact is, we have two main bad actors: AI companies hammering servers and companies that want to centralize content (that they do not create) by adding gatekeeping extension to standard protocols.
jrochkind1 1y ago
i want my content borrowed/shared, and I still need to be engaged in this stuff because the poorly behaved distributed bots that have arisen in the past year are trying to take boundless resources from my site(s), that I cannot afford.

mtrovo 1y ago

I don't know, it's really hard to blame them. In a way, the next couple of years are going to be a battle to balance easy access to info with compensation for content creators. The web as we knew it before ChatGPT was built around the idea that humans have to scavenge for information, and while they're doing that, you can show them ads. In that world, content didn't need to be too protected because you were making up for it in eyeballs anyway. With AI, that model is breaking down. We're seeing a shift towards bot traffic rather than human traffic, and information can be accessed far more effectively and, most importantly, without ad impressions. So, it makes total sense for them to be more protective about who has access to their content and to make sure people are actually paying for it, be it with ad views or some other form of agreement.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
Don’t worry! Ads are coming to AI. The big AI push next will be context, your context all the time. Your phone will “help” and get all your data to OpenAI… “It looks like you went for a run today? Good job, you deserve a treat! Studies show a little ice cream after a long run is effectively free calories! It just so happens the nearest Dairy Queen is running a promotion just for the next 30 minutes. I’m getting you directions now.”
- bitwize 1y ago
  This is why contra Louis Rossman, Clippy was not a good thing for humanity.
- codedokode 1y ago
  It would not be that much of a problem if ads promoted healthy and tasty food but they will probably promote an ice-cream made from a powder and chemicals emulating taste of berries rather than from milk and fresh-picked berries.
  - therein 1y ago
    It still would be. Loss of agency. Ads are text and images you see. Native advertising in a chatbot conversation is a third party bidding their way into your conversation. Machine showing you an ad versus injecting intention into your context are very different things.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

Everything trends towards centralization on a long enough period. I laugh at people who think ActivityPub or Mastodon or BlueSky will save us. We already had that, it was called e-mail, look what happened once everyone started using it. If we couldn't stop the centralization effects that occurred on e-mail, any attempt to stop centralization in general is honestly a utopian fool's errand. Regulation is easier.

numpad0 1y ago
e-mail can't handle 24/7 1k posts/sec traffic which Twitter was about. A more appropriate analogue is IRC.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
I am a big supporter of AT Protocol, and I contribute some money to a fund to build on it. Why laugh at running experiments? Nothing will "save us," it is a constant effort as long as humans desire to use these systems to connect. Email exists today, and is very usable still as a platform that cannot be captured. The consolidation occurred because people do not want to run their own servers, so we should build for that! Bluesky and AT Protocol are experiments in building something different, with different use cases and capabilities, that also cannot be captured. Just like email. You can run your own PDS. You can run your own stack from PDS to users "end to end" if you so choose. You can pay to do both of these tasks. No one can buy this or take it away from you, if it is built on protocols instead of a platform someone can own and control. Regulation would be great. The EU does it well. It is lacking in the US, and will be for some time. And so we have to downgrade to technical mitigations against centralization until regulation can meet the burden.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  [dead]

th0ma5 1y ago

Weird people talking about small time creators wanting DRM I've never seen that... Usually they'd be hounding for any attention? I don't know why multiple accounts are seemingly independently bringing this up, but maybe it is trying to muddy the waters? This concept?

eek2121 1y ago

The fact you shoved Cloudflare in there shows your ignorance of the actual problems and solutions offered.