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Cool. I stopped paying for it back when it was still called “YouTube Red”, during one of their many crackdowns on creators’ freedom in the name of benefitting advertisers. I dumped it and installed an adblocker, and eventually YouTube Vanced and its successor Revanced.
I used to run YouTube Vanced on my phone for years until Google killed it a few years ago. Since I was already paying a monthly sub for YouTube Music (been using that since the Google Play Music days and had my whole iTunes uploaded there) I decided to spend the extra 1-2 bucks a month for the Youtube Music + YouTube Premium combination, since that seemed like less effort than keeping up with ReVanced builds constantly.
Last month I tried getting a student discount for my subscription, but after a day I got an email telling me Google was canceling my sub for an unspecified reason. I decided not to renew it, and instead downloaded ReVanced, and spent a few days redownloading all the albums I only had on streaming, and integrating those along with my old iTunes folder into my Jellyfin I already had set up for movies.
Now I’m saving 15 bucks a month, and have regained full control over my music library. Feels pretty nice, and the Symfonium music app on Android looks 10x better than the ever-changing UIs of YTM ever did.
Also feels great not to give a single cent to an accomplice to Israel’s genocidal mania across the middle east anymore. I had already severed ties with Google’s mail, photo storage and search a year or two ago. Get fucked Google.
Oh wow! Getting rid of the mail is a little hard. I was trying to do immich for pictures but I’m having a hard time with opening folders to docker. I’m a beginner with docker so I’m on my 4th install try
Google killed it ? I’m still using it.
Vanced or ReVanced? I seem to remember Vanced being broken by an update some time after Google C&D’d the project, leading to the creation of ReVanced a while later But maybe I’m misremembering, as its been a few years.
Keep up with revanced patches ? You need to update maybe once every few years
Yet the FOSS alts are still free. Hot damn.
You mean front ends to YouTube infrastructure? Or stuff like Loops? One of those two are cool, the other is unsustainable if it were to get popular. Well, maybe both? I guess it depends on how the FOSS infrastructure works about.
My proposal: cancel YouTube premium, donate $1 to Smart Tube developer, donate $1 to Firefox. ublock origin doesn’t accept donations as far as I know.
I would pay a lot for YouTube Premium if it actually blocked all the ads. Unfortunately, it does not. The video itself is allowed to contain ads inside the video, which YouTube does not block. I have heard that if the creator declares it, it can be skipped, but SponsorBlock (aims to) skip all of them by default, and for free.
I have an iPhone — the second worst device for consuming YouTube on, tied with the iPad for the same reason. On my old Android phone, I have Firefox with uBlock Origin. Same with my Macs, and my work PC (which is at work). The worst device for consuming YouTube on, I also own — the Apple TV streaming box (which is ironically the best streaming box due to it not having ads in the OS — I’m dead serious, even if you’re Android all the way, you should get one).
On my iPhone, I’ve deleted the YouTube app. Instead, I have a shortcut to YouTube on my home screen that opens in Safari. I have a Safari plugin called Wipr 2 that I paid $5 for, one time, to a solo developer who uses the Fediverse (Mastodon) and is a woman (this shouldn’t matter, but I do enjoy minority representation, and seeing girls win). I occasionally see ads on YouTube, but it’s rare, and typically, refreshing Wipr (updating its block lists) fixes the issue.
That’s on an iPhone. Wipr2 is not available for tvOS. So mostly, I consume YouTube content on my MacBook, which I can mirror to my TV. Ironically, the TV itself (which runs Android TV) is better at mirroring my MacBook (which is between 1 and 2 metres away) than the Apple TV box, at the same distance. (Make that make sense.) (So, you often hear about Apple and Google being rivals around iOS and Android, respectively, but Apple actually licenses AirPlay to Google for inclusion in Android TV. That is actually a thing, and it works great.) I can also run a Thunderbolt/USB-C to HDMI cable and make my TV a monitor for my MacBook, and just drag a Firefox window up to the TV. But it’s a MacBook Air, I still have to keep the lid open, and the screen on (I turn the brightness all the way down though).
I just remove the adfull google tv launcher and replace it with Projectivity. I then use Stremio and Smarttube, neither of which can work on tvOS.
What was the advantage again, except for seeing a few less ads if you are to stupid to install an adblocker?
Orders of magnitude more income per view for the video creators
YouTube music is pretty good. And a good deal of you already pay for another service like Spotify that you can drop
Ehhhhhhhh, like most Google services and products, it’s okay if you’re the narrow focus user group that its designed around.
I, for one, don’t want my YouTube likes and playlists all the same list as my music likes and playlists.
Google Play music felt cheaper, but was better almost all around. And Spotify, if you ignore them promoting ice and platforming and paying people like joe rogan and none of their musical artists and a bunch of other borderline evil things, actually had the best design and service… I say had, because most of the service they really offer is the algorithm and databases, which a few years ago got really really shitty for some reason. Spotify has always flirted with having and not having incredible algorithms for suggesting music… for whatever reason, 2016 was peak, and it’s had some pretty radical falls since then, to now, where it’s the most intelligence-insultingly bad algo I’ve ever seen, besides YouTube proper.
I used to pay less than the single plan for a family plan, split between 5 people. Back when ad-free YouTube was an afterthought and my primary reason for using it was Google Play Music’s unlimited music storage and streaming.
The amount they just increased the cost of YouTube is about how much I’d be willing to pay total for no ads. Until then, they’re competing against zero ads (but no casting) for free.
Libretube, smarttube and the like. You realise the amount of bloated shit there is on YT when you use one of those. They are like a front end on the infra I suppose. Not familiar with Loops, must go digging!
YouTube is the new cable, and it will take monumental effort to dethrone it. Hosting video at this scale is expensive. And people loathe having to go to multiple places to get video. Users, including people on Lemmy, want all of their video entertainment on one platform. They hate multiple subscriptions. They hate having their games in multiple storefronts.
There are user behaviors that enable these bad things to happen. And people need to start ranting about these factors and educating people about how multiple platforms are good, actually. Multiple options for account servers are good, actually. Multiple video hosts are good, actually. Paying creators for content is good.
The solution is not to hack YouTube and put a different front end on their infrastructure.
Do I watch YouTube? Yes some days. Would I miss any creator on there if they disappeared? Not at all. Wouldn’t even think about them again. They aren’t worth an ad watch or a dollar.
Annnnnd it’s gone!
Oh no!
I will continue not paying a dime for any media I see ever, unless I really support the creators, as I have been doing for … 20 years now?
