- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.
This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.
This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.
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Ya I’ll never stop using ad blockers, the internet is essentially unusable without them. Mine still work on youtube but if the day comes that they don’t I’ll just stop using it. We need some competition here, things have gotten increasingly anticonsumer and the companies have gotten too comfortable doing and charging whatever they want
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Hahahaha, dammit this should be top comment
The problem with any youtube competitor is that there is no way in hell they can cover the costs of the infrastructure required to host the same amount of videos youtube has and streaming them to the millions of users youtube serves daily.
How about a decentralized, federated service instead of hoping a major corporation tries to “save” us?
I don’t think even a decentralized service could hold a mass equal to youtube. That would require that either the owners of all instances pay from their own pockets with mostly no income to support it, or that every user paid up, which is not going to happen, at least not in a service like youtube.
Some of us are data holders and have Gigabit internet with options to go even higher. Don’t count out the little guys ability to share massive amounts of data… been doing it since zip drives and CDs
Have you seen the sheer amount of data hosted by YouTube though? There’s no way any amount of hobbyists are going to hold a candle to that.
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It’s still just as expensive, you’re just adding administrative overhead.
You’d also spread the cost to more people, true, but who would operate a server for free (based on donations, but if it’s federated why should I pay for that one server?). Also, do you trust all those people to keep operating the storage for years to come? Or are you done with losing access to videos, because someone lost interest in running their instance?
Storage and bandwidth costs for video on demand are so incredibly high, I don’t think we’ll get a federated alternative to YouTube any time soon.
peertube started with that idea. Unfortunately is poorly maintained, also because humans are inherently evil, it’s a nightmare to moderate.
Honestly this feels like the only possible way to win against Youtube. Goal could be to just create standardized decentralized platform where number of different companies/organizations can host and serve their own content while still being searchable and accessible from single client application.
Major problem with Mastodon, Lemmy and Peertube is searching and browsing content from multiple instances is still difficult.
I think it could work if most users contribute to the maintenance cost of their favorite instance. It’s just like mastodon and lemmy, but everything costs more.
That doesn’t address the issue of storage and compute power for streaming to the absurd amount of users.
There’s been attempts before and it all comes down to file transfer time and storage (because at the time the servers weren’t transcoding for streaming the file. Secondary issue of buy in, like what we see with niche communities staying on reddit instead of moving to the fediverse.
There already exist a number of projects out there like peertube. Take a look at how even the most popular instances are doing. It’s not well.
The closest thing was around a decade ago, the popcorntime or popcornflix or whatever it was called app/program that was just a nice front end for torrenting videos and watching them before they finished downloading. Each individual user was responsible for their own storage, network connection speed, and compute power to render the video for themselves. Each end user was also contributing back through helping others to download the file via standard torrenting p2p stuff.
So now you need a front end to host the magnet links to the files, and a robust set of seed servers so no video is ever truly lost. That still doesn’t cover a significant portion of youtube’s functionality like reccomendations, comments, allowing creators to edit/adjust videos after the fact.
Unlike reddit, youtube is technologically complicated and impressive. Hell, read up on some of the stuff Netflix has had to do to achieve reasonable streaming quality and speed on an insanely smaller curated library.
A decentralized federated solution is possible, but there’s a shit ton more that would have to go into this than just appealing to the concept.
The closest thing was around a decade ago, the popcorntime
That method is still around, it’s just called stremio and you use a plugin called torrentio to get the torrent streaming functionality that popcorntime offered.
One alternative that seems promising is Nebula. It only fills a small part of the role YouTube currently occupies, since it focuses on being a platform for high quality professional content creators to make unfiltered content for their audience, but it’s funding model seems to be much more honest, stable, and so far viable than an ad-supported platform or the other alternatives. I don’t think anything could realistically replace all facets of YouTube (and I think the internet might be healthier if it were a little bit less centrally-located). A self-sustaining, straight-forwardly funded platform like Nebule seems like the best path forward to me.
The problem with any competitor is providing enough value to content producers to get them to make the move.
Eh, kinda. Tbh youtube didn’t use to be that way, it was just a place to upload your videos and search for other videos. Over time they grew it into a creator focused site much to the detriment of the quality of content imo. Like sure, creators are producing 4k videos with great lighting and yada yada yada, but they have to create so much content constantly that the videos favored by youtube’s algorithm are fairly soulless, low effort mass produced crap that looks shinier. Classic youtube was some dude with a heavy accent recording on a nokia potato a 25 second video that immediately showed you how to do exactly what you entered into the search bar.
It was like that in an age that no longer exists, and can no longer exist. Things were generally decentralised as everyone was doing and hosting their own shit. And people were fine and accustomed to finding weird holes with a collection of strange content. The average user is now focused on convenience rather than exploring, especially as web content has come to supplant other forms of entertainment.
Yeah everyone talking about how many additional TB of data you need to host every hour - if content had to justify it’s existence on it’s own merits a lot less of it would exist and it’s quality would be dramatically superior.
Pretty much all creators on Youtube start with shitty videos you wouldn’t even glance at a second time. If you pre filter all videos then said creators could never get feedback or encouragement and most would’ve stopped long ago.
Why not? Youtube was big before google bought it
Youtube had a space devoid of competition. The next guy doesn’t. If the next guy wants to compete, they have to have all the features of Youtube or people will complain. Many of Youtube’s current features cost money and weren’t present when Youtube started.
The space is also more regulated now that Youtube exists, meaning the new guy has to follow regulations which normally costs money. When Youtube started, those regulations didn’t exist, because Youtube didn’t exist.
Youtube got big by building a city in an open field surrounded by nothing but open fields. The next guy has to build a city directly next to Youtube, follow all the same laws as Youtube, and ask you not to drive into Youtube.
Two reasons:
- Because no one else occupied the same space in a meaningful way.
- Low interest rates meant they were able to get massive investments without the burden of profitability.
Now you’d need to distinguish yourself from YouTube in a meaningful way as well as provide a sustainable revenue model, such as advertising, in order to gain access to a similar amount of venture capital.
Did youtube at the time serve millions of users daily and stored a gargantuan amount of petabytes worth of videos?
Even if a competitor rises, they will need money somehow, and in this hell of a capitalist world, only big corporations have it.
I guess if you don’t use ad blockers you somehow get used to it. It’s like someone whose job is 100% outdoors vs. someone who works indoors and then has to do a day working outside. The person who is used to cold, wind, rain, scorching sun, etc. stops noticing, even though it takes a toll on them too.
Every once in a while I end up using a browser without ad blockers enabled and it’s incredible to me that some people live like that. It really is almost unusable. Things jump around as ads load in. Ads / videos pop over the content you’re trying to use. The useful part of a page might be 60% ads: ads along the sides and breaking up the text. And then there’s the bottom area of the page which is an endless scroll of “related content” ads.
That’s not a good analogy. It’s more like saying that whenever you go outdoors for a walk on the park or do grocery shopping, you have to give up 15 minutes of your time to “donate” blood to the rich.Edit: I just finished reading your whole comment. Sorry friend. We’re on the same page.
No analogy is perfect. Yours gets at the reason for the ads – they want something from you and you have no chance to bargain or say no. Mine is more about how people can become accustomed to something that’s really unpleasant and after a while not really notice it.
My point is that to me (someone who blocks ads), trying to use the web without an ad blocker is extremely painful, and I find websites almost unusable. But, to someone who has never used an ad blocker, they’re used to the crap, and have developed some ‘immunity’ to the distracting images and work-arounds for the broken thing.
Anyhow, we’re on the same page. I just felt like explaining a bit better what I was getting at.
I was quite content with tolerating banner ads. Then they became animated and it went downhill after that.
I’m fine with a variety of ads, but I really hate distracting animation. The current trend seems to be that every ad is animated, so every ad is blocked.
There never will be a YouTube competitor, it requires continuous investment from a multibillion dollar company.
Nebula isn’t too bad, I like a lot of those informative creators and they collaorated and made a startup video hosting site, its essentially everything i want youtube to be. If more creators decided to do this it’s be great.
Download newpipe and never use YouTube again.
Age restricted videos are a problem otherwise it’s great. I have it on an android TV box.
Antitrust laws are not enforced nearly as much as they should be, especially in tech.
Stop using Google’s products and continue using adblockers. Don’t come back at me with excuses. Otherwise, don’t complain.
The real problem with any other video service is that YT has a HUGE advantage of WAY more content. I wish it weren’t that way but it is.
So they will continue to dominate until similar vast content can be created elsewhere.
The real problem with any other video service is that YT has a HUGE advantage of WAY more content.
PornHub: uh, hello?
Funny!
Boom chicka wow wow….…Hey baby. Let me show you how to torque your nuts deep down inside my motor…Guitar solo…rocket launch video…
It would be interesting if PornHub started paying people for non-porn content. Because of their high traffic I assume they might be able to compete with YT…someday. It would be fun for them to try.
I just don’t see it happening. People have been suggesting they create “VideoHub”/“MediaHub” for years, as they’re the rare company established in free-access video and also able to compete on the basis of having a (presumably) profitable enough service to keep them afloat through any rough patch. Though I’ll certainly agree, it would be incredibly interesting.
I’m sure plumbing tutorial videos would thrive there. Maybe nature documentaries about great tits would work too. If you have a farm, you could also make videos of your ass and pussy. Some people have a huge cock, so filming that would obviously be a good idea.
Google only has power as we the people give it to them but using their services. Same with Reddit’s power and such. Not the people here as we have unfortunately unplugged, but admittedly, all the decentralized services have significantly less content and variety of content. We need more people to join us, but they seem happy to support the centralized services they hate.
I’m okay with the less amount of content. Frankly, I mindlessly spent hours scrolling through “content” on reddit, and feeling no satisfaction. At least the content here is more relevant.
More people would mean more memes and rage bait. No thanks.
You just need to curate your feed like anywhere else. Who can really stand the main page of reddit or yt or anything really?
Reddit made it so hard to use on mobile that I only check it on the weekend on my pc.
Yup, I used to do that. But then the admins took over some of my curated subs, e.g. programming subs, when the mods refuse to open them up. So now I don’t go to those anymore.
I mean subreddits like Oculus and Virtual Reality and I am sure many other niches are missing on Lemmy or very quiet.
Oh yeah, that’s a good point.
The problem is the network effect. It’s hard to switch from YT if all your favorite channels and creators are there, but it’s also hard for them to switch if all the users are using YT. And because it’s many different people we cannot coordinate a simultaneous transition either.
That’s why i wen FF+ Duckduck + ublock and instead of reddit > Lemmy But i have to admit that YouTube is harder to replace then reddit and I’ve tried many alternatives.
I just got an email from YouTube, my premium price is going up by almost double…
If you subscribe to premium using an Indian IP address, for example, you’ll get it for like a buck a month
I did that for a month from Argentina, then Visa stopped working. I started a personal invidious instance and haven’t looked back.
a bit off topic but when you say personal instance where is it hosted? And if it is strictly personal, doesn’t google create the same profile for you which will be assigned in your IP if it is hosted in your house, or in your VPS’s IP if hosted elsewhere?
I have a VPN gateway VM that randomly chooses a VPN region.
interesting. thanks for sharing!
YouTube Music is no longer optional. It’s now bundled into the basic features of Premium and Google uses that to justify the insane price hike. Their argument is that it’s cheaper than before for the dozen-or-so people that had subscribed to both YT Music and Premium. All others now “save” on the YT Music subscription, the fact that nobody saves anything by paying for a service they don’t need is completely lost on them. Just corporate greed and pushing the monopoly a bit further, nothing to see here.
The YouTube adblocker overlay and such doesn’t work if you’re in incognito mode. You’re welcome.
Stop begging them, stop using them.
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I simply open up YouTube+Ublock in Firefox on my smartphone.
I actually like the personalized video recommendations from being signed in sometimes, but I still don’t like my data being sold. I use both.
Same. Firefox +uBlock on mobile. The YouTube app actually kinda sucks. Never used it
My solution is (and for quite a long time was) to use NewPipe on mobile and Invidious on pc.
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Adnauseam is great, but it also leaves some ads on pages.
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This works! Firefox + ublock did not.
Firefox + ublock definitely works.
You are right. I updated ublock and now it works.
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Yeah I just switched back to ff from chrome and YouTube has never sent me their little warning on ff
I can also recommend Libretube or Clipious for Android
Literally the reason I started regularly using Firefox
I’ll be switching back to it.
Is there any real free alternative? And I mean free refered to freedom, I know PeerTube exists but finding a good/known instance to upload content knowing that the instance won’t go down is hard.
EDIT: I found maker.tube and hardlimit, the first one looks promising.
Opera GX + uBlock + ABP. I stopped seeing this shit a long time ago. (Opera de-googles where necessary, and has its own store. You can still install from other chrome stores, if something is not available in theirs)
Frankly though, Alphabet needs to start being made accountable for their own “de-privacy” behaviour, in the name of their own profits.
And on a side note, is it just me or did 404media just came out of nowhere, and is spamming “news” posts. I’ve read a few of them, and they seem more like opinion pieces, and less factual. They really seem to have little supporting evidence, proper content (the meat, proof, details) and the complete post content is paywalled.
Defederated world, can we please prioritise non-paywalled sites over monetised ones?
Why uBlock + ABP though? Isn’t uBlock alone enough? And why not Firefox instead of Opera as it’s also based on Chromium?
Yes, uBlock is enough for YT specifically. I run ABP for some sites that uB doesn’t catch. (and for that matter, I also run “Ghostery” as well.
But yes, for this specific posted topic, you are correct I don’t need the other blockers.
As for Firefox, I had been a long time user, but I went through the bullshit phase they created themselves. It was because they dominated and it created a lapse in diligence, on their part. First was the bloat, it is a browser but it got mental in size. Then there was the bloat in usage, what browser needs 50% of your 32GB RAM?? (These have probably been addressed today). But the straw that broke my back was the constant lapsing of certificate renewals that broke everything in firefox including all addons. That was the final straw for me. It was clear they were not interesting in maintenance, and I needed a working browser, not bleeding edge bullshit, and constant roadblocks.
Ram usage as a talking point against ffx while using a chrome engine browser is more internet troll level i could handle after waking up.
Iirc adblock plus has been known to get bribed to allow certain ads through. I’m struggling to remember the details, but there was some controversy with them a while back. If you have ublock you don’t also need ABP, just update your filters on those sites that ublock “doesn’t work” on
If it wasn’t for all these articles, I wouldn’t even know that something changed. Firefox + uBlock works the way it used to.
What a manipulation tactic though. Phase in the change at different times for different users.
Maybe one day they’ll have the ability to just roll out the shit internet for plebs and the shitter, but shinny, version for the rich.
What if someone gets left behind in the great ad war? Lol. A lone user who has never seen an ad on the Internet ever.
