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Youtube has fully blocked Invidious

[Bug] "This helps protect our community." · Issue #4734 · iv-org/invidious

https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/issues/4734#issuecomment-2365205990

Update 21/09/2024: #4734 (comment) EDIT by @unixfox: The Invidious team is aware of this issue. It appears that it affects all the software using YouTube. Please refrain from commenting if you have...

[Bug] "This helps protect our community." · Issue #4734 · iv-org/invidious

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/22423685

EDIT: For those who are too lazy to click the link, this is what it says

Hello,

Sad news for everyone. YouTube/Google has patched the latest workaround that we had in order to restore the video playback functionality.

Right now we have no other solutions/fixes. You may be able to get Invidious working on residential IP addresses (like at home) but on datacenter IP addresses Invidious won't work anymore.

If you are interested to install Invidious at home, we remind you that we have a guide for that here: https://docs.invidious.io/installation/..

This is not the death of this project. We will still try to find new solutions, but this might take time, months probably.

I have updated the public instance list in order to reflect on the working public instances: https://instances.invidious.io. Please don't abuse them since the number is really low.

Feel free to discuss this politely on Matrix or IRC.

240 comments

flop_leash_973

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YouTube will not change until people stop using it. And people do not want to put up with the inconvenience of not having a YouTube type service again for the amount of time it would take for YouTube to change or a viable competitor to take their place, it really is that simple.

Are YouTube and Google terrible? For sure, but it only got this way because the only backstop to holding them accountable, the consumer, has proven that they will choose putting up with shitty products and services in the name of convenience 9 times out of 10.

Same reasons that ad tiers are gaining a foothold in streaming services like Netflix. The consumer has shown they are fine with it.

Petter1

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Time to pirate YT content and upload to usenet to be automatically downloaded using sonarr

Gutless2615

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Yes but literally throwing together a script to download the days subscription videos to a jellyfin media drive would be stupidly simple.

Petter1

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Sure, but not as convenient 🤷🏻

UniversalMonk

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Same reasons that ad tiers are gaining a foothold in streaming services like Netflix. The consumer has shown they are fine with it.

Yep, I remember when Netlfix first put it out there that they would start with the ads, and everyone on reddit was like, "Canceling my Netflix right now!!"

Netflix is doing just fine without the 5 redditors who actually did cancel it. lmao

pooperNickel

•

"Socialist Chaos Trow" lol

A_Random_Idiot

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the problem is so many people are willing to say they'll take a stand.

but when the time comes, the mindnumbingly overwhelming majority suck it up, because they must have their precious shiny and can not suffer even the mildest of inconvenience.

Its my biggest gripe in gaming, but its a enormous gripe just in general, with everything. because it doesnt matter if you are talking about appliances, creative software, video games, streaming services, stores, etc.

Petter1

•

🏴‍☠️ 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

ironsoap

•

While I agree, I have a hard time seeing how people will stop using it until the field changes. Maybe in 10 years it will the the MySpace of the sitcom era, but right now it's still growing. That growth is giving it carte blanche to manipulate the users as it sees fit. Regulation might impact it, but it's still a bit of a Goliath.

Compared to 2023, YouTube’s user base has grown by 20 million this year, representing a 0.74% increase. From Global media insights

Also the active user base is 2.7 billion people in 2024 from the same source above.

The alternatives are out there, but just not in the same league.

helenslunch

•

Regulation might impact it

I'm having a hard time seeing any bill get passed that supports the rights of users to watch videos without the ads that support the creators and the platform that they're watching.

TheEighthDoctor

•

I’m having a hard time seeing any bill get passed that supports the rights of users to watch videos without the ads that support the creators and the platform that they’re watching.

We should reach a compromise of having skippable ads in the beginning only, for example. In other pages it could be that ads cannot be bigger than 10% of the content being delivered on the page.

It's not always all or nothing, good regulation listens to both sides and reaches a compromise in the middle, but good regulation is getting harder and harder to come by.

ironsoap

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I don't think this requires an act of congress. I think you might see more consumer advocation on the part of FTC (although it doesn't currently regulate online broadcast), or potentially the CFPB.

Admittedly it's more likely to see the EU do some regulations, but it all depends on the election.

Petter1

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I think it needs regulation, the whole streaming industry needs to be regulated! It can’t be that the competition is made using exclusive content and you have to live with privacy infringement tech to consume cultural art legally.

In my opinion, in a capitalist system, the market competition should be about delivering the content the best way, not about what content they deliver.

Right now, they can made the delivery as shitty as they want, because what takes them apart from competition is the exclusive content, not the tech.

zlatiah

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The elites don't want you to know but "[y]ou may be able to get Invidious working on residential IP addresses (like at home)"

Following their guide gives a local Invidious client, don't forget to 1) copy their production compose file instead of using the one on git and 2) change "hmac_key"... from my experience setting up cron (crontab -e) to restart the docker container once per day keeps the Invidious docker healthy

ShepherdPie

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If you do this, I would be fully prepared to lose access to all your Google services along with anyone else who may use Google services on the same IP. Gmail, Play store, Chrome, etc, etc can easily be wiped out with a ban from Google and this can seriously fuck people's day up if they've used Gmail and have 2FA setup on any external account.

zlatiah

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I guess I forgot to take that into consideration... I'm not worried about Google banning my IP since I essentially don't use any Google services at all and my home IP is hidden behind a wireguard tunnel, but yes that is a valid concern

But I mean someone can just spin it up on their home network so... No way 192.168.0.1:3000 can get someone into trouble right

MangoPenguin

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At least until they start blacklisting IPs using Invidious.

GhiLA

•

yt-dlp still works.

A spark of hope in a dim world.

vividspecter

•

I've seen it go down in some cases on VPNs, so it could be a matter of time (or they'll find a solution again and the back and forth will just continue).

Tangent5280

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My god, what if its on google's chopping block next?

Gutless2615

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Donate to the EFF for fighting that fight in court already.

Excrubulent

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Not just invidious, they've just de facto blocked video embedding:

If you're wondering how a viable competitor could arise, other companies needing a video hosting solution that they can rely on to run their storefronts is a perfect use case. This is the Humble Bundle storefront, and they could pretty easily spin up a peertube instance. If that became commonplace, it could be one way for peertube to become ubiquitous.

EDIT: This is related to my VPN I believe, but storefronts still aren't going to be happy if they can't rely on their storefronts working for everyone.

Excrubulent

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Well I now can't unless I disable my VPN. Storefronts would probably like VPN users to be able to use their stores, in which case they might be more interested in an alternative.

flames5123

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I watch embedded videos all the time. Literally hundreds this weekend. Embedded is not “de facto blocked”.

Excrubulent

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Well I now can't unless I disable my VPN. Storefronts would probably like VPN users to be able to use their stores, in which case they might be more interested in an alternative.

helenslunch

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Professional hosting for business use is not hard, and fairly common even. But these make up a tiny fraction of YouTube videos, and they mostly post there to get organic growth and be suggested to people already watching YouTube.

Excrubulent

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Sure but it's really common to see embedded youtube videos on storefronts, and if storefronts en masse abandoned it that's one more piece of the market that youtube has lost.

They can't keep locking it down and not lose market share, is my point. They're enshittifying so much, so fast, and eventually there will be a tipping point.

helenslunch

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They can't keep locking it down and not lose market share, is my point

They can very much afford to lose a tiny amount of marketshare in exchange for a massive increase in ad and subscription revenue, is my point.

Excrubulent

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"Massive increase" I think needs a source.

And they rely on the network effect to be the de facto standard video hoster. Every little bit of that network that they carve off while they're enshittifying brings them closer to the critical point where people can afford to ditch them.

The logic that they can "afford" to lose marketshare is exactly what will make them keep losing it until people migrate en masse and they lose all of their marketshare.

Petter1

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Youtube is now big enough for not caring about the network effect.

Start companies
make a free product with network effect
gain a lot of users
now that you have your user base, user growth is not as relevant anymore and therefore network effect is not needed anymore
enshitificate for more ad revenue, more tracking and direct subscriptions
profit (finally after decades)

Capitalism is just fucked 🤷🏻🏴‍☠️

helenslunch

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"Massive increase" I think needs a source.

Don't have one. Pure speculation. Much like yours, I assume? Unless you have a source to the contrary?

How often do you see professional videos on the trending page on YT?

Excrubulent

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Source for what? The network effect? I gave you a link, you can read.

And youtube is enshittifying.

These are both well-established effects. My sourcing is finished now. It beats your "pure speculation" unless you have something else you want to add.

Mwa

•

yo rainworld i used to have a friend that was a fan of that game

turtletracks

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It's a 10/10 for me! Amazing game but definitely not for everyone

Mwa

•

True

P4ulin_Kbana

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What happened?

Mwa

•

I dont feel like i wanna say it on lemmy

FilthyHookerSpit

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I wasn't curious about your friend until this comment lmao. Cheers friend.

Mwa

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Alr enjoy your day

rdri

•

Seems it's fixed now?

Excrubulent

•

Could be, maybe it's intermittent, but the more times they try to lock this shit down and it stops working for storefronts, the more unreliable it becomes.

What percentage of visits can they afford to have this error happen before they seek alternatives? If it were my business and I didn't know how many customers were closing the store page because the video didn't play and they lost interest, I would be immediately looking for an alternative.

EDIT: Still broken for me. I can fix it by turning off my VPN, but storefronts are going to want to sell to everyone, including the VPN users.

TriflingToad

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is that a possible workaround? Also, a tip from my school trying to block YouTube (idk if it applies here) is that you can 'add to queue' to where it plays in the corner then there's a button to make it bigger.

Nima

•

i absolutely despise youtube. these fuckers are putting ads on paused videos now, and then this.

they will never get better. only worse. we need regulations badly.

beejjorgensen

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We need a competitor badly.

scarabic

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Paying Nebula subscriber here 🙋‍♂️

Pony up or your call for a competitor doesn’t mean anything. People don’t want ads? Fine. There has to be another revenue stream. Server capacity costs money, making a website and app cost money, and video creators need to eat.

bilb

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Then isn't the obvious move to just pay for youtube?

RmDebArc_5

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Peertube/Odysee exist, even if they are relatively niche.

hostops

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Competitor with no content, users is not a competitor. Youtube should be forced to share content they do not own. Just for the sake of competition.

Voroxpete

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The content isn't the problem. It's the delivery system. No one else has the storage and network capacity that Youtube has. And as a result of that, no one else has the built-in audience Youtube has. Putting your videos on YT is simply the best way to get views.

BalooWasWahoo

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I use odysee, and so far it's been nice.

i_have_no_enemies

•

rumble is pretty good

carotte

•

fuck off out of here with your nazi platforms

Cistello

•

Pretty much every Alternative Tech platform also has a huge far right population Lemmy is an exception to this but has a decently sized far left population instead I dunno how it is now but a lot of people complained a couple of weeks ago about Nazis joining Bluesky and one of the guys from Bluesky covering them

Alphane_Moon

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Mastadon has a huge far right population?

noodlejetski

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Gab and Truth.social are Mastodon instances, just defederated by everyone else in case of the former, and not federating and pretending they're their own thing in case of the latter.

carotte

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that's true, but platforms like rumble were created to be homes to the far right. we shouldn't encourage their existence.

silasmariner

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Whatever happened to dailymotion?

rob_t_firefly

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Does anyone really post anything to Dailymotion besides blatantly unauthorized TV stuff? I can't imagine it'd be very good vibes for anyone trying to make an honest living with original content over there.

obbeel

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Dailymotion does not allow for commenting anymore. That's why I stopped using it.

carotte

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iirc they tried to become a tiktok clone, no idea how it went but considering i never see anyone talk about it i doubt it went very well

Cistello

•

I used it a bit because its also on Grayjay but its pretty terrible and focuses a lot on big media than individual people

IsThisAnAI

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You want regulations on ads for a free service?

The entitlement is wild.

cheddar

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Free or not, monopolies should be regulated.

IsThisAnAI

•

Do you pay for nebula?

wanderingmagus

•

Yes, and ads should be regulated regardless of whether the service is free or not. Same way you can't put outright porn on a highway billboard.

homesweethomeMrL

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They’re a monopoly that relies on users to produce content. You see, in a functional capitalist system, when one supplier deliberately hinders competition through unfair trade practices, they are made to change their methods in order to foster competition.

When that system is corrupted and fails to act in a timely manner, all bets are off.

You know where else you can go to find the billions of videos users have uploaded? No. How did it get that way? Just, luck? No.

Yes, we want regulations on ads in YouTube, and it’s an ignorant and arrogant position to call that “entitled”.

magic_smoke

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Works for Albania.

Its not like google fucking earned that money anyways. You don't earn billions of dollars.

Think about it. If you earned a million dollars a year, you'd be set for life. If you lived for a full hundred years you'd have only made 1/10th of a billion dollars. Despite the fact that its still more money than either of us will probably ever see.

The people who operate google have billions with an s at the end. Think about the hardest working person you've known. Think about how little money they made.

Now ask yourself, what did the people with billions do to earn that money? How hard did they have to work to justify it, and how is that level of work even humanly possible? How would a bunch of spoiled overgrown trustfund fratboys find it in themselves do that work?

They fucking don't. The only people who get that rich do it by cheating, and stealing, and fucking people over. Those fuckers owe us a lot more than video streaming services.

BalooWasWahoo

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Your math is off. You said one million per day, but your 1/10 of a billion would have it as one million per year

magic_smoke

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Oof that's a typo, yeah meant years. Sorry bud.

IsThisAnAI

•

👌👍

scarabic

•

You’ll never get upvotes for telling people this reality, but you are of course completely correct.

If only we saw as much enthusiasm for voting generally as we see for taking ads off YT. Maybe we’d actually get a government that was willing to regulate titans.

LordWiggle

•

You can still watch YouTube without ads using grayjay.app including sponsor block.

Thanks to Louis Rossman

polle

•

Or just use Firefox with ublock?

LordWiggle

•

Sure, that works too, however with grayjay you can follow creaters across platforms. So in case someone's account gets banned by YouTube due to whatever bullshit reason, you can continue following them on other platforms. Next to that you won't get spammed with Shorts junk. If you want to download a video to watch it offline, you can actually watch it offline (you don't require a connection like with YouTube to watch something offline)

UraniumBlazer

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But ur data gets raped if u don't use a VPN + no account (but then u don't get to see age restricted material)

Mojave

•

Yo did someone hit you in the head with a golf club? Why are you talking like that?

I_Miss_Daniel

•

They grew up before t9.

ShepherdPie

•

I was already an adult when T9 was still a thing and never texted like this. I could write out full sentences while my phone was still in my pocket.

UraniumBlazer

•

What's t9?

I_Miss_Daniel

•

T9 was a rapid entry system for sending texts using a number pad on a phone.

Instead of doing hello as 44 33 555 555 666 you could do 43556 and it'd predict 'hello'.

Species5218

•

Holy shit, someone that ACTUALLY knows what T9 was!

Most people think that T9 was the method of typing on the telephone keypad, but no its an improvement on that!

Predictive text was another name for it.

UraniumBlazer

•

Ooookay... How's that relevant here tho... I'm so confused

Mwa

•

bro sounds soo drunk

UraniumBlazer

•

I swear I'm not. I'm just rlly rlly confused with why people r saying the things they're saying. I don't understand.

UraniumBlazer

•

Isn't it true tho? YouTube's a privacy nightmare- they know everything about ur content preferences, ur political learnings, everything. Without a VPN + no account, say goodbye to any semblance of privacy.

Mojave

•

DarkThoughts

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https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/423851-simple-youtube-age-restriction-bypass

Mwa

•

grayjay doesnt have return youtube dislike

LordWiggle

•

It has its own like and dislike system, so it's not cluttered by yt bots.

Mwa

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paradox2011

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It does, you can turn it on in the YouTube plugin settings.

Mwa

•

alr i might redownload that app later

GhiLA

•

We can't complain about everything, here, considering the circumstances.

sga

•

For those who are want something similar to invidious, you can try youtube-local (not my project, I am just a user). It is a minimal python youtube client, and functions similar to other frontends, but runs locally. You lose some amount of privacy (youtube still has a general idea of who is watching with IPs), but it is not very exact, and there is an option to use tor to get the content. You can also enable sponsorblock, or hide yt-shorts.

Mwa

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newpiped and freetube will continue to work but piped is also blocked as well

grudan

•

Doesn’t freetube use invidious api?

SaharaMaleikuhm

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I can use invidious, but also works without it. Unless Google decides to mess with that too. Was broken for a few days like a month ago or smth

Olgratin_Magmatoe

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Freetube is still working on my machine as of today for what it's worth.

cyberwolfie

•

It also has a local API

Cistello

•

It directly pulls Videos from Google servers unlike Invidious U can use Invidious on it but I doubt it works so well

Mwa

•

idk

meldrik

•

Start asking your favourite content creators to post on PeerTube.

mostlikelyaperson

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And then watch the peertube instance die. See also: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/5783

brrt

•

And how are they going to make a living to keep producing videos?

I’d say ask them to join Nebula.

helenslunch

•

Same way they do on YT. Viewer contributions + sponsor spots + merch. They only miss out on ad revenue (which I concede is not insignificant).

Nebula is ok but I took 1 look at their privacy policy and passed.

Allero

•

Nebula is cool and all, but at the end of the day, it's still a commercial platform, and those do tend to enshittify and depend a lot on externalities.

As creators grow more dependent on Nebula, Sam and the team of original Nebula creators can wield more power and change the rules.

They already dictate the kind of content that is allowed - for example, Second Thought, one of the original creators behind Nebula, was asked to leave as he doesn't agree to change public stance on Israeli-Palestinian conflict (he is pro-Palestine). This has suddenly left him without a source of revenue necessary for the production to expand, and has put him into debt.

Solution? Probably independent sponsorships that would go both on YouTube and PeerTube videos. Or a creator reward system like in Lbry/Odysee. Something that would allow to reward creators without going full commercial.

96VXb9ktTjFnRi

•

Direct payment to creators seems like the most simple and efficient method.

warm

•

Remember when people posted on YouTube for fun? It's only when it became a viable business that the platform turned to shit.

borgertwo

•

Ah yes, youtube now is just one big ad and sponsorship cesspool flooded with clickbait and misinformation and with highly privacy invasive protocol. Its a souless capitalisic corporate machine. I dont know why people would still use it. Just let youtube die.

Fosheze

•

All the people I watch on youtube make the majority of their money on patreon or twitch. Youtube is way too heavy handed with demonitization and copyright strikes to be a trutsworthy income source.

meldrik

•

That depends. If they only make a living with YT ads, then it’s going to be hard.

DarkDarkHouse

•

About half the ads I see on YouTube are already within the videos they post. I wonder what the overall ratio is of YouTube ad revenue versus in-video ad revenue.

meldrik

•

Are you talking about sponsors? Because yes, that has nothing to do with YT ads.

brrt

•

I guess I forgot things like Patreon which could be a valid option. Although I’m neither a fan of subscribing to specific creators nor am I particularly fond of Patreon.

With Nebula my perception is that I pay a monthly fee and they can figure out who gets what depending on whose videos I watched. I don’t need to be particular in my action on who to support.

meldrik

•

Nebula is a good option, but now you've created a paywall. Now only people who can afford it, can watch the content and what is to keep Nebula from upping the price of the subscription?

If ads is out of the question, then content creators need to use sponsors and patrons, if they want to make a living.

scarabic

•

People want a fantasy world where all the main content is free and two or three rich sponsors support the creator by sponsoring little extras only available to Patreon supporters. The ends will never meet in the middle on that. It’s a fantasy where people get what they want for free because someone else pays for it. Won’t work. Get out your cash, kids. Cancel your Netflix and put the money into Nebula.

borgertwo

•

Don't shift the blame on "people wants" as if they're owed by the people. Most people dont even ask for whatever content that is pushed out. And what's more content creator is just a glorified term for online digital panhandlers. And they frame it as if viewers are meant to owe them something all while contributing as little to their efforts that amounts to no significance as possible. Imagine paying someone to make a facial reaction and talking for a bit everytime you passed a panhandler and they call themselves a content creator. It's bogus way to frame or even justify that especially considering they get payed far larger sums comparison to people who actully work for a living while dodging the taxes. And is unlikely any such platform as youtube as well as its big panhandlers are struggling with finances. Youtube gets $15 billion dollars a year in ad revenue and hey greedily continue the push for more ads. And the digital panhandlers calling themselves content creators can make more money in a week than the typical wage slave can in a year.

Barbarian

•

An advantage of funding things via a collective like Nebula as opposed to each individual creator managing their own patrons is that new creators can start making bigger, more expensive projects quicker. Even established creators have this advantage, they can take bigger risks on bigger projects with the safety net of a share of the nebula pie.

I don't think a project like The Prince would exist without Nebula, for example.

scarabic

•

Nebula is also priced for the masses. You get an entire video service for one reasonable price. Patreon finally has really low priced options like $1 a month but for the longest time it was like $25/month just for the entry level supporter package and I could never justify blowing all that on one creator. I also hated digging around the Patreon app for the sponsor content and dealing with its stupid push notifications.

I find Nebula is a much more sustainable thing. And I still discover new creators there. Because after all I’m not going to be set for life with one or two YT creators. I want to find new things too. Nebula gives you that.

noodlejetski

•

a collective like Nebula

FYI, Nebula isn't a collective: https://scribe.rip/@cameron-paul/who-actually-owns-nebula-952a1c12d9c0

Barbarian

•

Thanks for the link, it was a very interesting read. While it is disappointing that it's not actually a collective (assuming this blog post is accurate), having a platform run and owned by 6 creators is still better than YouTube's governance structure, and still has the advantage in having both the capacity and desire to invest in creators.

LordWiggle

•

They also can use sponsors in the video, but that only works when you have enough views.

scarabic

•

Yes if a creator’s main living can be shifted into Patreon or their own independent subscription service, THEN you will see them move off of YT because it actually works against them at that point. Mark Spagnuolo aka The Wood Whisperer has made this transition. He’s been around years (decades?) with awesome quality woodworking content. He’s found independent sponsorships. He’s created his own subscription service and takes direct payments but also uses platforms like Patreon. He plays the social media game very well. He travels to trade shows and keeps up with a podcast. He is the gold standard for what it takes a creator to move off of YT and still make a living IMO. His wife is a driving force behind making the business work and I think it’s a full time job for her too and probably a staff of employees. Mark used YT in the early years to build an audience but he does very little at all on YT nowadays.

He also has very little out there now that is free 🤷‍♂️

You can’t have it both ways

darvit

•

You could also send money via paypal or kofi if you don't like subscriptions, if the creator has it set up.

GhiLA

•

They can still post on YouTube.

It might take a tiny bit of their revenue away but I doubt it would make much of a dent, especially for creators that run mostly on patreon anyway.

scarabic

•

Paying Nebula subscriber here 🙋‍♂️

I can’t stand hearing people whine about wanting everything for free and how DARE people try to make a living so they can eat in between making videos!!!

BatrickPateman

•

Patreon and all the other services creators have at their disposal already.

Don't think most Youtubers can make a living these days solely on YT as revenue, and are already exploring other avenues.

homesweethomeMrL

•

I just want the videos no creator makes money on. I expect thats about 50% at least. Let’s start there. Put them in the Library of Congress and YouTube will be free to enshittify themselves into oblivion without complaint.

Mwa

•

or odysee ig but i cannot find a good peertube instance i can post in

meldrik

•

What are your criteria for a good instance? I host one myself, so genuinely curious.

Mwa

•

The age limit yeah I think the peertube instances on their site follow the gdpr

meldrik

•

Yea, a minimum of 13 years old is pretty common. Also something I agree with, as I don’t think kids under 13 should be on social media.

Mwa

•

talking about most of them have a minimum of 16 but 13 is fair honestly its everywhere but i am 14

meldrik

•

It's 13 years on mine, if interested: peertube.wtf

Mwa

•

Yeah i already signed up but my videos require approval i registered before this reply

sag

•

Civvie 11 is a old head. How do I convince him?

meldrik

•

What have you tried so far?

LunarLoony

•

And while we're at it, stop calling them 'content creators'

EDIT: to clarify, my stance on this is that 'content creator' devalues the human endeavour behind a piece of work (or content, if you will). Instead it's just slop for the machine, and who cares what it is as long as it gets numbers, right?

meldrik

•

What is the alternative name for someone who creates content for a platform?

LunarLoony

•

Well, we start by referring ta work not as "content", but as what it actually is. Then work from there. For instance, one could ostensibly call Ahoy a filmmaker or a documentary maker.

LainTrain

•

Bruh that dude is a CONTENT CREATOR, not a filmmaker 😂🤣🤣

His internet videos are colourful animations meant to serve ads while capturing attention and summarizing Wikipedia articles giving some thoughts on them, and I love them, but it's called content for a reason.

LunarLoony

•

"Bruh" is not a strong opener to an argument

Ilovethebomb

•

... Which is a type of content.

There's a lot of content that doesn't fit neatly into a category though, because it was made by someone turning on a camera and making a video without worrying about any commercial concerns. So calling someone like that a creator is a catch all term for anyone making content for a platform.

LunarLoony

•

But don't you think it's a bit reductionist? We read books, not analogue text content. We eat meals, not nutritional content. We listen to songs, not rhythmic euphoria content. I don't think it's about commercial concerns - in fact, the term 'content' to refer to anything and everything is the 'commercial' way of putting it.

Someone hitting 'record' on a microphone and jamming on a guitar is still music. Why should we treat video any differently?

schnurrito

•

Do we need a general term? Someone who uploads their videos to a video platform is probably a "video producer".

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Creator

catloaf

•

So what should we say when discussing people who make video, audio, text media?

I see their point about "content", where, on YouTube, for example, it devalues the videos as subordinate to YouTube as a platform, but I think as people use the word "content" it loses that connotation.

schnurrito

•

video → video producer

audio → musician, podcaster, … depending on the type of audio

text media → author

catloaf

•

So what word should we use when describing all of those people in one group?

westyvw

•

Time wasters.

schnurrito

•

I don't have a very good answer to that either tbh; do we really need to do that so often?

dumbass

•

I'll take the name Content Creator over Influencer any day.

Ilovethebomb

•

Why? What else would we call them?

borgertwo

•

Call them what they truely are. Digital panhandlers

Ilovethebomb

•

That's pretty insulting, a lot of what YouTube creators do takes real skill, and it's a full time job for many.

LunarLoony

•

To answer the "why", it's because the word "content" is kinda meaningless. Instead of making films, documentaries, talk shows, reference guides, cartoons... it's all just this generic "content" slop that's just there to feed the machine

Ilovethebomb

•

What a strange opinion.

Ilandar

•

It's not that strange, I have a friend who literally said the same thing today in reference to one of his favourite channels shutting down. He preferred to call the stuff on this channel art, rather than content. I agree with the person above too, the term has always bugged me. It makes it sound so mass produced, like your job is to just produce meaningless "content" for people to mindlessly consume. And to be honest, that's exactly what the mainstream YouTube culture is about.

westyvw

•

I agree with this a lot. I really do not like the term "content". It is like going to a recipe for some "slop", like using a term that is just a catch all for everything tossed on a plate.

Art is great. Movies, music are also fine terms. And so is simply saying they made a video. Watering it all down to the term "content" is just so boring and mind numbing.

Ilovethebomb

•

I mean, you don't call it whatever you like, but content is the technical definition of it.

sailingbythelee

•

Not really. The term "content creator" is corporate speak. Google's ad-based business model has a binary classification: content and ads. It's not an inaccurate term, but using it implicitly endorses the corporation's binary world view.

homesweethomeMrL

•

Words is funny sometimes.

isgleas

•

Entertainers. Show women/men.

JackbyDev

•

Not all content is entertaining. Someone who makes tutorials I wouldn't call an entertainer. That's why "content creator" is used as a catch all term to cover all of it.

Ilovethebomb

•

Showman/woman refers to a pretty specific type of performer, I.E someone who is on stage typically.

Entertainer isn't a label I'd necessarily apply to educational content, for example.

LunarLoony

•

Then call them educators, or presenters... teachers, maybe, depending on the nature of their work

Tja

•

Yes it's much better to use

"comedians/teachers/musicians/educators/entertianers/phonereviewers/sportscommenters/singers/journalists/programmers/documenters/analysts/lawyers/lockpickers/politicians/presenters/trolls"

... than...

"content creators".

LunarLoony

•

If you find someone that fits all those categories, I wouldn't begrudge you that

Ilovethebomb

•

What do you have against creators as a label? I don't really see these difference myself.

LainTrain

•

Or just call them Content creators, recognize they don't really produce value for anyone but YT's grab on the attention economy and start living in the real world.

LainTrain

•

Show women/men sounds like a 70s porno "medical" exploitation film

Skates

•

Right. Call them youtubers! Wait...

darvit

•

Male/female adult online entertainer?

Invertedouroboros

•

I've also ran into some issues simply accessing youtube through my vpn, but that's been going on for a while.

rustydomino

•

You can block YouTube ads simply by connecting to an Albanian VPN server.

demesisx

•

This comment changed my life. Thanks.

Cistello

•

Same thing with Syria, Ukraine, Russia ...

makyo

•

Why does that work?

Akasazh

•

Ads on streaming media are against the law works for twitch, too

KonalaKoala

•

In that case, get some Invidious instances running on servers in Albania, problem solved.

AFC1886VCC

•

That's based as hell

JackbyDev

•

🇦🇱

gwen

•

nobody wants to advertise in albania lmao

Shortstack

•

Oh that's why no videos would load.

Damn it

hollyberries

•

Right now we have no other solutions/fixes. You may be able to get Invidious working on residential IP addresses (like at home) but on datacenter IP addresses Invidious won't work anymore.

This might explain why mine has been reliable even though it hasn't been updated in months. I guess add me to the list of confirmations that it works on residential connections.

solrize

•

Sad to hear. Newpipe is still working fine (as of a couple minutes ago) if that helps. That's through a residential IP. I will try yt-dlp from a data center IP when I get a chance. I hope they haven't blocked that.

FeelThePower

•

theoretically, they could switch the player to use a nocookie embed.

geography082

•

I would suggest the devs to be able to create instances from within tor. It would be slow, but impossible to block. Or from any other network that don’t rely on single IP access to YouTube . Or, make a mesh of collaborative home instances. Google can’t block millions of home IPs. Or use any mesh collaborative network capable of it.

shadowtofu

•

TOR exit node IP addresses are well-known. If YouTube wants to, they can just block the TOR network.

geography082

•

Good question why they didn’t already or if they did it already

bruhduh

•

Piped extractor already did this by implementing ipv6 rotator

geography082

•

Is it possible to add it by invidious ?

bruhduh

•

Don't know

Soup

•

People can always just stop using YouTube. It’s getting laughable the level of Stockholm syndrome-like addiction people have for that shit service.

LifeOfChance

•

As someone who does a lot of DIY what are my options? I can't learn from reading and have nobody to show me how in person. Other platforms are so incredibly limited I can't ever find any content helping me learn something. What other platform is seeking to ACTUALLY compete with YouTube by offering fair compensation and exposure to the masses? It's so incredibly expensive to try that nobody is.

ironsoap

•

I'd you have android, I recommended newpipe or one of it's fork like tubular. Or Seal or it's fork Ytdlnis.

There are several front ends for yt-dlp on Mac and Windows as well.

bilb

•

Pay tor youtube or watch the ads.

Texas_Hangover

•

Or, if you're not a moron, you can Firefox, and ublock that shit.

Olgratin_Magmatoe

•

Or use freetube/new pipe

Soup

•

Don’t know what to tell you. I’m Simply saying that I personally refuse to support any product that I would actively complain about online in social media posts. And if I’m willing to yell at people online about how shitty something is- yet continue to not only use it- but contribute to the financial success of said company-

I’d have to admit that I was a hypocrite.

Because “there is no other option for me to watch a video” isn’t a good reason to support a platform that treats its content creators like utter garbage, and alienates its user base seemingly daily.

xthexder

•

I don't really think Stockholm syndrome applies here. I don't watch YouTube out of some irrational bond with the platform. I watch YouTube because it's literally the only place the creators I watch upload. I would absolutely follow the creators I watch to whatever platform the content is available on. Until then, I'm stuck with YouTube and ad blocking extensions.

Soup

•

I’m not saying it’s exactly the same. But there are definitely people that whine all day and night about it, and then go pacify themselves by watching even more YouTube videos.

If I hate something as much as people seem to hate YouTube, I can easily stop using it. But then again, I have enough strength of conviction to do so. I’m certainly not going to financially support them by patronizing their service. And this futile attempt to circumvent their add service was is only making them more clever about blocking people from doing so.

YouTube will always win this.

Period. End of story.

The only way to beat them is to not play. I guarantee you if the lose 50% of their viewers. They’ll change their tune.

TheDarksteel94

•

The problem is, there's just no (good) direct competition. The audience will follow creators once enough of them switch to the same alternative platform. But as long as there's no platform with a comparable amount of money behind it, most people will continue to use Youtube.

sugar_in_your_tea

•

Eh, there are some competitors:

Nebula - costs $5/month; can get a discount if you find a creator's discount code (I used NotJustBikes, can check out LegalEagle, HalfAsinteresting, or any of the others if you want; I got 50% off a year sub)
Odyssee - pretty much the OG alternative to YT - I follow a few there
Rumble - much better funded, but caters to conservatives and far-right, but there are some more moderate videos there (I like Glenn Greenwald, except for anything related to Russia); I think it's funny that it has been blocked by some countries for allowing pro-Russian content, while also being blocked by Russia (this year) for not removing content

I sub to some channels from each (as well as Twitch and YT) though Grayjay, which seems to work pretty well. I'd say about 50% of my video watch time is on YouTube, 15-20% on Odyssee, 20-30% on Nebula, and a little on Rumble. I try to watch Nebula videos on the Nebula app so creators get credited with watch time, but I honestly prefer Grayjay.

I've been trying to cut down on how much I watch anyway, so hopefully I'll be able to slowly eliminate YT from my life.

TheDarksteel94

•

I know about Nebula, but you have to admit, the barrier to entrance is a lot higher for most people because of the subscription fee, so it's not necessarily a direct comparison. Some of my favourite content creators are on there.

Didn't know about Odysee. As far as I can see, that platform uses crypto for payments, which could also act as a deterrent to some people.

As for Rumble: Personally, I wouldn't touch anything related to JD Vance with a ten foot pole (he's a pretty big investor). And one of their biggest channels seems to be by Andrew Tate (ew). To be fair, I couldn't tell you for sure that Youtube doesn't take money from any of them in some form. But they seem to be more of an equal opportunity offender lol.

dsilverz

•

Rumble - [...] I think it’s funny that it has been blocked by some countries

Rumble is blocked here in Brazil, not because Brazil blocked it (although there was once a strife between Rumble and Brazilian Supreme Court due to a half dozen far-right influencers) , but because Rumble themselves blocked us.

sugar_in_your_tea

•

Yeah, my understanding is that they blocked Brazil due to some stuff they disagreed with. They're certainly a mixed bag.

Soup

•

There doesn’t need to be direct competition. Just stop watching YouTube. If someone cannot do that- they have an addiction, and ads are not their biggest problem.

TheDarksteel94

•

Youtube is my main source of entertainment. I don't watch regular TV, and I barely watch any movies or series. Doesn't have anything to do with an addiction, it's personal preference lmao

TheGalacticVoid

•

Because there's absolutely no valuable information that exists on YouTube, right?

Soup

•

Nice straw man, but I never said that.

jol

•

I pay for Nebula and, although there's a lot to watch there, skimming through the boring stuff is horrible.

sugar_in_your_tea

•

Same. I mostly watch a handful of channels:

various TLDR channels
Morning Brew - not a fan of the hosts, so I'll catch maybe one/week
LegalEagle - anything not about celebs
the Friday Checkout
NotJustBikes and other city infra-related channels - they don't post often though
RealLifeLore
Wendover/HalfAsInteresting - the host annoys me a bit, but the content is usually pretty good

There's a ton of nonsense there that I don't like, but now that I found a set of channels I do like, I mostly just look in the "library" tab so I don't have to see the other crap.

jol

•

I also hate the UI tbh. I want the front page to be my subscriptions. Instead you get a weird horizontal scrolling panel on a secondary tab. I wish I could get an inbox, RSS style, so I could either watch them or skip/mark as watched.

Nebula also suffers from the homepage being cluttered with old videos that are no longer relevant. For example I don't care to watch news and tech videos from 2022.

YetiMindtrick

•

Knowing better and Philosophy Tube are both rather good as well. I do miss Casual Criminalist from YouTube, otherwise Nebula has my bases covered.

jol

•

I think it's a shame that CGP Grey and Philip from Kurzgesagt both bailed early on. I never quite got why, but I guess Nebula for them was just canibalizing their lucrative youtube/patreon business.

sugar_in_your_tea

•

Haven't tried either one, I'll give them a follow. Thanks!

Soup

•

It’s good to see alternatives. I am not at the point where I need to see online videos badly enough that I’d pay for it- but it’s good to know that it exists.

96VXb9ktTjFnRi

•

That's a fair point. There's a million things you could do, and watching videos on YT is just one of them. Watching videos online has become a large part of peoples lives. Surely it has a lot to offer, but we should probably not forget it also replaces a lot of things, things we would spent are time on otherwise, if we didn't have YT as an easy time-drain, and those other things are presumably equally rewarding or more so.

vividspecter

•

Youtube isn't just a thing people use to waste time, but a source of educational content. That actually matters, and there isn't a good alternative to much of it.

That being said, I agree that people could at least drop it (or reduce their usage) if they are just using it as a time waster.

96VXb9ktTjFnRi

•

Youtube isn’t just a thing people use to waste time

I fully agree, didn't mean to imply it's just that. But it's also that.

webghost0101

•

Wow all this bullying is really convincing me to go back to their shitty platform.

If i can’t access my fav creators anymore itl just motivate me to do sm productive, like building web3

helenslunch

•

If i can’t access my fav creators anymore itl just motivate me to do sm productive

YT literally does not care. You may not, but I suspect MANY more people will go back to watching ads or signing up for Premium. Just like when Netflix canceled password sharing and everyone complained but their revenue went up by 15%.

webghost0101

•

I don’t judge people who give in to the oppressor. Life is hard and you have to pick your battles, more important stuff then blocking ads for “normal” people.

For me its largely a disability/accessibility thing. The whole site is not usable.

Its not that i want to die on this hill its that corporate bullshit is measurably detrimental to my health. My hill is the only one i can exist on.

magic_smoke

•

So when do we start just showing up the the doorstep of google employees?

I work for the fucking military industrial complex and not even I would be a bad enough person to work on breaking invidious.

Engywuck

•

People should learn to live without YT, instead of making an existential drama about it (about its ads, really).

LainTrain

•

This is the way. Let those content creators sucking up your time be the background noise they were always meant to be.

GreenKnight23

•

tell me you don't work in IT without telling me you don't work in IT.

YT is more than just thots in shorts and fake scumbag competition game show hosts.

there's a whole community of educators and creators that are genuinely useful and is the core of what YT used to be used for.

LainTrain

•

I have a BSc in CompSci and an MSc in Cybersec & Dig. Forensics and I'm actively employed as a mid level engineer in the field on a fully employer-sponsored Skilled Worker Visa, doing everything from vulnerability management and triage to GRC for ISO27001 to advising product and engineering teams on implementation details for best practices and compliance for a multinational org to DR&BC tabletops etc etc. I think this counts as IT.

Perhaps even more impressively though: I use Vim btw (to program in C).

I am not necessarily trying to brag very much, only to establish my own perspective, I don't consider myself particularly talented or intelligent or successful - otherwise I'd have gone into research, but I am currently (and kinda always) studying to improve my skills and stay up to date.

Just recently I decided to take a look into pentesting to learn the l33t side of things more as my education only ever briefly touched on it, I started in August as something to keep my brain sane during studies for the settlement visa (Life in the UK) test, and I've made it to Hacker Rank on HackTheBox a week ago or so. I think I watched a grand total of one Ippsec video, the rest of everything I read.

I don't know where you got the "game show hosts" from my comment, and I'm not aware of this if it exists as some broader trend. I don't see YouTube shorts it's all long blocked for me since release haha.

Yes YT tutorials and whatnot are good, but they are only good as broad introductions to a topic, personal opinions, or a particular historical narrative (Dr.Chuck on C's history for instance). Those are few good nuggets between an endless sea of scams selling you a course or some other grift.

At a certain point you should start going a bit more in depth and reading - actively engaging with the material, move beyond simply knowing or purely copying and pasting terminal commands and understand why things work the way they do.

You don't become an electrical engineer or something by watching electroboom, you learn what it's about yes, but the rest you learn by reading and making, even basic arduino/breadboard projects will teach you more.

The best thing about YouTube is how good it is as background noise.

GreenKnight23

•

Ahh, that makes sense. you're not the target demographic of YT. you're too educated and too driven and you learn through more advanced methods.

that's OK, great for you and I'm happy that you're so successful. now, what about the millions of users that don't have the means to access higher education and training provided by their employers? what about the 18yo kid living in a leaky trailer with their methed out mom or dad that's looking for literally any way out they can afford.

perhaps in your quest you surrounded yourself with ultra successful people and forgot that there is a whole world with billions of people that do not have the same means as you do.

not trying to diminish the hard work and efforts you have clearly applied, but just because you did doesn't mean everyone can.

by removing easy access to content provided by these communities, even if they are wholly or partially incorrect, it only deepens the chasm between long term professional success and endentured struggle.

I will not support any action that denies a life the opportunity to rise above their status and claim a better life for themselves and their family. for every one person who stands above their born status increases the potential successes of those around them, and even cooler, it's a feedback system. your successes become their successes, and their successes become our successes.

Just to make it clear, I'm not trying to diminish your success I'm just trying to establish my perspective on your perspective so that we can share in a perspective that includes our success.

LainTrain

•

Oh no I totally understand that I'm privileged as all hell.

That said I also learned a helluva lot more outside of my degree during said degree and after.

Formal teaching is really like YouTube and it's meant to introduce you to what you don't know more than anything, and as I said that's a good thing as an introduction, but the vast majority of content is written, and you learn far more from it.