Like so many grammar "rules", this one was caused by one fussy dude who got his panties in a twist about an aspect of language:
This isn't an example of how modern English is going to the dogs. Less has been used this way for well over a thousand years—nearly as long as there's been a written English language. But for more than 200 years almost every usage writer and English teacher has declared such use to be wrong. The received rule seems to have originated with the critic Robert Baker, who expressed it not as a law but as a matter of personal preference. Somewhere along the way—it's not clear how—his preference was generalized and elevated to an absolute, inviolable rule.
Welcome to 2026, a time when piracy sites continue to receive cease-and-desist letters, but the applications that are being showered with unprecedented investments in the range of fantastrillions are also piracy ventures.
Without uBlock some sites are downright unusable. I dare you to go to weather.com or any fandom.com site with ad blockers, greasemonkey and NoScript deactivated and try not to lunch your monitor
Even with ublock, since it doesn't stop the cookie banners. I struggle whenever I have to to consult the ASCII table. Why does a website whose whole purpose is to serve a static page of ~1KiB need a cookie banner and ads? Just put a fucking "reject all" button, you don't need to suck in all my data to share with your 849 partners to show me an ASCII table.
It's fucking bad for netflix and prime though too. Like every 3 minutes bad. I get free basic netflix with my work phone, so I watch it sometimes. Same with my partners work, they get prime. I'm not sure it's even worth free tbh.
EVEN THIS IS AN AD! FEET! INFINITE FEET HERE! INFINITE FUCKING FEET AD! JUST CLICK MY PROFILE FOR FEET! FEEEEEET! WHEEE! SORRY GOT PUSHED ON A SWO G NOW IM DRUNK FU K FEET FUCK FEET THATS WVAT I FO!
No, what was being advertised was education on philosophy, spirituality, and mental health skills for pedephiles, and others of the sort, who would complain.
But an i cio a cop fu kcan6 type so DRUNK EPISCOPALIAN BUMSQGAAR THATS WHAT I AN FYCK THIS ISBT POSSIVLE OFFICISLLY SOINGABLR WITH A SKILLED DOER DOINGER DOES WGAR HES SAID, THE DOG SORCERER I AM...
Yeah I mean obviously? YouTube pays to serve video. pirating sites serve no video and dont produce any content no dev team because its a copy paste open source implementation.
Most piracy sites don’t host anything besides a simple frontend, they just embed videos from a variety of other websites nobody would deign use directly, because those sure as hell do have worse ads than youtube.
What you are describing is alternative frontend, not a piracy site. Alternative frontends hold no unauthorized copy of content. They can potentially infringe copyright by claiming authorship of content. That would make them fall under piracy from the legal standpoint but I never seen such sites.
Piracy normally implies content is physically located on site’s servers. This requires significant infrastructure for storage and content delivery.
Yeah, but surely they have much more limited ad revenue than YouTube, given that a lot of the ads I see on those sites are ones that pay out less (like the shitty porn ads). Personally, I suspect it's actually competition between piracy sites that has lowered the overall ads, because you have more choices than just one in comparison to YouTube, where you can use it or leave it.
Nominally? For sure. What about per user? Maybe, or maybe Youtube uses more resources than it should.
Also we are comparing different kind of platforms. Youtube is video sharing platform. Any “creative individual” can post there 24/7 any nonsense. Piracy sites are about licensed paid content, so comparison should be against say Netflix.
Youtube’s competitor is PeerTube which has 0 ads whatsoever
I agree but im not drawing the comparison. The meme is drawing that comparison I am just saying why I dont think its so ridiculous for youtube to run more ads than a piracy site.
Yeah, that’s on meme, I’m not accusing you of anything.
On ridiculousness part let me politely disagree. They don’t need so much ads, their revenue was around 25 billion in 2023. There are no official numbers on costs but guesstimations I saw around 14 billion (infra plus operational) so they could lower number of ads to 2/3 and still be very much profitable. They just won’t because people accepted it
Idk I saw that there margins were estimated to be around 10-30% and their ads revenue isnt set in stone they can only make a projection of what they expect it to be and hope it comes in at that or over. I think they are running as many ads as they can because they need extra money for AI capex. Its all speculation though no one knows their actual costs.
Back in the day, piracy sites were relatively flooded with ads. Being exposed to many&sketchy ads was part of the cost of 'free' while the official sites had fewer and had higher standards for what advertisers they allowed.
Now piracy sites have a few annoying banners and fake download buttons, but it's mostly just porn. Meanwhile the real sites are plastered to the point where content is crowded out and like 3/4ths of the ads are scams. There's one on YouTube right now about a miracle disease cure claiming to be in the bible and it's been running for over two weeks now; not to mention all the AI slop scams and malware.
It's kind of absurd how shit the web has gotten as it was corporatized and monetized. Even the word "web" hardly applies anymore.
Many have forgotten what was lost, or never knew. Cyberspace was wonderful once.
I did forget about the ones that stream video but those do not contain less ads than youtube so I think its safe to say the meme wasnt reference those sites. Also this is just nitpicking, there is no argument between the cost to run a pirating site that hosts links to torrents and youtube therefore it makes sense why youtube would need to run more ads.
It's easy to forget, but the vast majority of people, especially young people, mean pirate streaming sites when they say piracy.
Even the piracy subreddit seems to be mostly about them after the great Exodus.
They seem to be under the impression that those are somehow safer than torrenting, despite the opposite being true. Though I guess they're right about there being more to learn about torrents and other methods.
It hits me like a slap every time piracy comes up in conversation we'll start to get into it when they ask me what site I use to watch things. I Once answered "jellyfin?" With some confusion before they brought up like hanime or some shit. Illegal streaming sites with mountains of ads are what most people mean when they say "piracy". It's the only piracy that can really access on their iPhone anyway.
I thought the meme was about ads on torrent tracker sites.
They seem to be under the impression that those are somehow safer than torrenting, despite the opposite being true.
In theory, copyright infringement is committed by the uploader, not the downloader. As such, torrenting is more dangerous if you allow it to seed instead of just leach.
I mean there's more malicious threat actors involved in pirate streaming largely because it's actually very expensive to do. People aren't as likely to do it out of spite or a desire to share like on torrent sites. They must stay profitable against all odds or likely get arrested.
The ads on pirate streaming sites are often the worst out there. It's one of the few places you're still likely to find malicious code hidden in popup or banner ads. Everything else has gotten too corporate for that.
And if getting caught is what scares you about torrenting you can actually just not seed. It is an option, it's just a bit rude. Certainly not more rude than just expecting someone else to host a free streaming site for you and not try to steal your data/money/identity though.
I'm actually pretty sure this meme was made about pirate streaming sites. Hence the direct comparison saying that streaming sites inject more ads in the same way that pirate sites do. In fact I've seen almost this exact meme on Reddit and every comment in that thread was about streaming sites because that's what they all assumed it was about, because that's what piracy is to them. I was being quite literal and direct when I brought up Reddit's take on this.
But there's so much else to pirate: games, books, music, roms. There's a wide world of content out there!
(Obligatory don't pirate stuff, visit your local library and ask a librarian to hook you up. Or do. Whatever, IAALIANYL[I Am A Librarian I Am Not Your Librarian.])
I'm not saying what people should do, I'm just reporting on trends.
Pirate streaming is the bulk of piracy. Especially when you include sports. Most people just aren't tech savvy enough for torrents anymore. The next generation never learned computers. They don't torrent.
But yeah, libraries are great. I just wish they carried audio books in better formats sometimes. My car doesn't even have a disk drive OR a cassette player. I drive a lot for work, so that's how I read and libraries often leave me disappointed for that.
My car has an aux input cable, so I use a bluetooth-to-aux dongle to play audio from my phone. I I rip CDs to mp3s, then dutifully delete the mp3s after I return the library book. Before I got the dongle, I just played from my phone at a high volume.
Oh! If your library has a Libby or Hoopla subscription, you might get audio books through there.
Its better because you get high quality content for free but thats not what was ment. It was comparing yt vs piracy sites and saying that google is choosing to run more ads. I'm saying not really it just costs way more so more ads need to be ran.
Uhhh. Downloading a full video file is much more resource intensive than watching a video on YouTube. YouTube uses compression, bitrate, etc to limit how much data is sent. Pirating sites can’t do that, they have to send the full file.
In what way would I be trolling. A full video file, say you’re watching the Olympics, will be tens of gigabytes. That same file streamed will be maybe 200mb after compression and bit rate changes for your browser.
Because both sites there are serving compressed video and also because those type of sites absolutely do not have less ads than youtube. Every inch of screenspace is taken up by ads and you need to click 3 ads just to adjust the volume. So I dont think the meme wasnt referring to video streaming sites and was instead referring to piracy sites that host links to torrents which incurs very little running costs compared to youtube.
both sites where? are you talking about some specific sites you have in your mind instead of the topic of discussion? I never once mentioned video streaming sites, besides youtube. And I wasn't referring to torrents either. Sites like Anna's Archive (the largest pirate database on the web) hosts their files. If you download from them you are downloading the full file, no compression besides maybe gzip. Usenet, you are downloading the full file, no compression again, besides gzip or whatever compression the uploader used. With usenet at least you'll be pulling from a host rather than the site that has the links, but the content is still being downloaded. Downloading the full file is always more resource intensive than watching a streamed version. That's why Youtube doesn't want you streaming in 4k or high bitrates. It's literally why YouTube Premium exists.
I assumed video because the comparison is youtube. AA isnt really what was in mind because they are more of a book archiving site with slow capped direct downloads than video torrents but its along the lines of my point that their cost is far lower than YouTube so you'd expect them to run less ads.
Most of the pirated content is being served is via torrents which allow serving content cheaper than YouTube because the cost is distributed across the users in the network. This content is being encoded into efficient formats same as YouTube. There just isnt sites that cost more to operate than YouTube. except Vimeo i guess. Stuff lile 123 movies, no one would ever even try claim that has less ads than YouTube and it servers a shitter more compressed less reliable video stream.
81 Comments
davetortoise@reddthat.com · 120 pts · 63d
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 35 pts · 63d
Like so many grammar "rules", this one was caused by one fussy dude who got his panties in a twist about an aspect of language:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fewer-vs-less
Taleya@aussie.zone · 26 pts · 62d
It's a semi obscure "rule" of zero consequence that carries a false sense of knowledgeable power. Of course fucking pedants love it
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 62d
Why would they only love it whilst mid-coitus?
Zorque@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 62d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJVNzwTnfbk
davetortoise@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 62d
It's fun >:)
Zorque@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 63d
deacon@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 63d
I wonder how well this fantastic joke would do outside of Lemmy.
fartographer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 62d
Call the FCC, Max Headroom hacked his way onto Lemmy!
Septimaeus@infosec.pub · 17 pts · 63d
This image won’t load for me. I just want to know if it’s Stannis Baratheon. Can someone tell me?
HeavenlySpoon@ttrpg.network · 15 pts · 63d
Affirmative!
Septimaeus@infosec.pub · 7 pts · 63d
Thank you!
breg@piefed.social · 6 pts · 63d
Yes, it is
Septimaeus@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 63d
Thanks!
Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 60 pts · 63d
And photos are more grainy than those i took with my 2005 “smartphone”
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 63d
Man I loved my RAZR flip phone.
Septimaeus@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 62d
Miss texting from my pocket while maintaining eye contact.
DandomRude@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 63d
Welcome to 2026, a time when piracy sites continue to receive cease-and-desist letters, but the applications that are being showered with unprecedented investments in the range of fantastrillions are also piracy ventures.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 36 pts · 63d
Pirated Software also works much better than legal software. Strike that, pirated Software works, legal software might work?
conartistpanda@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 62d
One might spy on you, the other definitely does.
diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 62d
X@piefed.world · 26 pts · 62d
Given how ubiquitous ad blockers are now, I’m partially convinced that most are just masochists that want to suffer through that shit.
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 62d
Without uBlock some sites are downright unusable. I dare you to go to weather.com or any fandom.com site with ad blockers, greasemonkey and NoScript deactivated and try not to lunch your monitor
calcopiritus@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 62d
Even with ublock, since it doesn't stop the cookie banners. I struggle whenever I have to to consult the ASCII table. Why does a website whose whole purpose is to serve a static page of ~1KiB need a cookie banner and ads? Just put a fucking "reject all" button, you don't need to suck in all my data to share with your 849 partners to show me an ASCII table.
darkecho@feddit.org · 7 pts · 62d
Today you are one of the 10000. https://xkcd.com/1053/
uBlock Origin has an "EasyList/uBO – Cookie Notices" list that you can turn on in the settings. It was a very good day when I found out.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 62d
It's fucking bad for netflix and prime though too. Like every 3 minutes bad. I get free basic netflix with my work phone, so I watch it sometimes. Same with my partners work, they get prime. I'm not sure it's even worth free tbh.
wowwoweowza@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 62d
FEWER
DonPiano@feddit.org · 6 pts · 62d
Ads feel pretty uncountable, often
CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 63d
YouTube just hit me with my first PiP ad, it's a nightmare who the shit came up with this
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 63d
Yeah, Python pip is a nightmare.
motruck@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 62d
Fuck YouTube.
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 62d
EVEN THIS IS AN AD! FEET! INFINITE FEET HERE! INFINITE FUCKING FEET AD! JUST CLICK MY PROFILE FOR FEET! FEEEEEET! WHEEE! SORRY GOT PUSHED ON A SWO G NOW IM DRUNK FU K FEET FUCK FEET THATS WVAT I FO!
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 62d
Well it worked, but this was clearly false advertising. There were no feet just disappointment.
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 62d
No, what was being advertised was education on philosophy, spirituality, and mental health skills for pedephiles, and others of the sort, who would complain.
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 62d
But an i cio a cop fu kcan6 type so DRUNK EPISCOPALIAN BUMSQGAAR THATS WHAT I AN FYCK THIS ISBT POSSIVLE OFFICISLLY SOINGABLR WITH A SKILLED DOER DOINGER DOES WGAR HES SAID, THE DOG SORCERER I AM...
tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 61d
Word
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 61d
They certainly are
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 60d
I have never shit out my ass like gramma cam, but I understand your lingo, doggo boy
tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 60d
Thanks master doggo sorcerer, having a blast trying to comprehend your elder toungue
nexguy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 63d
We need Piracy Premium which would be a subscription based service so you don't see piracy ads.
Hate@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 62d
The best ones already have no ads, and they do it for free. They run off donations only. You just need to find a way to get invited into them.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 62d
Hell I saw less ads on limewire
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 62d
I never saw any ads on any torrented linux isos.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 61d
You see ads?
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 62d
They always did?
FundMECFS@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 61d
Many of the good piracy sites don‘t even have adds
Fizz@lemmy.nz · -32 pts · 63d
Yeah I mean obviously? YouTube pays to serve video. pirating sites serve no video and dont produce any content no dev team because its a copy paste open source implementation.
Addv4@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 63d
Uh, you gotta pay hosting somehow, so most piracy sites rely on ad revenue to exist. It's less overhead, but it ain't completely free.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 62d
and the plus side you dont need to us 1 pirating site, there are many, if you plan to stream the pirate material instead of downloading.
SorryQuick@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 63d
Most piracy sites don’t host anything besides a simple frontend, they just embed videos from a variety of other websites nobody would deign use directly, because those sure as hell do have worse ads than youtube.
Lysergid@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 62d
What you are describing is alternative frontend, not a piracy site. Alternative frontends hold no unauthorized copy of content. They can potentially infringe copyright by claiming authorship of content. That would make them fall under piracy from the legal standpoint but I never seen such sites.
Piracy normally implies content is physically located on site’s servers. This requires significant infrastructure for storage and content delivery.
SorryQuick@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 62d
Whether they are or not doesnt matter, everyone calls them so and it’s almost certainly the kind of sites the OP had in mind.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · -14 pts · 63d
No shit. It costs less to run than youtube which is why they run less ads
Addv4@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 63d
Yeah, but surely they have much more limited ad revenue than YouTube, given that a lot of the ads I see on those sites are ones that pay out less (like the shitty porn ads). Personally, I suspect it's actually competition between piracy sites that has lowered the overall ads, because you have more choices than just one in comparison to YouTube, where you can use it or leave it.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 62d
I suspect they just make more than enough by donations and promoting their seedbox or IPTV services than they get by using google ads.
Lysergid@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 62d
Nominally? For sure. What about per user? Maybe, or maybe Youtube uses more resources than it should.
Also we are comparing different kind of platforms. Youtube is video sharing platform. Any “creative individual” can post there 24/7 any nonsense. Piracy sites are about licensed paid content, so comparison should be against say Netflix.
Youtube’s competitor is PeerTube which has 0 ads whatsoever
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 61d
I agree but im not drawing the comparison. The meme is drawing that comparison I am just saying why I dont think its so ridiculous for youtube to run more ads than a piracy site.
Lysergid@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 61d
Yeah, that’s on meme, I’m not accusing you of anything.
On ridiculousness part let me politely disagree. They don’t need so much ads, their revenue was around 25 billion in 2023. There are no official numbers on costs but guesstimations I saw around 14 billion (infra plus operational) so they could lower number of ads to 2/3 and still be very much profitable. They just won’t because people accepted it
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 60d
Idk I saw that there margins were estimated to be around 10-30% and their ads revenue isnt set in stone they can only make a projection of what they expect it to be and hope it comes in at that or over. I think they are running as many ads as they can because they need extra money for AI capex. Its all speculation though no one knows their actual costs.
ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 23 pts · 63d
Back in the day, piracy sites were relatively flooded with ads. Being exposed to many&sketchy ads was part of the cost of 'free' while the official sites had fewer and had higher standards for what advertisers they allowed.
Now piracy sites have a few annoying banners and fake download buttons, but it's mostly just porn. Meanwhile the real sites are plastered to the point where content is crowded out and like 3/4ths of the ads are scams. There's one on YouTube right now about a miracle disease cure claiming to be in the bible and it's been running for over two weeks now; not to mention all the AI slop scams and malware.
It's kind of absurd how shit the web has gotten as it was corporatized and monetized. Even the word "web" hardly applies anymore.
Many have forgotten what was lost, or never knew. Cyberspace was wonderful once.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 14 pts · 63d
There are pirate sites that do video streaming
Neither youtube does, at least piracy sites have to find a way to rip the vids
Which is true only for a few sites and many low quality ones
and you forgot that you need to pay money to host the site server and pay for the domain name
Fizz@lemmy.nz · -3 pts · 62d
I did forget about the ones that stream video but those do not contain less ads than youtube so I think its safe to say the meme wasnt reference those sites. Also this is just nitpicking, there is no argument between the cost to run a pirating site that hosts links to torrents and youtube therefore it makes sense why youtube would need to run more ads.
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 63d
It's easy to forget, but the vast majority of people, especially young people, mean pirate streaming sites when they say piracy.
Even the piracy subreddit seems to be mostly about them after the great Exodus.
They seem to be under the impression that those are somehow safer than torrenting, despite the opposite being true. Though I guess they're right about there being more to learn about torrents and other methods.
It hits me like a slap every time piracy comes up in conversation we'll start to get into it when they ask me what site I use to watch things. I Once answered "jellyfin?" With some confusion before they brought up like hanime or some shit. Illegal streaming sites with mountains of ads are what most people mean when they say "piracy". It's the only piracy that can really access on their iPhone anyway.
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 63d
I thought the meme was about ads on torrent tracker sites.
In theory, copyright infringement is committed by the uploader, not the downloader. As such, torrenting is more dangerous if you allow it to seed instead of just leach.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 3 pts · 63d
Depends on the country
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 62d
I mean there's more malicious threat actors involved in pirate streaming largely because it's actually very expensive to do. People aren't as likely to do it out of spite or a desire to share like on torrent sites. They must stay profitable against all odds or likely get arrested.
The ads on pirate streaming sites are often the worst out there. It's one of the few places you're still likely to find malicious code hidden in popup or banner ads. Everything else has gotten too corporate for that.
And if getting caught is what scares you about torrenting you can actually just not seed. It is an option, it's just a bit rude. Certainly not more rude than just expecting someone else to host a free streaming site for you and not try to steal your data/money/identity though.
I'm actually pretty sure this meme was made about pirate streaming sites. Hence the direct comparison saying that streaming sites inject more ads in the same way that pirate sites do. In fact I've seen almost this exact meme on Reddit and every comment in that thread was about streaming sites because that's what they all assumed it was about, because that's what piracy is to them. I was being quite literal and direct when I brought up Reddit's take on this.
smh@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 63d
But there's so much else to pirate: games, books, music, roms. There's a wide world of content out there! (Obligatory don't pirate stuff, visit your local library and ask a librarian to hook you up. Or do. Whatever, IAALIANYL[I Am A Librarian I Am Not Your Librarian.])
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 62d
I'm not saying what people should do, I'm just reporting on trends.
Pirate streaming is the bulk of piracy. Especially when you include sports. Most people just aren't tech savvy enough for torrents anymore. The next generation never learned computers. They don't torrent.
But yeah, libraries are great. I just wish they carried audio books in better formats sometimes. My car doesn't even have a disk drive OR a cassette player. I drive a lot for work, so that's how I read and libraries often leave me disappointed for that.
smh@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 62d
My car has an aux input cable, so I use a bluetooth-to-aux dongle to play audio from my phone. I I rip CDs to mp3s, then dutifully delete the mp3s after I return the library book. Before I got the dongle, I just played from my phone at a high volume.
Oh! If your library has a Libby or Hoopla subscription, you might get audio books through there.
pseudo@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 62d
Phantaloons@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 63d
the_joke.jpg
Fizz@lemmy.nz · -14 pts · 63d
Nah people here are brainwormed on anything to do with money and interpret this as piracy sites being better than youtube because they run less ads.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 63d
Fewer
scutiger@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 63d
Yes, they run less fewer too.
Phantaloons@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 62d
I think it's better because piracy sites aren't flooded with fake Ai soundtracks, fake videos and bullshit. People want authenticity and truthfulness.
ads? What is this, 2013?
Do you people not use ublock?
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 62d
Its better because you get high quality content for free but thats not what was ment. It was comparing yt vs piracy sites and saying that google is choosing to run more ads. I'm saying not really it just costs way more so more ads need to be ran.
But yeah I run adblock but most users dont.
tyler@programming.dev · 1 pts · 63d
Uhhh. Downloading a full video file is much more resource intensive than watching a video on YouTube. YouTube uses compression, bitrate, etc to limit how much data is sent. Pirating sites can’t do that, they have to send the full file.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 0 pts · 63d
Are you trolling?
tyler@programming.dev · 2 pts · 63d
In what way would I be trolling. A full video file, say you’re watching the Olympics, will be tens of gigabytes. That same file streamed will be maybe 200mb after compression and bit rate changes for your browser.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 0 pts · 62d
Because both sites there are serving compressed video and also because those type of sites absolutely do not have less ads than youtube. Every inch of screenspace is taken up by ads and you need to click 3 ads just to adjust the volume. So I dont think the meme wasnt referring to video streaming sites and was instead referring to piracy sites that host links to torrents which incurs very little running costs compared to youtube.
tyler@programming.dev · 2 pts · 62d
both sites where? are you talking about some specific sites you have in your mind instead of the topic of discussion? I never once mentioned video streaming sites, besides youtube. And I wasn't referring to torrents either. Sites like Anna's Archive (the largest pirate database on the web) hosts their files. If you download from them you are downloading the full file, no compression besides maybe gzip. Usenet, you are downloading the full file, no compression again, besides gzip or whatever compression the uploader used. With usenet at least you'll be pulling from a host rather than the site that has the links, but the content is still being downloaded. Downloading the full file is always more resource intensive than watching a streamed version. That's why Youtube doesn't want you streaming in 4k or high bitrates. It's literally why YouTube Premium exists.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 0 pts · 60d
I assumed video because the comparison is youtube. AA isnt really what was in mind because they are more of a book archiving site with slow capped direct downloads than video torrents but its along the lines of my point that their cost is far lower than YouTube so you'd expect them to run less ads.
Most of the pirated content is being served is via torrents which allow serving content cheaper than YouTube because the cost is distributed across the users in the network. This content is being encoded into efficient formats same as YouTube. There just isnt sites that cost more to operate than YouTube. except Vimeo i guess. Stuff lile 123 movies, no one would ever even try claim that has less ads than YouTube and it servers a shitter more compressed less reliable video stream.