I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble here, but why hasn't anyone tried to steal youtube's content and make it available to non-paying users (read: users who refuse to partake in surveillance capitalism).
In the old days we had the piratebay and many others that basically refused to respect "property rights". YouTube has a massive advantage for coercing people into giving their personal data; you can live your whole life without seeking Facebook's Meta's content, but anyone will have to watch a youtube video at some point, and they are very effective at paywalling their content. Front ends still provide your IP address to YouTube which then blocks you if you have any decent proxy/VPN.
In the case of YouTube it is reasonable and acceptable to steal their content and even sell it forward, as the seller is not profiting off the content but off the privacy service it would be providing.
The structural functionalism school of sociology sees crime as necessary for evolution and change in society, but really we can skip the rigorous academic reasoning: this is pretty obvious for most of us who can trace enough of our ancestry to a commercial (and lawful) transaction.
18 Comments
dessalines@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 2d
My plan for this: https://lemmy.ml/c/torrenttube
It essentially is just a script that involves creating torrents from youtube videos, using
yt-dlp, and optionally posting them to that community. (People should also upload those torrents to other platforms).I'm not good at popularizing things tho, and not sure what to do to get more people to use it.
apparia@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 2d
I feel like I'm missing something -- I don't really watch a whole lot of YouTube, or follow specific channels -- but I have virtually never had an issue using Invidious and/or
yt-dlp, even with a VPN. When I occasionally hit a 403, rotating VPN servers is almost always enough to bypass it.If that's "stealing" it's the first I'm hearing about it.
kungen@feddit.nu · 10 pts · 2d
It'd be a very difficult endeavour, for the same reasons why there aren't that many popular alternatives: YouTube has so many videos. Even just mirroring the videos from the top-100 channels would be extremely expensive. Google has a mind-blowing amount of storage space.
dessalines@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 2d
https://lemmy.ml/c/torrenttube
_lunar@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 2d
BucketBong@p.hobo.social · 7 pts · 2d
Even if you started doing this 5 years ago, there would be absolutely no way you could do this, there's a ridiculous amount of content being uploaded.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2d
Aaarrr, me matey! The seas are full of plunder, for those who look!
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · -5 pts · 2d
this pirate larp is so incredibly cringe, please stop
DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2d
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 2d
what?
DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 2d
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 2d
this is what it was a reply to lol.
i was actually defending someone liking certain types of games
if youre going to dig for shit in someones comment history, please check the context of the comment before weaponizing it
ty
DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 2d
kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 2d
i don't understand what you're trying to say.
the guy i replied to was shitting on the OP for liking normie games and i came to the OP's defense
edit: oh yeah i see what you mean now. i don't actually like those games, i felt that it's fine to play whatever u want.
playing games in your private time and minding your own business is different to acting cringe on a public forum.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 2d
My friend! Lol
floofloof@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2d
Because someone has to pay for the storage and bandwidth, which is hugely expensive. To fund it they'd have to charge subscriptions or run ads, same as Google.
Ashenlux@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 2d
Exactly. Everyone gets mad about being asked to pay, but servers and employees are not free. That money need to come from somewhere. And we all know the saying, "If you aren't paying for it, you're the product." A subscription is probably the most ethical way to fund a service like YouTube aside from a "pay what you want" system which runs the risk of not bringing in enough to to cover costs.
coolasbreeze@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Not exactly sure what the end goal is. To get YouTube content but not pay? YouTube is free at the point of use. There are great adblockers like ublock Origin and SponsorBlock that can be used on mobile (android) devices and web browsers to rid yourself of ads.
There are resources available to download YouTube videos and save a 'local copy' like yt-dl. This is only practical for selected videos. For education purposes of course.
The main issue is that there is a huge volume of YouTube content though. Like 8 hours per second. That becomes prohibitively expensive and impractical.
Not that I am suggesting you use these tools :)
There are alternatives like peer tube that is decentralised, some leftist creaters are on meanstv.
EDIT: spelling and clarifying
theham@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 1d
🤣 why is this considered not safe for work. Work is not safe for you.
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d
My first thought is we need open source recommendations algorithms. Just something that can run locally. That's only because there's so much content.
Second thought is make an extension that basically intercepts your click so if you're on YouTube and a torrent exists then you watch the torrent with an option to start a torrent