this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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With Reddit shutting down its API setting a precedent in the corporate tech world (and Reddit was a major outlier in that a ton of their users are technical minded and support third party clients, YouTube does not have that kind of userbase and will not get backlash for it), Twitter doing whatever the fuck they're doing, and Google already hellbent on destroying ad blockers, the days of Newpipe, Invidious, and Freetube are numbered. Wouldn't be surprised if they implement Netflix level DRM tomorrow that makes alt clients impossible. I say savour your alt clients while you can guys, you won't be able to soon.

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[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 135 points 1 year ago (2 children)

NewPipe at least already doesn't use the API, it scrapes the website.

... Which it just occurred to me might be one of the reasons Google is pushing that web integrity thing. Dang.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All the web integrity thing would do is force them to use a specific client when accessing YouTube to scrape their site.

Putting shit out on your publicly accessible website enables all who access it to download anything you make available there.

This is just regular cat and mouse.

If my YouTube experience goes away, my hobbies will get some tlc. My reddit experience barely faltered with my transition to Lemmy

We've been through all of this before and we'll go through all of it again.

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All the web integrity thing would do is force them to use a specific client when accessing YouTube to scrape their site.

The problem is none of the attested browsers will let you to use them in this way.

We already have DRM for video on the web. I believe it would be a similar problem to getting WideVine L1 content from e.g. Netflix in an open source app.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ask me why I invested in Vimeo.

But seriously, it will just make competitors thrive.

I'll pay for a nebula subscription before I sit through a single YouTube ad.

[–] heimchen@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yea I think, if newpipe stops, I would switch to nebula. It would even help my yt addiction and I would support my youtubers without giving a share to youtube.

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[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yep... Bummer, but completely in character and expected.

[–] StewartGilligan@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Invidious doesn't use YouTube's API. It merely requests content from YouTube either directly or through a proxy. So, I don't think it'll disappear forever unless the developers stop working on it. It's probably gonna be a game of cat and mouse where YouTube figures out how to break Invidious, and the devs keep finding a workaround.

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[–] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

all of these are scrapers, so they will work unless YouTube gets rid of its web version

[–] kenbw2@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Or if Google implements some kind of feature that requires your browser to vouch that it's not gonna play shenanigans with the page.

Nah, nobody would be that crazy.

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[–] MeowdyPardner@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I think they mean something like widevine a la Netflix. Granted there are bypasses for some levels, but that could be a problem imo, iiuc that's why there aren't any alternate frontends for Netflix or HBO. I think that would also potentially mean issues playing YouTube in chromium or firefox on Linux if they used L1 (not sure what the current state of widevine on Linux is, last time I had Netflix I couldn't watch on Linux and had to use my phone or Chromecast)

[–] madcow@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Or until they implement a trust model that denies access to uncertified user-agents?

[–] JasSmith@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

Google isn't going to kill YouTube's API any time soon. It's how billions of videos are viewable in apps and pages across the internet. They make far more money on that than any lost revenue by people using third party apps. Shutting down API access would be one of the most impactful events to the internet in history. Major lost viewership and advertising revenue coupled with extreme consumer backlash. Most devastating would be developer backlash, as they would all need to scramble to find alternatives.

[–] CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, thought this was an article with facts and figures, no someone's doomsaying and fear mongering....

Many YouTube's third party clients don't use an API and having a public API with built in ads is a gold mine that many of YouTube's embeds rely on for revenue. Doubt they'll destroy that anytime soon.

Along with that, many of YouTube's top creators are already looking for alternatives, floatplane, nebula etc... It just takes a mass exodus to kick start them. And you bet Google is aware of that.

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[–] mister_monster@monero.town 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As long as youtube has RSS, you can still get videos.

I built this https://codeberg.org/mister_monster/YouTube2Peertube many years ago to help people resolve these problems.

[–] willya@lemmyf.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Git data underlying this repository cannot be read. Contact the administrator of this instance or delete this repository.

[–] mister_monster@monero.town 2 points 1 year ago

I've never seen that problem before, but if you're having trouble the codeberg repo is a mirror of a github repo I published it to first, https://github.com/mister-monster/youtube2peertube

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[–] adibis@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

You can't save anything unless there's a YouTube competitor. Google can do whatever it wants.

[–] Thrubst@lemmyjapan.com 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Was talking to a friend who is a senior tech dude about the YT viewing habits of our kids. Asked if he had any recommendations for alt clients and he said… just pay for YT premium 🙃

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To be fair, the guy just probably didn't want to become your tech support for life. :P

If you care, you can try this, assuming you meant clients for TV: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

[–] Darkhoof@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I use this in my TV and it is amazing. But I won't advertise it anywhere because I'm afraid Google will just come up with a way to kill it.

[–] Worthstream@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks, I was looking for something like this and banging my head against using Newpipe.

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[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Don't want your kids seeing ads that are absolutely not for kids? Easy! Just pay us!"

Seriously it's so hypocritical that they demonetize swearing yet show gambling, alcohol, and even the occasional barely-not-porn sexualized ad without a second thought.

[–] Screwthehole@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not hypocrisy, it's for $. $ means it's not hypocrisy. Haven't you been paying attention?

[–] IDew@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah because I would love to pay for attention

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

pay for attention

Isn't that basically what their "superchat" feature in YouTube live is? Pay money to force the host to read your comment? IDK I've never used it and don't intend to.

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[–] Waitwuhtt@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I welcome the rise of their replacements.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, we’ll just switch to webscraping if APIs get locked behind a paywall. Let’s see how those sites handle it when millions of people are using a scraping based client in the future. I can imagine it feeling a lot like being the victim a relentless ddos attack.

[–] scarilog@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is exactly what the proposed Web Integrity API seeks to prevent. That's what makes it terrifying.

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[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Welp, time to "Archive" some good YouTube videos :)

[–] gobbling871@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They successfully went after Vanced 2 years ago so it's shouldn't be too far fetched for them.

[–] Zetaphor@zemmy.cc 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And yet here I am using Revanced, which is even better than Vanced was

https://revanced.app/

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[–] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's a common theory that the only reason they went after Vanced is because the Vanced team tried to monetize the mod by introducing NFTs

[–] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Many people in modding and fan communities convince themselves that companies only go after projects if they try to make money, but we also see that happening with free projects all the time, if they get enough attention.

Seeing that Google is already sending warnings to people who try to watch YouTube with adblockers, I don't think that's what made the difference.

They went after vanced because they made money (they tried selling nfts) from from modifying google's proprietary code. NewPipe team wrote everything themselves and dont make money from google code (they probably make no money at all)

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