this post was submitted on 29 May 2024

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Why doesn't youtube shut down their public web api? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

so we already know that youtube doesn't like people freeloading their bandwidth using something like invidious, piped, newpipe etc. why don't they just close the public web api and require a login or something. by requiring login they can keep track of what users are watching and if a user is watching thousands of videos daily they can rate limit that user.

are they afraid of losing their user if they do so? I personally don't think it can affect their business or profit. It will cut down their cost of bandwidth and computation costs. so why don't just cut off users that don't bring any revenue??

all 46 comments

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Reddit did that and then instantly multiple serious competitors began to siphon off their power users both out of principle and practicality, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

YouTube i think understands to not cross the line because if they no longer have a monopoly on mid to long form content their golden goose dies. People are already on edge after a long sequence of attacks against non-premium users.

Personally, If they do do that, and at least some amount of the channels I care about move to a different platform, I'll happily move with them and cancel my YouTube premium.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That’s probably true for now. Killing the API would be too much of a shock to millions of people, which would obviously hurt business.

However, making small changes every year is more acceptable. Remember how ads were initially rolled out vs. what they are today? At first, it was just an ad banner below the video, and I was willing to quit YT then and there. Well, turns out ad blockers handled that, so I stuck around. However, a shocking number of people still don’t use an ad blocker, such as Ublock Origin on Firefox, and they seem to just tolerate the ads. These changes happen so gradually, that people get used to them.

My guess is that YT will keep on making the service worse every year, and eventually it will be the time to kill the API. At that point, everything else will probably be so bad, that nobody will even notice the API any more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You were ready to leave over a banner ad? What should YouTube do to recoup the cost of running the service? Not even make a profit, just the cost of existing at the scale it exists is expensive. Unobtrusive banner ads seemed like the right “price” for the service. Having ads tell me I’m fat and need whatever they’re hucking or scare monger me to vote a certain way are too much, but banners seemed fair.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I had a very different mindset at the time. Nowadays, I can totally understand the need for subscriptions/ads, but back then I just wanted to get everything for free. LOL. Nowadays though, I care a lot more about privacy so the blocker stays on.

I’m also paying for services that are worth it, but I’m just not convinced that YT is proving enough value to me. Besides, I’m also shifting towards other video platforms, so I’m less of a burden to YT than I used to.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (6 children)

what if YouTube crosses the line. which corporation is interested and have enough computing power to make a YouTube alternative?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Meta made a twitter clone when they had the chance, they’ll happily make a YouTube clone.

I don’t think Amazon or Microsoft are very interested in entering that market, but they are the only ones with the money and compute to support such a platform.

Maybe Netflix could be interested? But I doubt it

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

People have seriously suggested that Mindgeek (Pornhub) could do it. Video content delivery infrastructure is eye-wateringly expensive but Mindgeek's systems already deliver petabytes of content a day.

This was memed a lot but if they seriously get involved then I think there's a good chance that their competitor would genuinely be successful as long as they can correctly distance themselves from the pornography aspect of their business.

Edit: They also own algorithms to find and recommend videos to users, robust commenting and user interaction features on their platform, and the placement and frequency of advertising are more or less acceptable on their platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Funnily enough Pornhub became kinda shit these last few years. Not because of overbearing advertising but because they periodically delete large amounts of their content, I think to appease payment providers. Kinda like the dmca takedowns on YouTube but much worse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah, but I don't fault them too much for that. They did have a revenge porn problem on their site. At the same time, they did not really have much of a choice either if they wanted to stay in business.

This is just an indictment of the power payment providers have over our everyday lives, if nothing else. It highlights a need for neutral and accessible digital currency. This doesn't necessarily refer to cryptocurrency either. Central banks around the world have the power to create content-neutral digital payment networks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You don't think Apple could? (Not that they want to)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, even if they wanted to, they have no expertise in UGC and they don't have the infrastructure to do any of that

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime?wprov=sfla1

Quicktime was awesome. They could revisit what worked well about it.

They have deep deep pockets and could throw money at it if they wanted to be come after the market.

They already have a zealous fanbase that will ignore flaws.

I think they could do it, if they wanted to. Would take time and they would have to bleed money for a while, anyone who tries to take on youtube would have to though

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago

They can't even get Apple TV to work correctly on a mac.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I could see TikTok trying to eat YouTube's lunch with extended length, or Twitch offering videos.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Amazon. MS. Meta. Musk.

Nobody good.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Off the top of my head

Potentially odeysee, peertube, or maybe even twitch, more likely I could see subscription platforms like patreon and nebula taking over

Potentially something entirely new, I don't know

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

i'd love to see a peer-to-peer blockchain youtube replacement. like a limewire/napster type thing with thumbnails and discovery.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

you mean a torrent client and a tracker?

I wonder why hasn't anyone made it already.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

if you know what you're actively seeking then yes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Even with their recent efforts to squeeze money out of their users by killing adblockers and pushing even more intrusive ads, they still don't make a profit. And that's with 100% of the market share. There just isn't a way for another company to come in and unseat youtube, and youtube knows it. Hence why they feel they can get away with pretty much any anti-consumer move they can dream up.

They just have to keep users happy enough that nobody at microsoft/amazon decides to start their own money pit out of spite, and all that tasty data remains theirs for the indefinite future.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

TikTok

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but a reason might be that providing an API is cheaper than web scraping.

If people really want access to your data, they can just scrape your website, but that requires loading all the data through the website itself which requires loading millions or billions of video thumbnails, comments, descriptions, recommendations, etc. It's much cheaper for them to send a JSON through an API, even though they might know that some people are trying to undermine them by using that data to circumvent their advertising.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but If they start requiring a login to watch video all the privacy frontend of YouTube will die since they will be able to apply rate limit to individual users easily. right now all they can do is shadow ban the IP of invidious instance temporary.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If they start requiring a login, YouTube is dead. The accessibility is what makes it popular.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I really don't think requiring login will kill YouTube. only the privacy conscious people will leave but majority of people won't even notice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It might.

YouTube's business case is that it is the easiest to access video platform and pays out the most to content creators. Adding a login wall may be enough to allow a competitor to come in and compete against that, especially given how YouTube videos are embedded on other websites.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

monopoly & lockin mitigate risk of migration.

That is the whole point of monopoly & lockin.

which is why it is the primary strategy being used against humankind, now.

By all factions, not just gov't, business, or NGO's, or churches, but ALL of them.

_ /\ _

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, youtube is pretty much unusable without login in due to all the shitty videos recommended by default.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Depends on how you use it.

I use youtube without login to see videos of specific creators or to search for specific videos.

I have no use for the recommending system.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Well sure, I was being overly dramatic. But once you require a login, then you're no better than tiktok or Instagram. At that point, what's the draw? They'll lose a lot of traffic.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Projects using YouTube API have to agree to ToS. That's why Google want them to use API instead of web scraping.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

God bless you, Chad 3rd Party Web Scraper! 🫡

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Me being like:

Not a Scraper or API user

Has no use for the data

Sees meme

Becomes Scraper because Cool 1337 HaxorMan

Prediction:

Becomes addicted to it

It's the path I followed with using Linux, the terminal and a tiling window manager.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

Requiring a login would probably cut off a significant portion of their audience and ad revenue. Only Google analysts know for sure, but if the eyeballs lost to cutting off casual visitors (sent to YT from links or embeds, etc) are greater than the losses due to, frankly, a small portion of users who would just end up blocking ads in other ways, it's a net loss for Google.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Because alternative front-ends don't use YouTube API.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, I meant why don't they do something like what Twitter did.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Public access is kinda what makes YouTube uncompetable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

True but you also would need a ton of storage space to compete. I'd be curious what would happen if YouTube decided to restrict public access.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

IDK. It would probably continue to decline.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Providing an API is not a service for the users, but a way with which they make sure to waste less resources. You either offer an API with all benefits for both parties, or you're going to get scraped to ashes.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Maybe Embedded videos? Can't require login for those

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

twitter does that, it's blocked but the embedded posts still work

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

yeah, that makes sense.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

It's not about bandwidth, it's about ad revenue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Newpipe doesn't use the Youtube API. https://newpipe.net/FAQ/download/