Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

popsci.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 138 posts

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#31

Post by pkulak »

MBCook wrote: post #22

Or if you don’t want to see ads you could pay for it instead. Like an adult. Works great. They present a perfectly valid choice to you, and it works great. It’s a reasonable enough price (not great but reasonable), but it supports the creators you watch with part of your subscription money. Plus it has other benefits if you care, like free TV shows and movies and YouTube music. I don’t use that stuff but it is there.

And it you don’t want to pay, and can’t handle ads, don’t use the service. I don’t understand why people think they are entitled to any content they want, when they want it, for free.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#32

Post by stavros »

MBCook wrote: post #22

Or if you don’t want to see ads you could pay for it instead. Like an adult. Works great. They present a perfectly valid choice to you, and it works great. It’s a reasonable enough price (not great but reasonable), but it supports the creators you watch with part of your subscription money. Plus it has other benefits if you care, like free TV shows and movies and YouTube music. I don’t use that stuff but it is there.

The problem is that I don't care. I've had it with everyone wanting "just" $9.99/mo. I watch a few random two-minute videos a day, that's not worth as much as Netflix to me. I don't want the TV shows, I don't want the music channels, I just want to watch my little videos without ads. How much are you making from me on ads? Just charge me that and remove them.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#33

Post by stavros »

eurekin wrote: post #7

In the age of LLM's, I with there was some way to automatically pull videos about particular topic, extract the information out of the transcript (skip the clickbait as well) and deduplicate. I spend so much time watching videos just to conclude "ah right, it's actually based on the same info previous 3 videos"

This is very doable, you can make it. You can even use an LLM to help you!

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#34

Post by rafaelmn »

stavros wrote: post #29
rafaelmn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're just using YouTube for hosting - there's other ways to pay for that, Vimeo comes to mind.

What about if you're using YouTube as a hosting platform and viewer acquisition channel, but not as a monetization channel?

Then you'd have to pay for viewer acquisition part and no way in hell you're getting that kind of a platform with creators paying for development/hosting without advertising.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#35

Post by ddtaylor »

c22 wrote: post #17
fsckboy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly it's not ugly at all: parasites deserve their place in the ecosystem right alongside carnivores. What I don't like is people like this who broadcast and evangelize as if google will allow it to keep happening. I'd rather it survived longer hiding under the radar. "hey everybody I discovered…

That definitely seems like the least ethical response to finding a free donut loophole? Unless it's not a loophole at all, but just a marketing tactic deployed by the coffeemaker.

Full donut disclosure.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#36

Post by MBCook »

stavros wrote: post #32
MBCook wrote: post #22

Or if you don’t want to see ads you could pay for it instead. Like an adult. Works great. They present a perfectly valid choice to you, and it works great. It’s a reasonable enough price (not great but reasonable), but it supports the creators you watch with part of your subscription money. Plus it has other benefits if you care, like free TV shows and movies and YouTube music. I don’t use that stuff but it is there.

The problem is that I don't care. I've had it with everyone wanting "just" $9.99/mo. I watch a few random two-minute videos a day, that's not worth as much as Netflix to me. I don't want the TV shows, I don't want the music channels, I just want to watch my little videos without ads. How much are you making from me on ads? Just charge me that and remove them.

Then watch with ads. That’s a fair choice.

Why are you entitled to ad free viewing?

“It’s only a few so it’s ok I take something for nothing” is not a legal concept I think would hold up in other contexts.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#37

Post by roenxi »

amelius wrote: post #18
roenxi wrote: post #6

I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Sounds like they can't really complain if someone took that information and made it universally accessible :)

That level of analysis is on par with arguing for robbing someone's house because they believe that social welfare is a good idea. To influence the world in a positive way (for yourself or others) it is necessary to look a little deeper into how to make situations sustainable.

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#38

Post by cen4 »

roenxi wrote: post #6

I'm torn. I'm not a huge fan of Google and I don't have a lot of respect for the YouTube selection algorithm. However this culture of expecting Google to host the data then freeloading off it by blocking the tracking and ads is also a bit ugly. There is an unwritten social contract here. Google is willing to host and organise a vast number of videos because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may fr…

But there is more content than there are people who can watch it. What do you think happens when the production curve grows way past the consumption curve?

Re: Freetube is the best way to watch YouTube

#40

Post by bragr »

rob8c wrote: post #27
movedx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a content creator with seven years experience, hundreds of videos and thousands of hours of content: just charge me a fee to host my videos. I'd pay $100/month, possibly more, to run a YouTube channel without. Why is running ads the _only_ choice? Why can't a creator opt to pay to host videos on their channel with limitations? $10/month? That's 30 videos in HD max. $100? 300 videos in 4K... etc. ... or whatever. A…

I noticed my very old Youtube videos have degraded in quality. I'd rather pay monthly then be surprised to find out important videos I trusted to Google have been effectively destroyed.

Do you have any evidence for that claim? Do you have the original sources to compare to? Can you provide examples? Genuinely curious.
Post reply on HN