Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube • Hacker News Board

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#61

Post by snovymgodym » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:40 AM UTC

Feels like YouTube is ripe for disruption.

In the recent past (say up to the mid 2010s) it was a really good product and there was a reason nobody gave a shit about Vimeo et al, YouTube as a site, app, platform was so far ahead of the competition.

But now? Youtube is full of slop, search barely works, and Google is on an endless campaign to make ad-blocking and free downloading impossible. Even most of the "good" channels resort to clickbait titles, thumbnails designed for children, and embarrassing shilling.

Meanwhile hosting and streaming HD video is a mundanely easy feature to implement with off-the-shelf/FOSS software, hundreds of no-name, fly-by-night websites have HD video hosting. Maybe it's time for someone to make a mastodon equivalent for youtube.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#62

Post by kassner » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

gloosx wrote: post #49

Since Youtube started to show me funny "TURN OFF THE ADBLOCKER!!!" notices, I just started slamming links in yt-dlp and watching them offline. No drawbacks so far.

It will become harder to ignore the possible retaliation Google can make against your/your family’s Google accounts.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#63

Post by qilo » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:44 AM UTC

I purposefully avoid demonstrating any of the tools (with a suffix that rhymes with "car") that are popularly used to circumvent purchasing movie, TV, and other media content, or any tools that automatically slurp up YouTube content.

Can't figure out what tool Jeff is writing about.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#64

Post by wiether » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:45 AM UTC

snovymgodym wrote: post #61

Feels like YouTube is ripe for disruption. In the recent past (say up to the mid 2010s) it was a really good product and there was a reason nobody gave a shit about Vimeo et al, YouTube as a site, app, platform was so far ahead of the competition. But now? Youtube is full of slop, search barely works, and Google is on an endless campaign to make ad-blocking and free downloading impossible. Even most of the "good" cha…

> Maybe it's time for someone to make a mastodon equivalent for youtube.

You mean Peertube?

It's been here for six years already and, well...

Also, I don't see how Mastodon has been an actual disruptor to the main walled gardens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#65

Post by eptcyka » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:45 AM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #38

hardwaresofton wrote: post #14

> In that case, I was happy to see my appeal granted within an hour of the strike being placed on the channel. (Nevermind the fact the video had been live for over two years at that point, with nary a problem!) Looks like some L-(5|6|whateverthefuck) just got the task to go through YT's backlog and cut down on the mention/promotion of alternative video platforms/self-hosted video serving software. Quick appeal grant…

There's peertube and Pixelfed and someone was working on an activitypub version of Instagram, but really it's like Pixelfed but more ergonomic for video. So the next stage, ideally, would be everyone kinda sharing hosting responsibilities, and if you like a creator, you just follow them. This has the benefit of possibly caching/mirroring all the videos, too. My Fediverse server was chewing through disk, one of the re…

How will federation solve monetisation?

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#66

Post by genewitch » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:47 AM UTC

cyberax wrote: post #16

herewulf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good chance to suggest viable alternatives? TIA.

PeerTube is nice, and you can self-host an instance that can mirror your favorite channels.

there was also the one that louis rossman was pitching, but i can't remember as i didn't actually look in to it, since i know how to run https://www.turnkeylinux.org/avideo because it's four clicks on any host that supports turnkey linux containers. They'll have the template, you just request a container running avideo.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#67

Post by internet101010 » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:47 AM UTC

snovymgodym wrote: post #61

Feels like YouTube is ripe for disruption. In the recent past (say up to the mid 2010s) it was a really good product and there was a reason nobody gave a shit about Vimeo et al, YouTube as a site, app, platform was so far ahead of the competition. But now? Youtube is full of slop, search barely works, and Google is on an endless campaign to make ad-blocking and free downloading impossible. Even most of the "good" cha…

All they need to do is fix the abomination that their search has turned into. 3 relevant, shorts carousel, 9 irrelevant "people also watched", then back to relevant. It's truly awful.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#68

Post by kassner » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:49 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #56

This title is false and clickbait. From the article the explaination for what part of the dangerous or harmful content rule being broken is about instructing people how to pirate content. >Dangerous or Harmful Content >Content that describes how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content, software, subscription services, or games that usually require payment isn't allowed on YouTube. In the ar…

I don’t downvote, but:

> It is illegal to break the encryption of DVDs and BluRays

Laws have limited jurisdiction. There are quite a few jurisdictions that allow ripping for personal use/not-for-profit.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#69

Post by genewitch » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:51 AM UTC

eptcyka wrote: post #65

genewitch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's peertube and Pixelfed and someone was working on an activitypub version of Instagram, but really it's like Pixelfed but more ergonomic for video. So the next stage, ideally, would be everyone kinda sharing hosting responsibilities, and if you like a creator, you just follow them. This has the benefit of possibly caching/mirroring all the videos, too. My Fediverse server was chewing through disk, one of the re…

How will federation solve monetisation?

value for value. https://value4value.info/

or ad rolls, who knows. monetization isn't my wheelhouse.

podcasts have been doing this since the inception.

Re: Self-hosting your own media considered harmful according to YouTube

#70

Post by jaredhallen » Fri, Jun 06, 2025, 6:53 AM UTC

hardwaresofton wrote: post #14

> In that case, I was happy to see my appeal granted within an hour of the strike being placed on the channel. (Nevermind the fact the video had been live for over two years at that point, with nary a problem!) Looks like some L-(5|6|whateverthefuck) just got the task to go through YT's backlog and cut down on the mention/promotion of alternative video platforms/self-hosted video serving software. Quick appeal grant…

Unfortunately, my belief is that no matter how many content creators jump ship, there will be and endless supply of replacements. The real salt in the wound is that attrition will select for the content that the platforms desire.