Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads • Hacker News Board

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#141

Post by codedokode » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:34 PM UTC

transcriptase wrote: post #61

codedokode wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.

>AI companies Like Google? >scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades?

> Like Google?

Like Google competitors obviously.

> Like Google has been doing to the entire internet, including people’s movement, conversations, and habits… for decades?

Yes, but if you allowed to index your site (companies even spent money to make site better indexable), Google used to bring customers and AI companies bring back nothing. They are just freeloaders.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#142

Post by trenchpilgrim » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

m_ke wrote: post #97

fibers wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have to feed it multiple arguments with rate limiting and long wait times. i am not sure if there have been recent updates other than the js interpreter but ive had to spin up a docker instance of a browser to feed it session cookies as well.

Yeah we had to roll through a bunch of proxy servers on top of all the other tricks you mentioned to reliably download at a decent pace

What are your thoughts on the load scrapers are putting on website operators?

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#143

Post by rcarmo » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

Waraqa wrote: post #116

rcarmo wrote: post #69

So, instead of using something lightweight and embeddable like QuickJS, they opted for Deno? Nothing specifically against it, just seems... overkill

See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45359626

There are other embeddable JS engines out there.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#144

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

mtrovo wrote: post #132

ACCount37 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever wondered why the likes of Google and Cloudflare want to restrict the web to a few signed, integrity-checked browser implementations? Now you know.

I don't know, it's really hard to blame them. In a way, the next couple of years are going to be a battle to balance easy access to info with compensation for content creators. The web as we knew it before ChatGPT was built around the idea that humans have to scavenge for information, and while they're doing that, you can show them ads. In that world, content didn't need to be too protected because you were making up…

Don’t worry!

Ads are coming to AI. The big AI push next will be context, your context all the time. Your phone will “help” and get all your data to OpenAI…

“It looks like you went for a run today? Good job, you deserve a treat! Studies show a little ice cream after a long run is effectively free calories! It just so happens the nearest Dairy Queen is running a promotion just for the next 30 minutes. I’m getting you directions now.”

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#145

Post by trenchpilgrim » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #94

Just the other day there was a story posted on hn[0][1] that said YouTube secretly wants downloaders to work. It's it's always been very apparent that YouTube are doing _just enough_ to stop downloads while also supporting a global audience of 3 billion users. If the world all had modern iPhones or Android devices you'd bet they'd straight up DRM all content [0] https://windowsread.me/p/best-youtube-downloaders [1] h…

More specifically, yt-dlp uses legacy API features supported for older smart TVs which don't receive software updates. Eventually once that traffic drops to near zero those features will go away.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#146

Post by bob1029 » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

nromiun wrote: post #127

TIL that you can run frontend Javascript with a package like Deno. I thought you need a proper headless browser for it.

I was thinking the same walking into this thread. I figured DOM/CSS/HTML would be part of the black box magic, but I suppose from the perspective of JS all of that can be faked appropriately.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#147

Post by gjsman-1000 » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

piyuv wrote: post #9

I’m a paying YouTube premium subscriber. Last weekend, I wanted to download something so I can watch it on my way in the train. The app got stuck at “waiting for download..” on my iPad. Same on iPhone. Restart did not work. I gave up after an hour (30 mins hands on trying stuff, 30 mins waiting for it to fix itself). Downloaded the video using yt-dlp, transferred it to my USB c flash drive, and watched it from that.…

For anyone here who runs a startup, I propose two lifestyle benefits you should add:

1. Unlimited YouTube Premium

2. Unlimited drink reimbursement (coffee, tea, smoothies, whatever)

The psychological sense of loss from those two things would be larger than any 5% raise.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#148

Post by layer8 » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #105

phplovesong wrote: post #103

Youtube is the real monopoly. Creators are also slaves, as they cant monetize elsewhere, and also they cant let their users download their own content. And the icing on the cake is youtube is unbearable without an ad-blocker, and even with that youtube has started throttling ad-block users. Its such a shithole, with no real replacement, sad state of affairs.

why can't they monetize elsewhere?

Much, much, much smaller audience elsewhere.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#149

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

wraptile wrote: post #58

Days of just getting data off the web are coming to an end as everything requires a full browser running thousands of lines of obfuscated js code now. So instead of a website giving me that 1kb json that could be cached now I start a full browser stack and transmit 10 megabytes through 100 requests, messing up your analytics and security profile and everyone's a loser. Yay.

Do you know what Accelerate means?

I want them to go overboard. I want BigTech to go nuts on this stuff. I want broken systems and nonsense.

Because that’s the only way we’re going to get anything better.

Re: Yt-dlp: Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads

#150

Post by codedokode » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

baxuz wrote: post #60

codedokode wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be valid reasons for fighting downloaders, for example: - AI companies scraping YT without paying YT let alone creators for training data. Imagine how many data YT has. - YT competitors in other countries scraping YT to copy videos, especially in countries where YT is blocked. Some such companies have a function "move all my videos from YT" to promote bloggers migration.

Then they should allow a download API for paying customers.

Music labels publish the music on YT in exchange for ad revenue, they won't be happy if someone would download their music for free, and making music is expensive, google how much just a single drum mic costs and you need lot of them.