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As someone who is listening to a video on NewPipe as I type this very comment, no they did not
Came here to say this after giving it 24 hours in case it was just lucky timing
However, now if I try to watch a YT vid in Firefox, I get the "Oops something went wrong" right when the Ad should have popped up
youtube has a monopoly on video content, they can (and will) do what they want
Otoh, you also have Odysee and PeerTube to move your own content to.
Those are fantastic solutions if you don't want anybody to watch your content.
At least you own your content on those platforms, PeerTube especially if self-hosted, and not Google. If you self-host a PeerTube instance using local hardware, for example, no one can take it down on a whim but you.
With YT, Google can and will nuke your channel for any reason they see fit.
You got a source to google owning your content if you upload to YouTube?
I'm assuming they mean de facto, not de jure.
In reality YT can do whatever the hell they want. You aren't going to win from their entire team of ivy leage lawyers unless you're independently wealthy yourself.
You can post it on those first, and on YouTube a week later, the way some creators promote Nebula or their Patreon
How about peertube fixing the discovery issues first? The platform if full of low quality content
The fediverse is kind of like a dandelion growing out of the cracks in a concrete slab.
Hopefully the seeds take.
I am so glad I had the foresight to use yt-dlp to back up most of my favorite videos. Not all of them, but I just thought we'd get more time.
But yeah, I knew this would happen. The age verification thing was really controversial, so Google would have had to expect that people would try to find other ways to access YouTube. They won't stop here and will go after Deno and NewPipe.
I'm pretty much done with YouTube. It's just not what it used to be. All my favorite YouTubers are either gone, have changed for the worse, or are on Nebula. It's mostly just slop, and I won't miss it.
Holy shit I did not realize how complex of a project yt-dlp has to be to do something as simple as download a video... Kudos to the devs
Just ran am update for ytdlp and it's working again.
Beginning very soon, you'll need to have the JavaScript runtime Deno installed to keep YouTube downloads working as normal.
if only you could read ๐
Well the title claims that Youtube just broke third party clients, so you sorta expect the clients to be broken. Shit title
Damn reading is hard
*writing
Someone give it to me straight, what is the endgame of this cat and mouse game? I know yt-dlp and invidious have been quite crafty at adapting to these changes, but the scales seem to be tipping.
It feels like Google will dominate the game into submission the same way it did with AOSP and Chrome. I know I'm being dramatic but it's really starting to feel like we're being cornered into a hopeless situation
Well the problem for google is that Youtube MUST be accessible to almost any internet user in the world - that's a key reason why it's so ubiquitous.
The reason this cat and mouse game has lasted as long as it has in the first place is because any method that is currently being quashed has a solution lying in another user agent that youtube can't kill.
If one day YT sets a "minimum requirements" page on their website to access their content, they've immediately ceded market share to the next upstart. Imagine if they broke viewing for all of the countless cheap (and e-waste) phones, tablets, low end IOT devices, "smart TVs", and so on because they place a requirement that the device cannot meet. Those users will not throw away their hardware - they'll migrate to the first available alternative way to watch content.
As long as YT caters to the lowest common denominator (Their business model essentially binds them to do so), there will always be a software/hardware environment that these tools can spoof. The moment that stops being the case, people look for other options.
A similar analogy would be how Microsoft handled the windows 11 requirements - the strict requirements locking out years upon years of hardware has resulted in a substantial amount of users finding workarounds for their machines (like windows 10 IOT LTSC), or to even jump to linux entirely. They abandoned the entry level users, so entry level users are abandoning them.
If one day YT sets a "minimum requirements" page on their website to access their content, they've immediately ceded market share to the next upstart. Imagine if they broke viewing for all of the countless cheap (and e-waste) phones, tablets, low end IOT devices, "smart TVs", and so on because they place a requirement that the device cannot meet. Those users will not throw away their hardware - they'll migrate to the first available alternative way to watch content.
This all incorrectly assumes that there exists any viable competition to switch to. YouTube ran at a net loss for over a decade to get the reach they currently have, only because Google was one of the very few companies who could feasibly afford to do so. Nobody else with the resources to compete with YouTube is willing to compete with YouTube, because of the massive cost required to get even a fraction of that user base, let alone a critical mass.
And most of the content people access YouTube for is only found on YouTube, so those hypothetical users aren't going to switch to a new platform, they're going to either just flat-out stop watching or will replace their devices.
Users replacing their devices isn't feasible in many parts of the world, especially outside of the west.
You are correct that a service similar in scale and scope would not appear out of the aether due to the cost, but to say nothing would make a grab for those underserved users would be foolish.
Again - the entry level cost conscious users do constitute a large part of Youtube's userbase, so even if they are burdensome to support (due to ad blocking rates, required legacy features to upkeep, and so on), they are a core part of the audience that youtube serves. In an economic environment where people cannot afford to abandon their hardware, there is no chance they will opt out of receiving information and entertainment entirely because of their devices being unsupported by google's sites. They will move to the next service in the chain, either existing or new. To google's investors, that shrinkage in userbase may be untenable.
PeerTube or LBRY (The protocol, not Odysee) might help in that. As in decentralized instances focussing on specific content. All connected via hubs/open-protocols.
Basically Decentralized or distributed networks are key. The next hurdle is populating those platforms with content.
Android is different because there are no alternatives to cellphones except Apple. On the web, there are other ways to share video. So Google can maybe lock YouTube down, but it can't lock you down.
Many of us use 3rd party browsers a stop-gap measure. We'd like to leave the platform entirely, but we are still interested in some of the content there, so we're OK with the cat-and-mouse game for now, knowing that if Google goes hardcore blocking mode that we will walk away and be better human beings for it.
You got Linux phones but those are rough to be nice about it.
They are glorified toys to be blunt. Cellphones just require too much proprietary tech and licensing. Shits never goanna be viable as anything more than a hobbyist toy.
If you already use your phone as nothing more then a toy then it's a easy switch. But most people don't.
Not to mention, carriers can dictate who can get connected. Australia already banned any IMEIs not "approved" by them, not even for emergency calls.
In contrast, all that a computer would need is working wifi, and for now at least, we still control wifi hardware and the ISP can't dictate what devices you connect. (unless they start forcing their "gateways" Modem/Router devices)
The day smart tube next stops working is the day i stop using youtube. I will NEVER watch a shitty youtube ad and I'm sure as shit not paying google any money whatsoever.
What I don't understand. Like, they know people hate shitty ads.
If they had like, literally any level of vetting on the ads, people might actually watch them. But its all fucking scams or podcasts of lies pretending to be ads etc.
I know it costs money to have people but sales people serve a purpose.
They're going to keep enshitifying it until they kill it completely. Them blackholes, I mean shareholders, will never have enough money.
The market that accesses YouTube from a PC or Mac is shrinking rapidly.
They would prefer you use one of the apps and at some point that will be the majority, if it isn't already
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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