[HN Gopher] Piped: A privacy-friendly YouTube front end which is...
___________________________________________________________________
Piped: A privacy-friendly YouTube front end which is efficient by
design
Author : emanuelpina
Score : 247 points
Date : 2021-07-17 22:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| notafraudster wrote:
| I can't tell based on the GitHub description whether this is a
| website or some code you run locally. Like, I don't really know
| what a replacement front-end is. Is it a Chrome extension? I
| clicked the documentation and that didn't really answer anything
| for me. It's a Java backend, a Golang proxy, and a JS frontend?
| How do I actually use it?
|
| I tried Googling "piped" and "piped youtube" and couldn't find
| any reference so I assume it's not a website. I could imagine
| using this, but not if I have to run it myself.
| cyounkins wrote:
| I think it is what is running at https://piped.kavin.rocks/
| emanuelpina wrote:
| There're two instances at the moment:
| https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances
|
| Here's the documentation, including how to self-host an
| instance: https://piped-docs.kavin.rocks/
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Ah, Docker. Looks like you have to run a minimum of TWO
| servers (or containers). You need a Java 11 server, and at
| least one golang proxy. Looks like "self-hosting" means, in
| practice, cloud hosting.
| danielheath wrote:
| I mean, two docker containers isn't zero overhead but it's
| a long way from "needs multiple boxes and you have to pay
| someone to manage it".
|
| A systemd unit file to run a docker container isn't a hard
| thing to write.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I don't use Docker or systemd. I don't need to rehearse
| my objections to systemd; I object to Docker because it's
| a proprietary skin wrapped around open-source container
| mechanisms.
|
| I run Xen VMs, and I don't want to dedicate two VMs to
| something like this (my VM host has 16GB of RAM).
|
| I'm not saying this solution is no good; it's just not a
| match for me.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Essentially you self-host it and it operates, I assume, via
| YouTube's API or scraping.
|
| Invidious is another alternative frontend to youtube. I use it
| because it loads much faster than YT and it has an API that
| makes it easy for me to batch download my playlists. However it
| occasionally gets authentication errors and I have to restart
| the service manually.
| hi5eyes wrote:
| invidio.us is a much cleaner experience compared to default
| youtube/cancer youtube search too
| sebmellen wrote:
| How is this different from Invidious [0]?
|
| [0]: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
| lapinot wrote:
| Related: https://sr.ht/~cadence/tube/
|
| A reimplementation of the invidious api based on a youtube-dl
| backend, together with a js-light frontend. I'm working on
| something similar, but leveraging youtube-dl to actually be
| platform-agnostic.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| better resolutions
| alexmcc81 wrote:
| No Invidious official release since 2019 and it had huge memory
| leak issues that was unresolved for months last time I checked.
| Public instances were constantly restarting docker instances to
| work around it.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| The invidious repo is very active though, does an official
| release actually matter?
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| What is the hosting charges for the demo instance? Says it has
| CDN also. Is the cdn for actual YouTube video files or just the
| ui of piped? How do you handle a barrage of accounts ?
|
| What is the specs for self hosting this ? Minimum? Can this be
| made a private instance so that it doesn't attract attention?
|
| What is this different from say invidious ?
|
| A cool projeft nonetheless. I like it.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| > YouTube has an extremely invasive privacy policy which relies
| on using user data in unethical ways
|
| I just want to weigh in a counterpoint to make sure that this
| isn't the only voice people ever hear.
|
| I think that Google using data to personalize ads and recommend
| videos is ethically ok. I think this is a case of straw-manning
| potentially legitimate complaints about Google's service by using
| the word "ethics" to skip the work of making an actual argument.
|
| Further I think products like this are actually unethical. They
| are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube creators,
| who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to earn.
|
| And btw, you can opt out of ads personalization on
| https://adssettings.google.com/
|
| EDIT: I work at Google (not on ads or Youtube) and have worked at
| other large ads companies in the past. I work at these companies
| _because_ I think ads are ok, not the other way around. My views
| are my own.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _They are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube
| creators, who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to
| earn._
|
| YouTubers share a percentage of the revenue with Google because
| it has a strangle-hold on online streaming. Platforms building
| frontends are chipping away at YouTube's moat within means
| which net neutrality and interoperability make it possible.
|
| > _I think that Google using data to personalize ads and
| recommend videos is ethically ok._
|
| If viewers want nothing to do with YouTube, it is in creator's
| best interest then to engage with businesses building
| alternatives. If this niche service becomes any popular, then
| perhaps, the creators would do well to listen to their viewers,
| and a new model around revenue can be developed.
| Superblazer wrote:
| It is okay if it were only for ads personalisation, but
| everyone knows that isn't the case. They have too much data
| just for personalising ads, Google knows way too much.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| So to me, that's the preview of an argument, but not a
| complete argument. What is the actual bad thing or bad state
| that will be caused by Google knowing this information about
| individuals, or in aggregate?
|
| I think that when we weigh the harm against the good, we're
| likely to disagree about the balance. But I think I have more
| information about the good than people who have not worked at
| Google or Facebook, and I have just as much information about
| the potential and actual harm.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| For one thing, all Googles data is presumably stolen one
| way or another by the NSA, which use it for things like
| industrial espionage, supporting regimes like Saudi Arabia,
| probably a modern version of COINTELPRO and god knows what
| else.
| scrps wrote:
| I am not sure I'd subscribe to that theory. I am no
| friend to google but they have some very sharp people
| working in security to the extent I wouldn't be suprised
| if NSA tried to poach them.
|
| NSA getting caught pwning google would be a snowden-esque
| nightmare for them. Now some backroom deal between NSA
| and google for SOME data would be more believable, it
| never hurts to align incentives and have a three letter
| agency owe you a favor when senator so-and-so starts
| banging the break up & regulate big tech drum.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I assume NSA delivered a NSL to them the day after
| Snowdon if not before. And they weren't hurt at all by
| the the leaks.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Could you share the potential and actual harm?
| grey_earthling wrote:
| > And btw, you can opt out of ads personalization on
| https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated
|
| This leads to a sign in page. Is it possible to opt out of ads
| personalisation without a Google account?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| yeah sorry, delete the "authenticated" part
| autoexec wrote:
| advertising is itself on ethically shakey ground since it so
| often crosses the line from providing information into outright
| manipulation. Targeted ads can be especially unethical when it
| involves the invasive tracking of individuals, the compilation,
| buying, and selling of dossiers, and it all taking place in an
| environment where much of that data is sold to the state
| directly or taken from companies by force and in secrecy
| (national security letters).
|
| Even if you could be 100% certain the ads being pushed on
| people against their wishes were not harmful to them directly,
| (and there is plenty of evidence that ads have caused great
| harm to people and their health) the entire system that enables
| and sustains targeted advertising is downright abusive and
| dangerous. Only the most narrow view of the issue could support
| the idea that it wasn't an ethical mine field and google's
| implementation specifically is full of problems.
| DavideNL wrote:
| Curious, do you think Oligopoly is okay too?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly
| mynameismon wrote:
| Truth be told, I have similar feelings about ads. Several
| times, I have benefitted from ads on Facebook and Google,
| rendering several times their investments.
|
| For example, there was this one time when I had come across an
| ad on Facebook for a competition that I had found interesting.
| I applied, got selected, and eventually won a fully sponsored
| trip to NYC (worth about $4000).
|
| Now, would I want my data to be leaked *outside* FB/Google
| datacenters out into the public? No. Would I want to be
| constantly interrupted while I am watching a video? No. But
| would I want ads that benefit me and help me? Yes, sign me up.
|
| Also, regarding tracking, I believe tracking should be entirely
| optional (by law). Tracking certainly helps understand user
| preferences, and I personally always leave them on, because I
| want to help developers improve my experience. However, I do
| understand people wanting to turn them off, particularly on
| suspicious sites.
| bredren wrote:
| What does not make sense to me is that YouTube Premium does not
| let you opt out of any tracking.
|
| So Google asks that people pay $12 a month to not see ads, but
| still uses watching behavior to build a user profile to
| advertise to in all other mediums.
|
| Do I have this correct? How does google explain the value
| proposition? Is the real cost of YouTube (sans tracking)
| greater than $12 a month?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I think that's a fair point, and that's the primary reason
| I'm not a Premium customer.
|
| However, it's important to distinguish this completely
| reasonable point, that the product may be overpriced or
| provide less value than it should, vs an argument that Google
| is "unethical" for offering it.
| svat wrote:
| With or without YouTube Premium you can opt out: if you go to
| https://adssettings.google.com/ (and signed in, as you would
| be if you're a YouTube Premium user) and click on "Advanced",
| there's a checkbox that says:
|
| > Also use your activity and information from Google services
| to personalise ads on websites and apps that partner with
| Google to show ads. This stores data from websites and apps
| that partner with Google in your Google Account.
|
| Unchecking this means (as I understand it) that, among other
| things, your YouTube watching behaviour will not be used for
| ad targeting on non-Google websites.
|
| (That's about non-Google websites, but as I type the above, I
| just realized that maybe by "all other mediums" you meant
| other Google sites, like Google Search etc. But those already
| covered under "Ad personalisation" (the main toggle at
| https://adssettings.google.com/) so I'm not quite sure the
| premise of the question is correct.)
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Another explanation though, and this is from my inside view
| at other companies because I know nothing about Google's
| business model here.
|
| I would speculate that the average and 95th percentile
| customer experience with tracking is so astronomically better
| on average, across nearly all dimensions, that even after
| paying, fewer than 5% of users would prefer the no-
| tracking/personalization product experience.
|
| Personalized ads isn't just about getting you to click more.
| It's also about showing you fewer irrelevant ads. In fact on
| many sites that's way more important.
| picardythird wrote:
| The problem with personalized ads is they give an unfair
| advantage to the seller. It's like if you were to walk in
| to a car dealership and the dealer was given a 100 page
| file of information on you. Anyone with a basic
| understanding of human psychology will tell you that human
| beings are by and large irrational and should not be in the
| position of walking through a minefield of targeted
| psychological bait. It's unethical.
| commoner wrote:
| 96% of US users opted out of app tracking in iOS 14.5. iOS
| has a majority market share in the US, and over a quarter
| of the mobile OS market worldwide.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-
| opt-o...
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-
| sta...
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide
|
| Based on this data, it seems extremely unlikely that 95% of
| users would prefer the "customer experience with tracking"
| on YouTube or any other mainstream social media site.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| By the way, my personal opinion on this is that Apple is
| extremely astute, and this is their highly effective
| strategy for growth and entrenchment.
|
| From where I'm standing, Apple masterfully manipulated
| their users into adopting a worldview that transfers
| future cash flows from other tech giants to Apple.
|
| It's great for me as an Apple shareholder, but just
| another punch in a bout amongst the titans.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Apple is definitely doing this to make money, and as a
| fellow shareholder I don't mind (I brought the shares
| based on their successful transition to ARM, but any
| growth is nice).
|
| I am not really sure they manipulated me into switching
| to the iPhone, as much as they produced a product that
| advertised the things I want, and that I can get nowhere
| else.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Yes it's an interesting counterpoint, but as a former
| Facebook employee I can say that those users will almost
| universally have a worse experience on the app, as
| measured by self-reported enjoyment.
|
| That is, if you run a randomized AB test where some users
| lose personalization, then ask everyone "are you enjoying
| Facebook", the responses are much better for the users
| who have personalization.
|
| Because the number 96 is large, it's not the case that
| some ads-averse subpopulation made an individually
| optimal choice.
|
| You either have to reject my empirical claim about
| surveys, or you have to agree that these users made a
| choice that is worse for them on timescales of 1-2
| months. (There's room for an argument that they're worse
| off in the short term by opting out but everyone will be
| better off in the long term, but then we're no longer
| debating individual preferences)
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >You either have to reject my empirical claim about
| surveys,
|
| Facebooks personalization seems to just send me to more
| and more content that makes me angry. Some people may
| find some pleasure in that, I suppose, but rejecting the
| temptation is not a suboptimal choice, like rejecting the
| 3rd beer is not a bad idea, even if you want it right
| now.
|
| And I don't think it is unrealistic that ~everybody is
| adverse to ads, but I think it is fairly likely that
| everybody who has seen apples privacy ads are going to
| think what Facebook and others do as creepy and opt out
| based on that.
|
| Finally I nearly always say no or give a low rating for
| those popups, because I find the popups annoying.
| picardythird wrote:
| This is like A/B testing people with heroin to see
| whether they like a higher or a lower dose, finding out
| they like the higher dose, and then thinking that you've
| found out how to improve their lives.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| _Why not treat economy class customers better?_
|
| _Dupuit explained it all in four simple words. It 's not
| out of vindictiveness, or even saving money Instead, it
| all boils down to this: "To scare the rich."_
|
| ...
|
| _It is not because of the several thousand francs which
| they would have to spend to cover the third class wagons
| or to upholster the benches. ... [I]t would happily
| sacrifice this [expense] for the sake of its popularity._
|
| _Its goal is to stop the traveler who can pay for the
| second class trip from going third class. It hurts the
| poor not because it wants them to personally suffer, but
| to scare the rich._
|
| https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/why-does-air-travel-
| suck-...
|
| Jules Dupuit was a 19th century French engineer and
| economist.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Dupuit
|
| His insights on nonrivalrous public services and induced
| upselling apply across any number of goods and services.
| That would include informational and online ones.
|
| This is before one considers the inherent bias of A/B
| testing and "market choice" mechanics generally to short-
| term highly-attractive options, and disregard of long-
| term value, long-term risks, and of less apparent or
| manifest value and benefits (see Robert K. Merton on
| manifest vs. latent functions).
| Larrikin wrote:
| This comment assumes that Facebook is actually an
| enjoyable product as opposed to something that has
| morphed into a platform for engagement at all cost.
|
| The people who are being presented with rage inducing
| topics that they feel their circle of friends are
| fighting agaisnt from personalization of their feed from
| a mix of old and new content is likely to say they enjoy
| Facebook over the old feed where a friend of a friend
| from high school is posting baby pictures again and
| people are actually just living normal lives not being
| shaped by a desire for clout.
| Fice wrote:
| > I think that Google using data to personalize ads and
| recommend videos is ethically ok.
|
| Advertising does not simply make people aware about some goods
| and services, it often works by manipulating peoples desires
| and fears. And to manipulate effectively, ad companies need to
| collect as much information as possible about every person.
| Google collects and manipulates at scale when it becomes a
| threat to society and culture.
| gopiandcode wrote:
| > They are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube
| creators, who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to
| earn.
|
| There are many creators who don't only rely on unethical
| privacy invasive ads and support more ethical donations based
| support systems.
|
| Just because a creator refuses to support a more ethical
| payment system, doesn't make it unethical to bypass
| participating in a system (the ad network) that actively harms
| you (by unethically violating your privacy).
| contravariant wrote:
| Any particular reason you think personalized ads are ethical?
| Why do you consider it ethical to track the videos people
| watch, the subjects they search, the webpages they visit, and
| use this to make money off them?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| My default is that a thing is ok, unless there is a good
| argument that it causes harm or violates some principle I
| believe in.
|
| But I can paint a more specific picture. I don't think any of
| that tracking harms the user, and on the contrary it makes
| ads and products better. Unlike Google and most of the world,
| I also don't believe the data "belongs" to the user.
|
| If you go to a website, the website owner should be allowed
| to tell anyone that you went there. I believe this should be
| protected speech, just as it would be protected speech if I
| saw you walk into my physical store and I sold that
| information to a third party.
|
| I believe this because I think the world would be worse
| without personalized ads, and because banning it violates my
| moral principles regarding speech.
| oakpond wrote:
| If someone created a platform that buys every available bit
| of data from Google about you in real-time and visualized
| that on a website in real-time, would you be OK with that?
| Suppose you would be OK with that, do you believe that
| Google should pay you for collecting that data?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >They are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube
| creators, who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to
| earn
|
| AdSense is typically a small portion of a channel's revenue
| (I've heard a few creators say it's around 30%), and all of the
| costs to produce a video are sunk.
|
| When someone with an ad blocker watches a video, they're still
| consuming the sponsored content, clicking on the affiliate
| links and buying the merch. From a business standpoint, they're
| still 70% as valuable as a "regular" viewer.
|
| I've never heard a YouTube creator complain about ad blocker or
| ask people to "like, comment, subscribe and whitelist". Linus
| Tech Tips even made a guide a while back on how to set up Pi
| Hole and only asked that people "buy a shirt".
|
| If they're not complaining, and people with ad blockers are
| still making them plenty of money, I don't agree with you that
| it's wrong.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Did you try it out? https://piped.kavin.rocks/
|
| This product also attempts to remove the other things you
| listed, including sponsored content (via SponsorBlock),
| ability to click affiliate links, ability to like or comment
| on the video, etc.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Fair enough. I didn't check it out until after reading your
| comment.
| [deleted]
| lolinder wrote:
| > I think this is a case of straw-manning potentially
| legitimate complaints about Google's service by using the word
| "ethics" to skip the work of making an actual argument.
|
| I don't think that they're straw-manning, I think that they're
| simply not trying to persuade. The tool is meant for those who
| are already sold on privacy, and they didn't want to waste time
| that could have been spent explaining the tool.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| _The goals of the advertising business model do not always
| correspond to providing quality ... to users. .... For this
| type of reason and historical experience with other media
| [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded [services]
| will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from
| the needs of the consumers._
|
| "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine"
| http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| Every time I see bizarre comments like this, where the poster
| defends a vast, clearly corrupt and abusive company and attacks
| community efforts to combat said company, I can almost hear
| grinding noises coming from my brain as it tries to formulate
| an explanation for the the post. I usually bounce between two
| conclusions: some kind of mental problem, or naked corruption.
| I guess for this one I don't have to guess.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| You should also allow for people who honestly have a
| different viewpoint than yours, since tolerating and dealing
| with such people is part of living.
|
| >vast, clearly corrupt and abusive company
|
| You assert much, and prove little. Adding up everything
| Google does, it seems to me that it comes up well into the
| positive side, though some of the things they do are bad.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Man this is a pretty nasty comment.
|
| Which one is it? Am I stupid or corrupt?
|
| The actual explanation is very simple. I have more
| information available to me than you do, so I formed a
| different opinion about Google and targeted advertising. If
| you'd like I'd be happy to address more specific issues, my
| contact info is in my bio
| pydry wrote:
| If your identity is bound up in working for google you will
| need to somehow deal with the cognitive dissonance of
| accusations of your employer's unethical behavior.
|
| Either your identity has to be kept separate (i.e. working
| there can't be something you're proud of) or you have to
| challenge or downplay the accusations, because they reflect
| upon you.
|
| A great deal of googlers _are_ proud of working there.
|
| I worked for what many would call an unethical company for a
| while but I was never proud of it. When people talked about
| its behavior I would usually agree with them, but some of my
| coworkers _were_ proud and they would defend it or try to
| downplay the accusations (e.g. we 're not as bad as X).
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I've barely been working there for 5 months, my identity is
| not bound up in Google. I'm certainly not "proud" to work
| there, it's just a job, but I disagree that the company is
| somehow evil.
|
| Maybe consider the possibility that people disagree with
| you for reasons that have to do with their different
| evidence and experience rather than corruption?
| sennight wrote:
| > They are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube
| creators, who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to
| earn.
|
| Substitute "creators" with "collaborators" and maybe it'll be
| more obvious to you why this is a flawed argument. Anyway, I
| don't think you can even opt out of Youtube inserting
| advertisements into your uploads anymore, but back when you
| could it would result in a discoverability penalty.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I don't follow. I still think it's unethical to serve
| monetized content without paying the original "collaborator".
|
| If you made a band and sold me a recording on the condition
| that I not resell it, it would be unethical for me to resell
| it. I think it would be undesirable and annoying of you to
| resort to DRM to prevent me from reselling, but I'm still the
| one violating our agreement. I have no special "human right"
| to listen to your music (or watch your Youtube videos), but
| you should have the right to enforce agreements whose
| nonenforcement would harm only you.
| sennight wrote:
| huh, guess I'll have to break it down Barny style: you are
| effectively trying to wave a bloody shirt with the "think
| of the creators" bit. If your system of morals allows you
| to deny Youtube advertisement revenue on the basis of an
| aversion to invasive spying, then the "creators" aren't
| victims - they're collaborators in the spying. Of course
| not all of them draw advertising revenue...
|
| > I still think it's unethical to serve monetized content
| without paying the original "collaborator".
|
| So you're not even going to seek the refuge of "their
| payment is the free bandwidth" argument and admit that
| Youtube is screwing a lot of people over?
|
| > ...but you should have the right to enforce agreements
| whose nonenforcement would harm only you.
|
| lol, "harm". Sure, you have a legal right to argue over the
| definition of "harm" - but you know you've retreated from
| "ethical" to "legal", right?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I don't see it as a retreat, I'm using a different
| conceptual framework because we don't agree on the
| meaning of "ethical".
|
| I agree that under your moral system, it's not wrong to
| deny the creators value, but that's sort of just a
| restatement of the fact that we disagree on the
| acceptability of ads in the first place.
|
| In general I don't assign the label "unethical" to
| something unless I'm aware of a convincing case that the
| thing causes more harm than good, harm without
| appropriate equity, violates some other axiomatic
| principal that I agree to, etc. I just haven't heard a
| convincing case that ads meets any of those criteria.
| sennight wrote:
| > I don't see it as a retreat...
|
| You can add the use of "retreat" in the context of a
| value judgement to the list of disagreements, but the
| reframe into a legal argument makes our exchange largely
| pointless.
|
| > ...unless I'm aware of a convincing case that the thing
| causes more harm than good...
|
| Ah, yeah - we definitely won't agree on much of anything.
| I'm more of a first-principles/universality sort of
| guy... whereas it sounds like moral relativism is more
| your thing.
|
| >> I think this is a case of straw-manning...
|
| > I just haven't heard a convincing case that ads meets
| any of those criteria.
|
| See what you did there? You created a strawman. There is
| a difference between "ads" and "Google using data to
| personalize ads". I've got no beef with the former, but
| you are arguing in defense of the latter.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I'm not a relativist, I believe morality is a real
| objective thing, but that it's socially constructed.
| Morality is more like language than it is like physics.
|
| To your last point, you can substitute one for the other,
| I stand by the original point in either case. I haven't
| heard a convincing case from first principles as to the
| wrongness of "Google using data to personalize ads".
| Generally the principle I hear in these cases is very
| close to "tracking or targeting is inherently wrong",
| which I reject.
| sennight wrote:
| > Morality is more like language than it is like physics.
|
| Not as you've described it, as a real objective thing
| that is a social construct. I agree that it is a social
| construct, and I agree that it is "like language",
| because I'd describe morality as, at the very least, an
| internally coherent social construct. "more harm than
| good" has no logical constraint and easily permits the
| violation of every prior principal while affording no
| solid ground upon which to build, by design.
|
| > To your last point, you can substitute one for the
| other...
|
| Cool, so long as you're aware that there exists the
| possibility of data-hoard-free advertising - and that it
| was common prior to recent Internet centralization.
|
| > I haven't heard a convincing case from first
| principles...
|
| That is because, like ad-blockers, it isn't wrong. Good
| luck trying to construct on internally coherent system of
| morals that blesses the present state of data-broker
| panopticon while at the same time condemning ad-blockers.
| If you can do that with something beyond "might makes
| right" then I'll be impressed.
| lstamour wrote:
| That's true, you can't opt out of YouTube ads on your own
| uploads. YouTube still has documentation on how to turn off
| monetization:
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6332943?hl=en but
| since November 2020 they've updated their terms to now say:
|
| > Right to Monetize
|
| > You grant to YouTube the right to monetize your Content on
| the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads
| on or within Content or charging users a fee for access).
| This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=CA&template=terms
|
| They more clearly state what it means over here: https://supp
| ort.google.com/youtube/thread/83733719/updates-t...
|
| > For channels not yet in the YouTube Partner Program:
|
| > We added this new section to let you know that, starting
| today we'll begin slowly rolling out ads on a limited number
| of videos from channels not in YPP. This means as a creator
| that's not in YPP, you may see ads on some of your videos.
| Since you're not currently in YPP, you won't receive a share
| of the revenue from these ads, though you'll still have the
| opportunity to apply for YPP as you normally would...
| sennight wrote:
| Kinda makes the inevitable conclusion obvious: non-
| fashion&beauty channels need not apply - non-legacy media
| will not be permitted much aside from topics that both
| have:
|
| 1) No possibility of generating an objection from the most
| sensitive of current and potential advertisers.
|
| 2) Do not compete with legacy media presently on platform.
|
| Makes you wonder about all those outrage mobs that targeted
| companies with adverts that had the bad luck of randomly
| appearing in videos that demonstrated wrong-think, and how
| they've ushered in network television 2.0 while sticking it
| to all the totally-real-and-definitely-a-threat-to-our-
| democracy-neo-nazis.
| commoner wrote:
| Google (your employer) and other ad companies have already lost
| the war against ad blocking. Users have the right to limit the
| content they see, whether it be through a private self-hosted
| instance of Piped, uBlock Origin, Pi-hole, or an ad-skipping
| DVR.
|
| Even Google Chrome includes a built-in ad blocker (which only
| blocks ads on sites that display non-Google ads), so Google
| would have no moral standing to claim that Piped is unethical:
|
| https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/7632919
| mgraczyk wrote:
| My views are not the views of my employer
| app4soft wrote:
| Nobody can approve or disapprove your statement.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I think I get to be the authority on my own views.
|
| That is a disclaimer saying that I am not speaking on
| behalf of my employer.
| ggg666y wrote:
| The sky is blue. Earth is round. Pigs don't fly. Pope is
| catholic. Bears shit in the woods.
| ashneo76 wrote:
| And just like that I get to be the authority on when I am
| tracked or not. Google is unethical in how it goes and
| hides it and papers over it.
| username90 wrote:
| Google aren't the good guys (no big company is good) but
| they are still one of the least evil big companies out
| there. Even Apple is more evil. Apple doesn't personalize
| ads, but they are instead working hard to kill open
| computing which is way worse than personalizing ads in my
| opinion. Of course to an individual who can easily afford
| them choosing Apple today is better for you, but Apple
| winning their war and implementing their vision is way
| worse to you than Google winning theirs.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Google aren 't the good guys (no big company is good)
| but they are still one of the least evil big companies
| out there._
|
| May be it is their lobbying and marketing that has you
| convinced?
|
| > _Apple doesn 't personalize ads, but they are instead
| working hard to kill open computing which is way worse
| than personalizing ads in my opinion._
|
| Both these companies want to protect their core
| businesses and attempt to commodotize each others
| advantages all the time. It seems you are comfortable
| with personalised ads and that may be has skewed your
| opinion.
| chokeartist wrote:
| No one cares. Back to your cagie, wagie.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| What if we the YouTube viewers (Google's ad targets) give the
| YouTube creators (Google's source of free labor) our moral and
| financial support directly, without letting the Google
| middleman take a cut.
|
| Viewers can opt out of ads personalisation but can uploaders
| opt out of "monetisation". Morever, can viewers and uploaders
| opt out of surveillance, data collection and how the collected
| data is used.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| This doesn't happen, because Youtube as a platform adds value
| for creators and viewers. Everyone is free to host videos by
| themselves.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| YouTube as a platform adds value for Google and
| advertisers. No one is free to host files witout agreeing
| to monetisation on Google and advertisers' behalf.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| The idea that blocking ads is unethical because it harms
| content creators would have a lot more weight if YouTube didn't
| pay content creators such a pittance.
|
| YouTube is a middle-man that has inserted itself between
| content creators and content consumers so they can collect
| rent, and they've happily fucked over content creators every
| single time it has served their bottom line to do so. Viewing
| YouTube ads supports YouTube more than it does content creators
| --you can make some argument that maybe the opaque monetization
| somehow benefits creators more than YouTube, but there can be
| no question that the _power_ is firmly in YouTube 's hands.
| It's bad for content creators, who have to constantly worry
| about frivolous copyright claims, demonetization, and the
| mysterious algorithm causing them to lose views and
| subscribers. And it's bad for consumers, who end up with a
| watered down and censored version of content, with the
| ubiquitious "like and subscribe!" and "this episode sponsored
| by" constantly being rammed down their throat even when using
| an adblocker.
|
| If you want to support content creators, support content
| creators, not YouTube. I make recurring donations to a few
| different YouTube artists and they get more money from me than
| they would if I didn't use an adblocker.
| n_io wrote:
| Seems odd that someone would weigh in with such an aggressive
| counterpoint in defence of Google on their own volition... I'm
| always suspect of comments like these coming from said
| company's PR team.
|
| I mean really, "Further I think products like this are actually
| unethical"? Did you really just jump to the defence of a near 2
| trillion dollar company whose business model overtly threatens
| some of our most fundamental human rights?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You think that Google HR recruits random engineers to
| astroturf on HN?
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| It would seem they don't need to.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > I'm always suspect of comments like these coming from said
| company's PR team.
|
| Don't rule out the possibility of "useful idiots" (not my
| expression - this describes people who are brainwashed to
| believe some company's PR and parrot that point of view for
| free)
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Trust me, I'm pretty much the furthest thing from
| brainwashed a Googler can be. In fact you'd probably be
| surprised to learn that officially and unofficially, Google
| agrees with you much more than with me. My personal opinion
| is that other companies are much better at ads
| personalization, and Google is much better at building
| powerful technology that uses a shitload of compute and
| TPU, so long term Google wants a world with FLOC or
| similar, and essentially no individual tracking.
| brynjolf wrote:
| > Trust me, I'm pretty much the furthest thing from
| brainwashed a Googler can be.
|
| Why do you type like an AI then?
| methyl wrote:
| Because he's not a native English speaker.
| kinjba11 wrote:
| Please tell us how Google "overtly threatens some of our most
| fundamental human rights" by providing free services? Just
| saying Google is evil doesn't make a good argument.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| As a starting point:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
|
| There are numerous current (and past) legal cases against
| Google, including numerous antitrust / anticompetitive
| cases. Several of those hinge on influence and manipulation
| through that chief organ of a democratic society, media.
|
| Google's role, and YouTube's specifically, in
| radicalisation, is rather well documented.
|
| "How YouTube Built a Radicalization Machine for the Far-
| Right" (2018)
|
| It's a target-rich search:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+youtube+radicalizes&ia=web
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-youtube-pulled-these-
| men-d...
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Yes, because I think the general content of discussion around
| this subject is one sided, and I want to give voice to what I
| consider to be a more centered point of view.
|
| For example, in your comment you take for granted that Google
| "overtly threatens some of our most fundamental human
| rights". I could imagine reasonable arguments that Google
| does some harm in some cases, and it would even be defensible
| to claim that Google does more harm than good for some groups
| of people (although I disagree). But the position you take as
| a given seems extreme to me and conflicts strongly with my
| conception of "human rights" and "overt".
| [deleted]
| bryan0 wrote:
| > I think that Google using data to personalize ads and
| recommend videos is ethically ok.
|
| You really should educate yourself on the harm these types of
| targeted ads and videos have caused before defending your
| employer.
|
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/youtub...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/16/youtube-a...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/17/trumps-mo...
| mgraczyk wrote:
| None of these links have anything to do with personalized
| ads. These are examples of ads that were very widely viewed,
| and the ad itself is what is claimed to be harmful. Why would
| targeting matter for ads seen by nearly every viewer, as is
| the case for your examples?
|
| Your second link isn't even talking about bad ads or
| personalization. It's talking about bad content with good ads
| not wanting to be associated with the bad content.
| bryan0 wrote:
| Let me repeat what you said again because you seem to have
| forgotten:
|
| > I think that Google using data to personalize ads _and
| recommend videos_ is ethically ok.
|
| Emphasis mine.
|
| The videos and ads are hyper targeted to misinform people
| on some of the most important and dangerous topics of the
| day.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Ah ok, yeah I was debating the ads stuff, but you're
| right that I did also claim to be ethically ok with video
| recommendations. I think the latter is less contentious
| so I wasn't directly defending it.
|
| That one is easier for me to defend actually.
|
| I've worked on video recommendation and misinformation
| integrity (tangentially) at Facebook. I promise as a
| disinterested ex employee that you are just factually
| wrong. Facebook and Google both spend 10s to 100s of
| millions per year specifically to reduce the spread of
| misinformation. It's a very difficult technical problem
| because of avoiding false positives (taking down
| acceptable content) and because there are state actors
| spending huge amounts of money trying to do the opposite.
|
| There's no conspiracy here. You'd be right to say that
| Facebook has not done a perfect job, and that they didn't
| magically predict state actor election interference
| before 2016. But you'd be factually wrong to say that
| Facebook intentionally targets people with
| misinformation.
|
| Any site as big as Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube would
| have the same problem.
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Is ethical to not disclose in this comment that you work for
| Google? 1% of the posters here at most will check that and the
| rest will assume you are an impartial observer.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Well fortunately you and other commenters have handled that
| for me :)
|
| I don't work on ads or Youtube, and you have cause and effect
| reversed actually. It's not that I'm okay with ads because I
| work at Google. I was ok with ads long before I worked there.
|
| I work at Google because I'm ok with ads. :)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Self-selection bias remains a bias.
| [deleted]
| judge2020 wrote:
| I feel like it's not absolutely necessary, but it would be
| courteous to do so. Working in the pixel machine learning
| division (what I infer from 'computational photography for
| next-gen devices') likely means they have very little
| exposure, if at all, to the kool aid available to the Google
| Ads or YouTube teams.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Being paid good sums of money by Google will certainly
| drive a positive bias towards whatever the company does. In
| publications you typically describe conflicts of interests
| you know, you might as well do it here too whenever you
| give an opinion if you have a stake in the company people
| are commenting about.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Should people who have never worked on ads or with user
| data in any significant capacity have to disclose that
| too?
|
| "I want to say that Google is unethical and ads are evil,
| but I've never actually worked on ads and actually don't
| know what data means in this context"
| threatofrain wrote:
| _Not_ working on ads isn 't a conflict of interest --
| there's no metaphorical paycheck for dodging Google. As
| you point out, it could predict more ignorance, but it
| doesn't predict financial incentives flowing to their
| direction.
|
| Also, would you morally expect your doctor to disclose
| that they're on the payroll of the company that develops
| the medications you've been prescribed to take?
| Regardless of the answer, disclosure here isn't about
| whether or not a doctor is capable of their own opinion,
| or whether or not they are speaking in any official
| capacity for other companies.
|
| Ethical _appearance_ is part of professional ethics.
|
| Similarly, it doesn't matter if a judge is capable of
| independent opinion while having financial interests tied
| to the cases they preside over. The mere appearance of
| financial entanglement can stink up professional
| credibility. It would also be quite silly for a judge to
| respond with, "But I've only recently been receiving
| paychecks. I hardly know anyone at the company."
| ekianjo wrote:
| It does not matter whether you worked on ads or not. The
| fact that you have many friends at Google and spent years
| there has already shaped you as an employee to believe
| that whatever Google does is "probably not evil". This is
| not specific to working at Google, by the way, we all
| rationalize what our workplace(s) does.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I've been at Google for ~5 months and can comfortably say
| I have no friends here who I didn't know before joining.
|
| Is it really so hard to believe that some people don't
| agree with you on this point because they've seen
| different evidence than you have?
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Only engineers can think about ethics? What about
| philosophers, ethicists and lawyers? How about law
| makers?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I'm okay with anyone thinking about ethics, as long as
| they don't call themselves an "ethicist" :P
|
| I'm just pointing out that we all have our biases. As
| somebody who understands how targeted advertising works
| from the "inside" I see a lot of commentary that is
| factually inaccurate and conceptually off base.
| ds206 wrote:
| Go on... I'm listening ;)
|
| Do you think the fact that no one on the "outside" knows
| how it works may be the reason for that? Also, do you
| think that if we did know how it works from the inside
| that we would agree with you?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > Being paid good sums of money by Google will certainly
| drive a positive bias towards whatever the company does
|
| Any evidence for this claim, besides for your gut?
|
| How do you explain all of the googlers who have resigned
| over Project X/Y/Z, or how Google handles sexual
| allegations, or who they do business with?
| GiorgioG wrote:
| > I think that Google using data to personalize ads and
| recommend videos is ethically ok.
|
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his
| salary depends on his not understanding it."
| mgraczyk wrote:
| My salary doesn't depend on it. Lots of people who I work
| with do not agree with my views on this. In fact I'd wager
| that most people in my org would disagree with me.
|
| Either way, I joined recently and I'll leave at some point.
| My comings and goings from Google will have nothing to do
| with this, because it's not very important to me and I have
| always thought personalized ads were ethically ok.
| vishnumohandas wrote:
| > My salary doesn't depend on it.
|
| Given that 80% of Google's revenue comes from ads[1], it
| would be incorrect to assume this.
|
| Disclosure: Xoogler here.
|
| [1]: https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2021Q1_alphabet_ea
| rnings...
| mgraczyk wrote:
| My salary may depend on ads, but that's not the point I
| was making.
|
| I was pointing out that my salary does not depend on my
| beliefs about ads. My evidence is that many with opposite
| beliefs receive the same salary.
| pydry wrote:
| It's difficult. It's not impossible.
| emteycz wrote:
| Have you not been on the market lately? Any software
| engineer has nearly infinite opportunities, and the same
| is true for many other roles around IT. Dependence
| doesn't look like that.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Yep I have been in the market, but there aren't that many
| Google level opportunities out there.
| emteycz wrote:
| You think a person capable of getting into Google is not
| capable to get into any other FAANG company? I'd assume
| they're the ones persuading them to switch - why'd the
| FAANG companies look for candidates without that
| experience (e.g. on Linkedin) and reject someone with it?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| How's the corn-pone?
|
| https://www.thoughtco.com/corn-pone-opinions-by-mark-
| twain-1...
| ekianjo wrote:
| > who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to earn
|
| What? Who cares? They can have multiple revenue streams and
| they often do with Patreon and sponsored messages inside
| videos. That nonsense that they rely only on youtube ad money
| has to stop.
|
| EDIT; oh you work for Google! That explains everything. Nice of
| you to mention that explicitly, by the way.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Stealing from a rich man may not harm the rich man, but I
| still believe it's unethical.
|
| I'm saying that I think taking things without paying is
| unethical, while what Google does is not unethical (use user
| data to provide a service and sell ads).
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Google makes billions! every year putting ads on illegally
| copied copyrighted videos. Sure, they will take them down
| if the claim is made (especially by the big players) but
| for sure they are not going to return any money made. Some
| kid doing an small tool is wont to make 0.00000000001% at
| best. You are the juggler defending the rich baron stealing
| from everybody.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Two wrongs don't make a right.
|
| Google should not do that. It's bad that Google does
| that. It's also bad when others do it.
|
| However, Google is spending a lot of money trying to do
| that less. The difference in motivation and intention is
| important.
| nohr wrote:
| No one said it's their only revenue. You're making up words
| no one said. It is unethical to consume content without
| accepting that ad revenue is how its covered. That's it.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You can make the case it's also "unethical" to track
| everything users are doing across the whole web with Google
| Analytics, and then using that data to sell ads to third
| parties. "Being ethical" cuts both ways.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| > It is unethical to consume content without accepting
| [ads]
|
| Well in my belief, _ads are unethical._ These two views don
| 't reconcile. And since I'm in control of my computer, I
| get to decide if the ads play or not.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| See it's sort of a non-argument. Saying something is
| "unethical" is just an emotive way of saying "I disagree
| with this".
|
| Because if "ads are unethical" under your definition of
| "unethical", then I think it's totally fine for people to
| do "unethical" things.
| meowface wrote:
| >They are an unethical use of the data produced by Youtube
| creators, who miss out on ad revenue which they worked hard to
| earn.
|
| What are you defining as "use of the data", in this case?
| Viewing their content? If so, that seems like a skewed way of
| phrasing it.
|
| If I were a YouTuber, I would personally either be okay with or
| even actively encourage ad blocking/skipping. (Easy for one to
| say, I know, but, as light evidence, I have some popular open
| source projects and have run popular websites without ever
| displaying any sort of ads or sponsored content when I easily
| could have. And I've strongly considered the idea of trying to
| make YouTube videos regularly.)
|
| I think I have a slightly different take on the issue compared
| to most people who dislike ads. I don't actually care much
| about the personalization or the data collection, as long as
| there isn't a way for an employee to easily drill down into
| specific people and track their individual activity by their
| real identity (i.e. a human manually stalking individuals
| personally, like a few Google and Facebook and NSA employees
| have occasionally been caught doing; I understand only a tiny
| percentage of them would ever do this).
|
| I just inherently don't like advertisements and advertising. I
| don't want to see ads, anywhere, ever. I pay for YouTube
| Premium - I'd pay for Twitter Premium / etc., if I actually
| liked Twitter.
|
| If that didn't exist: mine cryptocurrency in my browser if you
| want (as long as consent is requested) and give some of that to
| them. Or use something like Brave's attention token thing. Or
| anything else. Don't shove advertisements and sponsored
| segments in my face. Or, at least, ask if I want to see the
| ads, first, and let me choose "no".
|
| I know it's difficult for content creators to make a living,
| and I know it's difficult to offer a service like YouTube or
| Twitter or Facebook for free. But I don't like this world of
| advertising. I want out. I hope there will be people like
| yourself who instead work towards building systems that let us
| slowly transition away from advertising models, like what
| Brave's trying to do.
| minusf wrote:
| > And btw, you can opt out of ads personalization on
| https://adssettings.google.com/
|
| ads are not unethical per se. what i find unethical is the on
| by default tracking apparatus/personalized ads following me
| around and trying to learn what i like/want. show me random ads
| like billboards first, and if i want tracking, i'll tell you.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| I think it should be opt in. A simple way to reduce a products
| privacy intrusion is to not use the product. Of course then the
| content creators still doesn't get paid, but at least you
| didn't use their data...
| csydas wrote:
| Few points:
|
| 1. To turn it on/off means they're still tracking it somehow
| regardless. I'm not logged into any google service on my
| machine right now, and yet disabling the features on the link
| above returned that it was turned off for this browser and
| device.
|
| 2. This was on by default
|
| 3. So it would seem that Google was tracking me even though I
| wasn't logged in as well as any other number of users; I wasn't
| using their services, yet I was generating data for Google
| without my consent at all.
|
| 4. I find your use of ethics here semantically deceptive; it's
| distracting the above actions of Google performing unauthorized
| collection of data on person(s) by discussing an action
| regarding the relationship of content creators and viewers.
|
| 5. Google's collection of data to personalize ads is unethical
| in that my data and my information, as well as the information
| of many others, without their explicit consent. In countries
| where GDPR is enforced, Google creates a full screen modal
| which does not allow you to advance without either blocking the
| element or agreeing to data collection, which is in direct
| violation of the letter and spirit of GDPR.
|
| 6. The discussion is not about whether ads are okay or not
| okay, it is about the system by which ads and data collected to
| sustain the ad system is generate is okay or not, which it is
| not for the above reasons and many more.
|
| I cannot agree with any of your points as I see them as
| dismissive of the core issues and a justification of shady
| business practices that seek to simply gobble up information on
| all users regardless of whether they use Google's services or
| not.
|
| These points you've raised do not address the behavior of
| Google nor the purposes of the application at all, and are only
| tangentially related to the comment on the ethics of modern
| advertising. The discussion about the content creators and the
| viewers is not Google's discussion -- Google is part of the
| system that hosts and pays the content creators, but the
| discussion about revenue streams for creators is one for the
| creators and their audience. Google trying to shoehorn
| themselves into such a discussion when alternate revenue
| streams exist that can be used. How creators want to handle
| that is their business. Arguably, Google has made this
| situation even worse for creators by:
|
| - Reducing ad revenue for creators year after year
|
| - Not providing contemporary features that other fast growing
| and dominant platforms have given their creators (see:
| Instagram, TikTok, and other contemporaries)
|
| - By treating more substantial revenue streams for content
| creators aggressive until only very recently (previously it
| used to actively cut-off patreon links for small time channels
| that weren't part of the Partner system)
|
| - By by providing the same level of tooling and control over
| works that other platforms do
|
| - By aggressively demonetizing content creators that have any
| DCMA claim raised against them regardless of the validity of
| the claim
|
| Google/Youtube and all of their partner items are aggressive
| towards consumers and abusive towards the content creators
| using its platforms. The actual good actors on these platforms
| suffer for minor clerical mistakes or because of aggressive
| automated systems that cannot be contested while bad actors
| continue to abuse the system and profit from it.
|
| Users and content creators may have benefited from
| Google/Youtube and still have a dependency on its ad revenue,
| but it comes with extreme risk to rely on it now and with very
| sketchy behavior in order to support the system, all while
| Google and bad actors profit.
|
| For the reasons above, I find your post extremely disingenuous,
| and your opinion on advertisements far too lackadaisical.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I disagree with your points #4-5. I don't think it's wrong
| for google to collect and use this data without your consent,
| and I would not vote for a cookie banner law if I were given
| the opportunity.
|
| I also think your points about creator revenue with Google
| are valid and (some) are good criticisms of their business
| model. Where I disagree is believing any of these are
| "ethical" issues or that I should feel any worse working at
| Google vs working at a gas station that raises the price on
| potato chips.
|
| We could dig down and try to find the more fundamental thing
| we disagree about. Currently from these comments, it seems
| like the crux of it is that many people believe that it's
| wrong for Google to use information Google collects about
| them to show personalized ads, while I disagree and do not
| think there's anything wrong with that.
|
| The next step for my understanding would be to figure out why
| it is wrong for Google to collect and use this information.
| It doesn't bother me at all and I don't have any moral
| principles that this violates. What do you think?
| smolder wrote:
| Can we fix the "An" in the title?
| emanuelpina wrote:
| Done! Thanks for the heads up.
| manigandham wrote:
| The feature I miss the most is Collections where I could group my
| subscriptions into folders. I have too many now to easily browse
| them (although adding them to an RSS reader helps somewhat).
| ivrrimum wrote:
| I set this up on my personal server as a replacement for youtube
| in my life. Really cool project. needs an independant api tho.
| [deleted]
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| With all video being streamed through Cloudflare? I hope you're
| on the $200 paid plan because Cloudflare ain't gonna be happy
| with the bandwidth and will likely warn you very soon if they
| haven't already
| owlbynight wrote:
| Not really cool to steal YouTube's bandwidth in my opinion. The
| only ethical high ground that really exists here is to stop using
| the service altogether.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is missing the date filter.
| machinehermiter wrote:
| Awesome.
|
| If someone wants to post a version with just the search bar and
| nothing trending that would be even better.
|
| I would literally use that everyday and never go to youtube.com
|
| I am just tired having to see moronic content and a start page of
| 20 random stupid faces for extra clicks.
|
| Bookmarked the live version and will use this as is.
|
| I just think it needs a result count for the search. I think that
| is a useful feature.
|
| I love the grid of 6 videos across in the search. Can really sift
| through things much better.
| alexmcc81 wrote:
| I tried to set this up in docker. It fails with an exception that
| I think is related to the Captcha solver. There is no explanation
| I can see about how I can turn this feature off or why/if the
| Captcha solver (which is a paid service) is required.
| emanuelpina wrote:
| I haven't tried it yet. Maybe the author can help you. Here's
| how you can reach him:
| https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped#contact
| hyperdunc wrote:
| I'm wondering if captcha is going to be a problem on any YT
| front end that hammers the site to fetch updates for a bunch of
| channels/subscriptions. It's a problem I've encountered using
| NewPipe on Android.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| A nice alternative to add to the arsenal, along with Invidious
| (https://redirect.invidious.io/) and federated hosting
| alternatives such as PeerTube (https://joinpeertube.org/).
|
| The now-largely-unusable (thanks to API key limitations) mps-
| youtube command-line utility still remains the most useful
| interface to YouTube I've ever used.
|
| https://github.com/mps-youtube/mps-youtube
|
| - Runs without any browser at all.
|
| - From a console.
|
| - Without video, if you so specify.
|
| - Enables full search, can be limited to music posts only,
| includes both content and account search. That is, you can search
| for content matching terms, or for a username / account matching
| a term. Also playlists IIRC.
|
| - Can play based on a given account's videos / postings.
|
| - Individual items can be saved to a queue. Those may be
| ephemeral (session-only), or saved to disk.
|
| - Content can be downloaded if preferred.
|
| - No YouTube account required, no play history on YouTube.
|
| The only feature missing that I can recall is the ability to
| blacklist specific accounts. A chief problem with clickbait,
| propaganda, baiting, and radicalisation channel proliferation is
| that _the activities carry little risk_. Yes, YouTube itself
| occasionally removes high-profile cases, but people themselves
| cannot say "never show me anything from this source again", at
| least last I checked. Curation of sources, and killing high-noise
| sources, continues to be my most effective techique for boosting
| S/N.
|
| That said, mps-youtube was and remains the best interface I've
| found for searching for, curating, and managing online video
| access to my interests and without any tracking or ads, both of
| which have massive negative social externalities. I'd used it
| fairly extensively for my own preferred use of the site: finding
| lectures (and occasionally book-readings or similar content), and
| queuing up playlists or downloading archives of those. Works on
| absolutely minimal hardware.
|
| YouTube apparently did all they could to kill this, and have
| largely succeeded.
| crazypython wrote:
| I use mpv. You can paste a YouTube link directly into mpv and
| it will start streaming.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| As do I.
|
| The key difference is that with mpv, content discovery is
| external. With mps-youtube, you're using the console tool
| itself to discover, curate, archive, generate playlists,
| _and_ play back media.
|
| With mpv, you have to have the URL to hand it _first_.
|
| To mpv's advantage:
|
| - It works on a wide range of sources, unlike mps-youtube
| which is specific to YouTube
|
| - You can often throw the URL of a page _containing_ the
| media in question and have mpv automatically detect and
| extract the correct media entry. (This works less often than
| I 'd like, and I have some curl | sed one-liners which I
| throw at numerous cases, often starting from:
| curl -s <URL> | grep '\.mp3' | tr [,<>] '\n' | grep '\.mp3'
|
| That will at least provide a candidate list of media.
|
| (There may well be better queries, this works in a sufficient
| number of cases and is reasonably easily adapted in the
| shell.)
| mcrittenden wrote:
| For what it's worth, I built something very similar to this and
| it ran for 7 years until Google shut it down for violating the
| terms of service. Here's a blog post I wrote with specifics, I
| case it also applies to your service.
| https://critter.blog/2020/08/04/a-farewell-to-toogles/
| animesh wrote:
| I remember your project. It was written in AngularJS then to
| showcase its power. It was a very refreshing demo. Good luck.
| Jgrubb wrote:
| My very first thought was "wonder how long before YouTube shuts
| this down somehow"..
|
| Also, old drupal crew represent
| gopiandcode wrote:
| I think the difference here is that Piped is using a custom
| backend server (piped-backend) which scrapes youtube html to
| obtain the video content/metadata (a-la invidious), while your
| app was using the youtube API. Google is allowed to shut your
| app down, but AFAIK can't police who can and can't consume
| their publicly available HTML.
| zibzab wrote:
| Oh, they definitely try to shut down these products by
| constantly changing the page structure or using javascript to
| obfuscate things:
|
| https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/3951
| everyone wrote:
| I'm in the EU and many youtube videos show up as age restricted
| for me. The existing normal workarounds for this (nsfwtube, vlc,
| mpv, send google random id image) dont seem to work for me
| anymore here. I was left with 2 options. 1. Give google my real
| id (which I will never do in a million years) 2. Download each
| video in its entirety using youtube downloader site, then watch
| it, which is inconvenient.
|
| I ended up building a simple desktop program that can stream
| youtube videos while also bypassing the age thing.
| Y_Y wrote:
| My Google account will be 18 in about six months. I have a
| crazy dream that they'll remove my age restriction then. Never
| mind that I've got things like paid GCP on that account.
|
| It's bizzare though, that it could be required (legally) for me
| to send some company a copy of my idea to see e.g. acrime
| documentary.
| gundmc wrote:
| Normally using the embedded video URL bypasses age
| restrictions. Did the new EU law change that?
| everyone wrote:
| apparently yes. Age restricted videos cant be embedded. you
| just get a black box saying to watch on youtube.
| moneywoes wrote:
| How did you go about building that?
| everyone wrote:
| Sorry, I dont wanna say in public in case youtube also close
| off this loophole.
| Reubend wrote:
| While I can easily understand people's aversion to tracking and
| advertisements, I think projects like this are really
| unsustainable. Storing videos, transcoding them, and then using
| large amounts of bandwidth to serve them isn't free; it's fair
| that YT is showing ads to make up for that.
|
| I would add that if you hate advertisements, you can pay for
| YouTube Red or whatever they call it, and remove them. I think
| that's a good compromise: either you use it for free with ads, or
| you pay to remove them.
| Beldin wrote:
| Given previous incidents where renowned sites spread malware
| via ads (eg. bbc), accepting ads on your system is simply
| unacceptable from a security point of view.
|
| I've never heard of anyone being reimbursed by a website that
| unwittingly infected them. Websites that take responsibility
| for their ads, that's different. But those are very few and
| very far between.
|
| Right now, surfing without an adblocker is like going to a
| swinger party vowing not to use condoms. (Actually, I think
| your browser is already intimite with more domains upon one
| average visit to one average website than that...)
|
| So: block ads. It's basic Internet hygiene.
| mario_lopez wrote:
| This is my preferred option: Simply pay (in the worst case, a
| subscription, in the best case, a one-time fee) to get rid of
| the ads. If I spend more than 10 hours a week on a platform
| (e.g. YouTube, Reddit, Twitch), I will gladly pay to keep the
| ads away.
|
| I only wish Gmail gave me the option to do this.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It just sucks to know that even premium paying subscribers
| still get surveilled as aggressively as the free users. It's
| the same with Spotify, major news outlets, financial
| institutions, etc.
| pg5 wrote:
| I switched from Gmail to using a Microsoft O365 business
| subscription with my personal domain name. I don't like the
| UX or the fact I can't append +<any string> to my address to
| have infinite test emails, but at least I'm paying for a
| product instead of being the product.
| macintux wrote:
| > I only wish Gmail gave me the option to do this.
|
| That's why I pay Fastmail: no ads, and no data harvesting.
| roenxi wrote:
| Given the direction Google is heading, it is quite unlikely
| but not unthinkable that they'll start locking the accounts
| / blocking the emails of people who spread
| "misinformation".
|
| It is a good time to have a commercial relationship with an
| email service. Less likely for politics to get involved.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also a FastMail user. I don't want to give a single dollar
| or as impression to Google.
| dudus wrote:
| Apparently there's a new version called google workspace
| individual. You keep an @gmail account pay a fee for some
| extra features.
|
| https://workspace.google.com/individual/
|
| Not sure if it's fully launched yet.
| mkmk wrote:
| Calendly replacement, designed email templates, and video
| call collaboration features for $8/mo... interesting! So
| accustomed to Google's "everything is free" approach that
| I'm curious to see how this does.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| My Gmail has been throwing up a "Workspace" splash screen
| when it launches. I think I'm paying a few dollars a year
| for Drive storage, so maybe they rolled me in to that.
| dudus wrote:
| I have that too but it's just google One. A different
| thing that only gives you extra storage, some photo
| editing features and some support.
|
| Google workspace individual seems like a different thing.
| Kinda confusing to be honest.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Neat. How long until they abruptly shut it down, though?
| cassonmars wrote:
| Doesn't fix the problem where when you make all the
| services you depend on use your gmail address for
| validation and Google arbitrarily decides to shut your
| account down with no recourse or contact to resolve it,
| you're just screwed. Stop letting Google eat the web.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Do not buy any kind of gmail add on, subscription service,
| or anything.
|
| I did, and when Gmail turned off my billing (for my own
| protection), I lost the ability to send and receive emails,
| because I was exceeding my drive quota by 1,200%.
|
| I have to send them a passport photo (my ID is expired) and
| hope that they bless me with the ability to pay for
| additional storage again. But I realized it's safer not to
| pay for anything.
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| Trying to figure out why "Individual" is $7.99/month, but
| "Business Starter" is $6.00/month. I see Business Starter
| is 30GB of storage. There's no figure cited for the
| Individual plan that I can see.
|
| You do need a domain for Business Starter, but that cost
| would be less than the savings over the Individual plan.
| guu wrote:
| "Business Starter" accounts are a different category of
| account that can't join or create a family (To share
| YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, etc). Also, if you stop
| paying your email account gets suspended.
|
| Individual is a "normal" Google account and doesn't
| increase your storage from the default 15GB or support
| custom domains. But if you stop paying you still have a
| valid @gmail account and just lose access to the
| additional features.
| tyingq wrote:
| >Also, if you stop paying your email account gets
| suspended.
|
| "Business Starter" uses your own domain... _" Custom
| email with your domain"_. So, yes, you would need to
| export the emails, but you retain your email address.
| zouhair wrote:
| Beside ads the main problem I have with Youtube on my Desktop
| is I hate watching videos on a browser. I prefer using a
| dedicated video player like MPV.
| bogwog wrote:
| > I would add that if you hate advertisements, you can pay for
| YouTube Red or whatever they call it, and remove them. I think
| that's a good compromise: either you use it for free with ads,
| or you pay to remove them.
|
| The problem with that logic is that people don't just hate ads,
| they hate and/or distrust Google.
|
| People are not going to give money to a company they hate
| and/or distrust if they can avoid it. That's why it's important
| for businesses to not engage in unethical behavior/things their
| customers hate.
|
| Of course, in Google's case (and peers), they're largely immune
| to market forces thanks to years of anti-competitive behavior.
| So the consequences of being evil/unethical/shitty/etc are
| usually minor or non-existent.
|
| That's exactly why projects like this are good. Because it's
| the only way (a tiny subset of) consumers have (a negligible
| amount of) power to have an impact on bad business practices,
| since the usual "vote with your wallet" tactic doesn't work.
|
| And if creators lose ad revenue because people use a project
| like this, well, tough luck. In the short term, some of those
| might make less money or go out of business, but if this ends
| up changing (or bankrupting!) youtube, it will ultimately help
| creators in the long run if it means new business opportunities
| once the monopoly is gone and/or some of that bargaining power
| goes back to the consumers.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| The emphasis of the project seems to be privacy, rather than
| ad-blocking, although it does block ads. The two are often
| intertwined.
| Terretta wrote:
| The cost to subscriber is out of line with the expense to
| provider.
|
| Same is true of digital newspapers, magazines, etc., the
| subscription fees are way out of proportion to what they made
| from ads per reader in print or made in CPM online.
|
| While this might not matter for one publisher, it prevents
| users from accepting pay-for-use as an alternative model across
| the range of media they consume unless through an aggregate
| subscription like the one acquired by Apple.
|
| (While on the subject, the various ad-free streaming providers
| litter the offerings with more and more ads to the point you
| can't trust your shows will indeed be ad free. It's hard to say
| if this is on purpose to undermine and kill that model or not.)
| mkroman wrote:
| Unfortunately YouTube Premium is an extremely expensive
| solution just to remove ads :(
| npteljes wrote:
| Under which economy could it be considered expensive?
| jraph wrote:
| Well, I'm not fond of Google and I'm not willing to run it's
| proprietary code. I'd pay for the video hosting service but I'm
| actively avoiding Google in my life and would rather avoid
| giving it money. I also don't like ads and tracking. I'd
| normally boycott a Google service but YouTube is where the
| content is (network effect).
|
| These alternative frontends at least avoid part of the tracking
| (ads are already taken care of by uBlock Origin anyway) and the
| non-free Javascript code. With respect to the business model, I
| don't feel especially guilty, Google has way too much money and
| power and I'd rather have an unsustainable YouTube replaced by
| a federation of PeerTube instances with a power diluted across
| these instances.
|
| These alternative frontends could be seen as a temporary,
| partial solution while YouTube is up.
|
| On the technical side, they are way easier on underpowered
| devices than YouTube proper, including the PinePhone.
| 908087 wrote:
| You can pay for "ad-free" Youtube, but that still doesn't stop
| them from tracking your behavior/usage.
| spiderice wrote:
| I don't think many people argue it is unfair for YouTube to
| show ads. They argue it is wrong for them to be tracked
| aggressively across the web.
|
| So where is the front end I can use to still give YouTube ad
| views without being tracked? I'm saying this as a YT premium
| subscriber.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The frontend that does this is youtube.com
|
| You can completely, 100% opt out of personalized ads. Go to
| https://adssettings.google.com/ (edit to fix url)
| ffffwe3rq352y3 wrote:
| I don't want to make a google account so they still track
| me ;(
| mgraczyk wrote:
| You can still opt out even without an account. The opt-
| out will be remembered until you clear your browser
| history.
|
| https://adssettings.google.com/
| ffffwe3rq352y3 wrote:
| Hey thanks! I've seen that link thrown around a million
| times but I've just dismissed it. I appreciate you
| actually finding a useful one for me!
| pabs3 wrote:
| Did you mean cookies instead of history?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| yes
| gizdan wrote:
| I clear all cookies up to 5 minutes after I've closed a
| site. I get asked to give my life away everytime I open
| youtube with no way to just block the request as it used to
| be possible. To make matters worse, I am unable to select
| that I don't want to be tracked because when I select
| "Agree", it simply goes to YouTube, when I select to opt
| out it goes to Google's tracking servers which are blocked
| across my home network because I don't want to be tracked.
| So I'm left with no choice to press agree, or alternatively
| I can simply use an alternative backend.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Not to mention the extra cognitive load in dealing with
| all these opt-outs and configurable cookie settings.
| Everyone one of them is different, everyone of them is
| located somewhere else, and there is no sensible way to
| simply say to websites, with a single checkbox in your
| browser: I don't want to be tracked.
|
| Well there was of course; the do-not-track header.
|
| So now we fight back with ad-blockers and other privacy
| preserving tricks (like clearing cookies) to keep our
| sanity and make our compiled profiles a lot less valuable
| (although Google will probably still profit from it by
| pretending I do see ads and are influenced).
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Personally it's very convenient for me, because I never
| have to opt out of anything. Nothing bad has ever
| happened to me and as a person who knows how the targeted
| ads business works, I'm confident in saying that nothing
| ever will. It's seriously liberating and worth
| considering.
| spiderice wrote:
| If you think "nothing bad has happened to me personally
| due to aggressive tracking measures" is at all a
| reasonable argument, then I can only assume you are
| incredibly ignorant on the implications of it. I don't
| despise tracking because I'm afraid Google is interested
| in me personally. But the implications at a societal
| level are ENOURMOUS.
|
| When you have data on one person, you can sell them ads.
| When you have data on everybody, you can change
| elections, culture, and widespread opinions as you see
| fit. Even if that isn't being abused today (which it
| probably is) the fact the Google has the capability of
| doing that one day is scary enough that we absolutely
| shouldn't let the practice continue.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Do you have an example? IMO the benefits massively
| outweigh the downsides. Swaying elections has been done
| historically with newspaper and television. Fox news is
| still far, far more influential than Facebook for
| political opinion. Why is this different?
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Ok but just try not doing that and maybe you'll find that
| life is way better?
| gizdan wrote:
| I'll do that once websites stop tracking me. I guess
| that's never.
| bryan0 wrote:
| You're conflating "tracking" with "personalized ads"
| just-ok wrote:
| Tracking (or "personalization") should always be opt-in.
| judge2020 wrote:
| That's just an issue with it being associate with Google,
| though - recommendations are based on your viewing habits and
| that's done server-side. Most people use recommendations at
| least somewhat, and don't find absolutely all of the videos
| via just the subscription and search features.
| lancesells wrote:
| Think of how different everything would be if YouTube wasn't
| a part of Google. They would no doubt have ads but the entire
| Google universe wouldn't have access to the viewing habits of
| 2 billion people.
| Pako wrote:
| It also probably wouldn't exist anymore. last time I heard
| anything about it YouTube was in the red and only sustained
| with income from other Google services. (I might be wrong
| on that, if so please correct me)
| ExtraE wrote:
| Haven't checked if this is a reputable source, but:
|
| https://www.tubics.com/blog/youtube-revenue/
| IX-103 wrote:
| I heard that Google was able to get it to break even
| after a substantial investment to improve efficiency
| (custom ASICs for transcoding, machine learning models
| for prioritizing allocation of storage and computing
| resources).
|
| I think I agree that it probably wouldn't exist. Not very
| many companies would invest that much to just to break
| even.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is the tracking part not a cover argument? For me I went full
| adblock because forms of ads became obnoxious and contents
| unpleasant.
|
| I wouldn't mind being manipulated into buying a clunky life
| improvement gadget that I use exactly once as much as being
| forced to watch a guy screaming at me for 15 seconds. On
| second thought, isn't the latter straight up jumpscare?
| blondin wrote:
| > They argue it is wrong for them to be tracked aggressively
| across the web.
|
| sums it up.
|
| a long time believer of seeing ads here. that way, i don't
| have to subscribe to bazillion of platforms i tend to visit.
| but this view started to shift when i started seeing ads from
| my alma mater's football team everywhere. the "why am i
| seeing this ad" link told me that "i gave my information to
| the advertiser".
|
| of course i did, i went to school there!
| antonzabirko wrote:
| I don't think fairness has anything to do with the endless push
| to drive profits higher. Which is what youtube must do.
| gopiandcode wrote:
| I'd argue that it's unfair for Google to use their market power
| in search to subsidise their video hosting products, thereby
| limiting the number of competitors, and then start forcing
| people to participate in their unethical privacy invasive ad
| network to consume video content online. Using services like
| this is a way to protest that injustice.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| How is it unfair that they invest their legitimately obtained
| profits into a new business? The people who are unsatisfied
| with this don't know how hard it is to launch a search engine
| and plan wisely for the future they enjoy today. Just start a
| new search engine and then you can spend your money as you
| want, as you too are entitled to the sweat of your brow, just
| as Page and the other giants of our time are.
| mst wrote:
| The term for this is "predatory pricing" and was a big part
| of e.g. legal cases against Standard Oil who used it to
| crush competitors.
| root_axis wrote:
| The distinguishing quality of predatory pricing is that
| it's an unsustainable tactic used to push competitors out
| of the market before raising prices at a later time. It's
| not predatory pricing if the price never changes and in
| the case of YouTube the price to consumers has always
| been free, even before it was owned by Google.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Replacce "unfair" with "detrimental to the ecosystem" then.
| We'll never get good alternatives if they have to compete
| with a player with infinite money.
|
| IRL dumping is illegal, arguably we are in a similar
| situation.
| netr0ute wrote:
| If you can't afford to keep videos with ads, then your business
| is junk to begin with.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I can appreciate this, but isn't one of YouTube's biggest selling
| points its recommendations?
|
| I really _don 't_ want to see what is trending for YouTube's
| primary demographic, because I'm certainly not in it.
| korla wrote:
| For me the biggest selling point is that the content I like is
| on YouTube. Everything else I can do without.
|
| I consume it through their RSS, which is nice, I suppose.
| cobertos wrote:
| Do you subscribe to individual channel RSS feeds
| independently or do you have a way to get your subscription
| list as an RSS feed?
|
| I've been needing to do something like this for a while.
| 333c wrote:
| I wrote a custom tool that automatically pulls in videos
| from channels I've "subscribed" to via RSS.
|
| I suppose if I used RSS for anything else I could have just
| plugged those feeds into my RSS reader, but YouTube is the
| only thing I use it for.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I can appreciate this, but isn't one of YouTube's biggest
| selling points its recommendations?
|
| Not for me. I get very poor recommendations. I rarely look at
| that section of the page, and am usually disappointed when I
| do.
| andrewzah wrote:
| That's the trending tab. But your main page is tailored based
| on the videos that you clicked on or watched.
|
| I just listen to specific genres of music so my recommendations
| are all great.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| When you see the front page without being locked in, that can
| be pretty jarring, and to me a little insulting that they would
| show this crap to anyone.
|
| But for me the value is that if I need to know or see how
| anything is done, learn about anything I like, hear any song or
| rewatch any news clip I can find it on youtube.
|
| Unless you mean to also cover related videos in
| recommendations. Those are normally pretty useful.
| raspyberr wrote:
| YouTube's biggest selling point is the size of its library.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| No, their recommendations to me are their worst selling point.
| The recommendations I get must be paid promotions cause they
| are nothing like the things I watch, and seem to be clickbait.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Not sure what you're doing then, because my recommendations
| are great and never clickbait. My only problem is they're too
| much like what I've already been watching, rather than a
| little deviation from it.
|
| Another part of it is that clickbait YouTubers continue to
| push clickbait and are associated with other clickbait. Just
| don't watch anything from them, and you tend to get less
| clickbait overall, because your recommendations are more
| likely to come from less trashy sources.
| drusepth wrote:
| Whenever I aggressively clear search/watch history, delete
| YouTube browsing data, watch incognito, and/or try to protect
| my "privacy" from YouTube, the recommendations unsurprisingly
| turn into complete drivel.
|
| Unsurprisingly, if I just watch what I like watching from the
| official UI, with history turned on, without removing
| searches, etc, the algorithm invariably just shows me more
| like what I've watched and works very well.
| raspyberr wrote:
| I wish mpv/youtube-dl worked with this. I often like watching
| videos from the terminal and piped URLs don't work through
| mpv/youtube-dl
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The site claims
|
| > No connections to Google's servers
|
| How does that work? Proxying the video would be prohibitively
| expensive.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Minitube is open source and uses Qt, so it is extremely fast.
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