[HN Gopher] Yt-dlp - A YouTube-dl fork with additional features ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Yt-dlp - A YouTube-dl fork with additional features and fixes
        
       Author : makeworld
       Score  : 752 points
       Date   : 2021-08-26 19:42 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | Y_Y wrote:
       | So how come a fork was necessary?
        
         | ozarkerD wrote:
         | Devs on yt-dl have been inactive for a few months iirc
        
           | julienpalard wrote:
           | Does not look inactive to me: https://github.com/ytdl-
           | org/youtube-dl/graphs/contributors
        
             | nannal wrote:
             | Jun 29, 2021 - Aug 26, 2021: 0 commits
        
             | rtkwe wrote:
             | It does look like there's little activity in the last
             | couple months and none in the last almost 2 months.
        
           | MrDOS wrote:
           | For longer than that. 846 open PRs, 3.7k open issues. And
           | this long predates the GitHub takedown debacle. This isn't to
           | say that they're totally AWOL: they do a really good job
           | keeping on top of the boring break/fix work, like keeping on
           | top of the ever-changing interfaces of video providers. But
           | they're very conservative about expanding functionality, and
           | even fixing more minor bugs.
        
             | nonbirithm wrote:
             | And they've closed many issues as duplicates with no
             | further explanation given:
             | 
             | https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/23860
        
               | rovr138 wrote:
               | Have they been duplicates?
        
               | nonbirithm wrote:
               | The linked issue contains several issues describing the
               | same problem, but what I meant to say was that _which_
               | duplicate they were of was never made clear. The
               | maintainers seemed to assume that everyone knew what it
               | was and never provided a link to the original issue.
        
           | SevenSigs wrote:
           | my youtube-dl still works fine for youtube.com but I haven't
           | tested many other supported sites...
        
           | the-dude wrote:
           | Wasn't the repo taken down for a while?
        
             | banana_giraffe wrote:
             | Yes, but it was brought back on November 16, 2020, and
             | there was plenty of activity after that, till this recent
             | drought of dead air.
        
         | kunagi7 wrote:
         | youtube-dl has been inactive for the last 2 months.
         | 
         | Most things still work but support of different services is
         | something that needs daily updates to not break. Even if most
         | popular websites still work, pages like Newgrounds are
         | breaking.
         | 
         | There's 3.7k open issues right now and nothing gets merged [0].
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues
        
           | krick wrote:
           | It's really stupid that this stuff still happens. I mean,
           | youtube-dl main devs are stepping away, it's understandable.
           | But it would be so much more convenient for everyone, if it
           | was passed over to somebody, who is still interested (yt-dlp
           | devs?) instead of ending up as a bunch of forks nobody knows
           | about, and a dead project everyone continues to use. Just
           | think about how many apps and scripts have youtube-dl
           | hardcoded somewhere in them.
        
           | executesorder66 wrote:
           | But still, why a fork? Why not contribute to the original
           | project?
           | 
           | Why not ask for maintainership if you need it?
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | Fairly unrelated but I've always gotten a kick out of the NSFW
       | issues that users report on youtube-dl's page.
        
       | database64128 wrote:
       | I just updated my youtube-dl GUI to support yt-dlp.
       | 
       | https://github.com/database64128/youtube-dl-wpf
       | 
       | Currently it's WPF based and therefore only supports Windows. I'm
       | considering porting it to Avalonia so I can also use it on my
       | Linux desktop.
       | 
       | The reason I made this GUI is mostly for manual format selection.
       | The automatic 'bestvideo+bestaudio/best' doesn't always result in
       | the best format combination. So I always select AV1 + Opus
       | manually and use the WebM container. The GUI also includes some
       | opinionated defaults like embedding metadata, thumbnail,
       | subtitles.
        
       | thomasfl wrote:
       | Why can't YouTube and Alphabet simply provide a download button
       | or a public API? When you are running the worlds largest digital
       | museum of rare video footage, you have some obligations to the
       | society.
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | Apparently, copyright law makes this an unwise proposition. But
         | the least they could do is offer the Internet Archive with some
         | privileged access so all this can be mirrored and viewed when
         | it's out of copyright in 80 years.
        
           | caractacus wrote:
           | It's not copyright law, it's the agreements that YT has with
           | copyright owners. No one is going to license their content to
           | YT if the site allows anyone to download whatever is there.
        
             | selfhoster11 wrote:
             | If it wasn't for copyright law, there wouldn't be copyright
             | owners. So copyright law is ultimately responsible for the
             | status quo.
        
           | alerighi wrote:
           | They could at least let you download videos for which the
           | author specified a free license, such as Creative Commons, or
           | videos that are public domain. There are a lot of these
           | videos so why not?
        
             | thomasfl wrote:
             | Just discovered that several video sharing sites, like
             | pexels.com, have a download button on videos with creative
             | commons license. They are off course useless for
             | professional YouTubers, but great for everybody else.
        
         | gmemstr wrote:
         | Can't run ads on them, and you risk lawsuits of all kind if you
         | let people easily download copyrighted content. They aren't
         | running a museum, it just happens to be the largest video
         | sharing platform on the planet.
        
           | hansel_der wrote:
           | > it just happens to be the largest video sharing platform on
           | the planet.
           | 
           | china might want to disagree
        
             | caractacus wrote:
             | No chance. YT has 2bn+ unique logins a month. China only
             | has 800m internet users max. Further the video streaming
             | landscape in China is much more fragmented than outside the
             | country where YT is dominant.
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | Love it.
       | 
       | The question, especially for the folks around here.
       | 
       | When Github _eventually_ takes a stronger stand against this sort
       | of thing, because it is 100% going to happen, are folks going to
       | properly fight it?
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | They were DMCAed, they got bad press out of it, they eventually
         | stood up for the developer in exchange for a token concession
         | (deleting test data that referred to copyrighted music and was
         | named in the complaint):
         | https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo...
         | , and reversed the takedown unilaterally (which would mean the
         | claimant could take github/microsoft to court if they felt like
         | it).
         | 
         | Whether it's a matter of principles or just the bad press from
         | the initial takedown is less clear, but I think it'll be a
         | while before they re litigate this issue.
        
           | totetsu wrote:
           | I still can't access my fork of YouTube DL with all my custom
           | plugin work on GitHub
        
             | kragen wrote:
             | Why not? Did you forget your GitHub password?
        
               | totetsu wrote:
               | They blocked everyones forks at the same time as the
               | original.
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | What does "blocked" mean? Is your fork still "blocked"?
        
               | totetsu wrote:
               | Blocked meant that when I tried to view my fork I got a
               | DMCA page. There were some instructions about how to
               | merge in the changes or something but I didn't have time
               | at the time.
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | Oh, so if you merge in the changes from the original repo
               | that remove the copyrighted music URL from the test data,
               | then your repository will work again?
        
               | totetsu wrote:
               | Yes I think that was the instructions. But I forgot where
               | I kept my local copy of the repo, and it was far behind
               | the current master head. I was just parsing wfmu playlist
               | to make track meta-data.. probably if I did it again I
               | would write it better anyway.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | jrm4 wrote:
           | Lawyer here. Forest/Trees, people. It may not ever come to
           | "litigation," there are so many other ways to make this
           | happen.
           | 
           | I suppose I should be a bit clearer. When Microsoft and the
           | big media people get together to try to make it go away, what
           | will be the the response?
        
             | Ruthalas wrote:
             | I suspect it will simply move to being hosted on gitlab or
             | similar. Less discoverable, but likely available.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | > _(which would mean the claimant could take github
           | /microsoft to court if they felt like it)_
           | 
           | I can't imagine that ever happening. But what I can imagine
           | is the media groups giving Microsoft a hard time on whatever
           | deals they have in the Xbox ecosystem, pressuring until
           | GitHub unilaterally reverses their reversal, or does
           | something else to satisfy them.
        
         | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
         | Against forking an inactive project? Why?
        
         | matheusmoreira wrote:
         | > are folks going to properly fight it?
         | 
         | I hope so. I would really like to see git hosting as a Tor
         | hidden service.
        
       | nebula8804 wrote:
       | Thanks for this post! First I am hearing about this fork!
       | 
       | Darn...unfortunately still can't download Joe Rogan Spotify.
       | Guess they haven't found a way around the widevine
       | encryption...(Right now it seems like only a few podcasts are
       | encrypted so other Spotify streams work)
        
         | pabs3 wrote:
         | I wonder if it would work with this:
         | 
         | https://github.com/cryptonek/widevine-l3-decryptor
        
         | nerdponx wrote:
         | It's always strange to think that there is encrypted data
         | flowing through my software, through my operating system, into
         | my hardware, that somehow I, the user, I am unable to access,
         | but that the hardware can handle just fine.
         | 
         | How does this work?
        
           | kuschku wrote:
           | You can access it just fine. It's just processed by very
           | obfuscated code that constantly changes.
        
           | lights0123 wrote:
           | With Widevine L3, it does send your OS unencrypted data.
           | You're free to screen record videos or audio record e.g.
           | PulseAudio Monitor channels of your speakers. You just can't
           | easily convert it to a DRM-free format at speeds faster than
           | realtime.
        
           | colejohnson66 wrote:
           | One way is x86. Intel's chips have SGX (software guard
           | extensions) that allows code to run in "enclaves" that
           | outside code can't access. You can send data into the enclave
           | and read what it spits out, but you can't inspect (debug) it.
        
           | joshspankit wrote:
           | HDCP is one method, as are the "safeguards" built in to the
           | audio and video APIs on macOS (to protect them from losing
           | revenue by recording iTunes Music (before they removed DRM)
           | or screen capturing new movies (thus threatening the
           | contracts with Hollywood).
        
             | aero-glide2 wrote:
             | The OS prevents you from screen recording when a new movie
             | is playing? You can still use a third party tool to screen
             | record right?
        
               | Arnavion wrote:
               | >The OS prevents you from screen recording when a new
               | movie is playing?
               | 
               | Yes.
               | 
               | >You can still use a third party tool to screen record
               | right?
               | 
               | The third-party tool is as stymied by the OS / video
               | driver's API for screen capture as the first-party tool.
        
               | aero-glide2 wrote:
               | I have no words. Wow.
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Right. This is not just Mac OS, same thing can happen on
               | Windows. Modern media DRMing sometimes involves bypassing
               | your OS entirely[0]. Audio/video streams have special
               | hardware paths through the CPU and GPU. HDCP uses
               | encryption to create a safe pipe between the incoming
               | stream and your monitor, so the data can't be snooped on
               | or modified mid-flight. Etc.
               | 
               | --
               | 
               | [0] - Or at least almost entirely, I suspect at least the
               | kernel must get involved somehow. Otherwise Widevine
               | support wouldn't be an issue on Linux the way it is (or
               | was).
        
       | weq wrote:
       | Im going to claim original idea that all these other downloders
       | built off ~2006
       | 
       | still get k's of downloads a day even though its been 15yrs since
       | the last update
       | 
       | https://sourceforge.net/projects/gvdownloader/files/
        
         | totoglazer wrote:
         | Is Google video still live somewhere?
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | See https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Google_Video and
           | https://archive.org/details/googlevideo2011
        
       | Ansil849 wrote:
       | So does anyone know what happened to youtube-dl? Development
       | seems to have just abruptly ceased with no explanation.
        
         | dwrodri wrote:
         | I wouldn't be surprised if the drama surrounding the DMCA
         | takedown issued on the main git repository scared away a lot of
         | contributors.
         | 
         | Here's some coverage from the EFF, in case you missed it:
         | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/github-reinstates-yout...
        
           | arp242 wrote:
           | Quite the opposite; number of contributions increased:
           | https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/graphs/contributors
           | 
           | Just seems a case of the same what usually happens: main
           | author loses interest, has other stuff to do, etc. and no one
           | really takes up the slack.
        
             | Mathnerd314 wrote:
             | Also there are a lot of PRs that got ignored. A fair amount
             | of the stuff in yt-dlp is just merging PRs from yt-dl.
        
       | Bellamy wrote:
       | I pay for YouTube premium, but this beautiful piece of software
       | automatically strips out the commercials from the videos and it
       | seems I can download any video from YouTube even without logging
       | in. My question is the following:
       | 
       | What is benefit of setting my credentials to the config file?
        
         | ObscureScience wrote:
         | From the description I understood it as better quality audio
         | stream.
        
         | scns wrote:
         | I would highly advise against that, after all the stories about
         | G accounts suspended without explanation && recourse.
        
       | polote wrote:
       | Why don't they split youtube-dl in two parts:
       | 
       | - The extractors part (all the scrappers basically)
       | 
       | - The cli tool
       | 
       | What would be wonderful is that the extractors part is splitted
       | out, so that anyone can use it without using youtube-dl. That
       | would be much easier to update it too, each extractor is
       | independent, so it is only a question, does this scrapper
       | (extractor) works or not.
       | 
       | The next step would be to have a multi-language format to
       | describe a scrapper, instead of being coded in Python. But no
       | idea if this is possible or maybe that would make things much
       | more complex
        
         | FiloSottile wrote:
         | That is mostly already the case, you can invoke the extractors
         | through the Python API or through the CLI and do the download
         | yourself.
         | 
         | Extractors regularly require custom logic, so they can't be
         | described in anything else than a programming language.
        
           | polote wrote:
           | Being two different projects has advantages, especially when
           | one part (need to) moves much faster.
           | 
           | The fact that some requires custom logic doesn't prove that
           | you need a programming language, it is just custom logic
           | compared to the standard framework.
        
             | colejohnson66 wrote:
             | If you're implementing custom logic, why not just make it
             | easy on yourself and use a proper programming language.
             | Trying to invent custom logic systems gives us cmake.
        
         | aexl wrote:
         | I have proposed this some years ago (https://github.com/ytdl-
         | org/youtube-dl/issues/14646), but it didn't get much attention
         | from the maintainers. It has been previously rejected in 2013
         | already (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/1185).
        
           | colethedj wrote:
           | yt-dlp does support "3rd party extractors" (in the form of
           | plugins): https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#plugins
        
       | codetrotter wrote:
       | Not currently available for installation via Homebrew for macOS,
       | as opposed to youtube-dl and youtube-dlc both of which can be
       | installed via Homebrew.
       | 
       | However, there is an open pull request for it from just a few
       | hours ago https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/84049
       | 
       | So here's to hoping it'll be available there soon :D
        
       | gillytech wrote:
       | This is going to cost me karma but don't waste your time with Joe
       | Rogan.
        
         | _arvin wrote:
         | Don't tell people what to do. People don't watch JRE for Joe
         | (mostly), but for more his guests. Not only that, Joe is great
         | and you're a hater. Try harder. He's not perfect but you likely
         | sure aren't either. Rogan podcast is fine and I recommend it.
        
           | gillytech wrote:
           | > Try harder.
           | 
           | See my response to nebula8804
        
             | _arvin wrote:
             | Keep up the great censorship, HN. Real noble.
        
               | _arvin wrote:
               | I should tell Paul Graham about this.
        
             | _arvin wrote:
             | My comment got 3 downvotes. I'm devastated. I'm not looking
             | at your comment. Not interested.
             | 
             | I have formed an already solid opinion on Joe Rogan. I'm 35
             | years old, I don't you to help me form it.
        
             | _arvin wrote:
             | Oh no. Another downvote. Devastated. Make it stop.
             | 
             | This upvote/downvote system is broken. Flawed system. Have
             | fun, mods.
        
             | _arvin wrote:
             | I beg you. Stop. Who's flagging this stuff? What am I
             | saying that's terrible wrong? Nice censorship, HN.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Please don't take HN threads on tedious flamewar tangents.
         | 
         | (Also, please don't downvote-bait or whatever that first bit
         | was. Also tedious, and actually against the guidelines:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - see the
         | second-from-last...)
         | 
         | We detached this subthread from
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28321103.
        
           | gillytech wrote:
           | 10-4.
           | 
           | Can't blame you for keeping HN tidy. I honestly wasn't trying
           | to bait anyone and definitely didn't expect that crazy
           | tangent. Will hold my tongue on off topic quips in the
           | future. Thanks for the tip on the community guidelines!
        
             | dang wrote:
             | Appreciated!
        
         | nebula8804 wrote:
         | I enjoy some of his podcasts. Yeah some are a waste of time but
         | many have been spectacular.
        
           | sovnade wrote:
           | Joe's interviews with some people are excellent. He more or
           | less lets them talk for an hour straight, something they
           | probably rarely get to do. It gives you much more insight
           | into a person than a quick 2 minute TV interview or sound
           | byte.
           | 
           | But lately he's anti-vaxx, conspiracy theory, and peddling
           | nonsense that's going to get people killed. It's no longer
           | worth listening to.
        
           | gillytech wrote:
           | To be fair I would agree with you that some of his guests are
           | great (e.g. Quentin Tarantino) and I do enjoy the long-form
           | interviewing. But Rogan himself, to me, gives off bad vibes.
           | Not really sincere or actually interested in his guests more
           | than he is interested in himself. I find he'll say he's
           | interested and come back with some show of how cultured and
           | learned he is by bringing some obscure minutiae. I think he
           | should be truly interested in his guest and put them in the
           | spotlight.
           | 
           | Sorry to point out the truth but Joe himself is an
           | unaccomplished stoner and promotes lifestyle choices that are
           | repugnant to me. I would never trust him with my kids. So why
           | would I trust him with my time?
           | 
           | Others do a much better job of the long form interview and
           | have themselves provided some value to society on their own
           | merits. Tim Ferriss and Jordan Harbinger to name a couple.
        
             | dleslie wrote:
             | ... Unaccomplished?
             | 
             | I've done a lot in my life. Enough to be proud of myself,
             | if I may be so bold, but I'm nowhere near as accomplished
             | as Joe Rogan; irrespective of how I or others may feel
             | about him.
             | 
             | At the very least, he has impacted the lives of far more
             | people than I, and given a platform to many others to do
             | the same. I've impacted many, millions even, but I'm still
             | nowhere near his capacity for influence.
        
             | nebula8804 wrote:
             | Sorry that this whole thing spawned something we both
             | didn't expect.
             | 
             | Joe does look pretty hilarious these days. If you look at
             | pictures of him younger vs now he went from decent looking
             | italian showman to some alien humanoid. Becoming a
             | muscleman who works out for hours, plus tries crazy things
             | like his diet, pill regimen, and sitting in a sauna/ice
             | bath for an hour daily is something he wants to do and it
             | is his prerogative.
             | 
             | The only thing he really promotes heavily is for people to
             | lose weight and stop eating junk food. Yeah he does have
             | ads for Gatorade clone drinks but still I don't think he is
             | really implying people should adopt his whole routine. It
             | is easy to ignore and focus on the podcast content.
             | 
             | If you don't mind which lifestyle choices are you referring
             | to?
             | 
             | >Not really sincere or actually interested in his guests
             | more than he is interested in himself. I find he'll say
             | he's interested and come back with some show of how
             | cultured and learned he is by bringing some obscure
             | minutiae.
             | 
             | There have been a lot of podcasts where he has no freakin
             | clue how to add to the conversation so he tries to
             | contribute topic he does know about (comedy, MMA, working
             | out) but for the most part he sits and listens. For me if
             | the guest is not interesting or acting in bad faith, I shut
             | it off and move on with the understanding that I will
             | rarely miss any insight from Joe himself. If he is friends
             | with the person then I see a totally different vibe. I'm
             | not trying to convince you of anything, just stating my
             | observations.
             | 
             | At the end of the day he has repeatedly said that the
             | podcast is just supposed to be two people sitting around
             | "shooting the shit". In fact I only started listening in
             | mid 2020 just because of some guest that intrigued me. I
             | didn't even know who Joe Rogan was before that.
        
             | newbie789 wrote:
             | > Joe himself is an unaccomplished stoner...
             | 
             | This is an interesting take. I personally find Joe Rogan to
             | be an abhorrent human being that gives a platform to
             | pseudoscientists and white supremacists, but I've never
             | heard "his tens of millions of dollars are negated by the
             | fact that he smokes weed" as a criticism.
             | 
             | Out of curiosity, what value does Tim Ferris provide to
             | society? I'm not being sarcastic, I just only know him as
             | the guy that wrote the four hour work week book, which I
             | did not find substantive.
        
               | hunterb123 wrote:
               | Out of curiosity, who were the "psuedoscientists" and
               | "white supremacists" you're accusing Joe of giving a
               | platform to?
               | 
               | Slanderous accusation to just drop and not expand on.
               | 
               | Or is that what you call people that you don't agree with
               | their scientific or political beliefs?
        
               | newbie789 wrote:
               | Off the top of my head Alex Jones comes to mind as both,
               | but if we don't agree on him I doubt we'll agree on any
               | part of this topic.
        
               | hunterb123 wrote:
               | Probably not. I'm not for blacklisting people based on
               | their ideals and sanctioned topics.
               | 
               | I think you should talk people you disagree with, who
               | wants an echo chamber?
               | 
               | Fight misinformation with more information, not
               | censorship.
               | 
               | The laptop and lab leak censorship fiasco should have
               | been an awakening to that.
        
               | newbie789 wrote:
               | I didn't mention blacklisting. I said that I, as an
               | individual, do not like Joe Rogan. I personally do not
               | listen to his podcast, nor do I watch or listen to Alex
               | Jones.
               | 
               | Thank you for your suggestion about what I _should do_ ,
               | but I'll politely decline your request that I go out of
               | my way to consume media made by people I dislike in order
               | to reverse an arbitrary judgment of being in an "echo
               | chamber" from a stranger.
               | 
               | I'm happy stating my opinion and not being prescriptive.
               | I hope you enjoy whatever media you choose to consume.
        
               | dleslie wrote:
               | I thought it was telling that Rogan tends to pair Jones
               | with another guest who is ... obviously out to lunch. The
               | last time I saw he had AJ on he was sitting beside a flat
               | earther. Having the two together made both look as
               | ridiculous as they really are.
               | 
               | That said, he's had too many questionable dieticians,
               | anti-vaxxers, and such that he leaves unquestioned and
               | unchallenged. To say nothing of his poor history with
               | gender issues.
        
             | hunterb123 wrote:
             | Joe Rogan was a UFC interviewer & commentator, Fear Factor
             | host, and comedian. Not exactly an unaccomplished stoner.
             | All his jobs were great experience in interviewing people.
             | 
             | Everything you said is subjective. I don't really like him
             | as a person, but our personalities are different. His
             | interviews and podcasts are interesting because he lets the
             | guest talk, unlike many other hosts.
             | 
             | All in all I don't agree with your assessment. I'm sure
             | they people you listed are nice, but you could apply your
             | same shallow subjective critiques to them as well.
        
       | prvc wrote:
       | >yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork based on the now inactive youtube-
       | dlc. The main focus of this project is adding new features and
       | patches while also keeping up to date with the original project
       | 
       | yt-dlc's last commit was only 4 days ago, from the project owner.
       | What are the advantages of each, and what about other forks out
       | there?
        
         | sbarre wrote:
         | The README covers most of these questions FYI
        
           | prvc wrote:
           | The above quotation is from README.md in the yt-dlp
           | repository, which does list some differences, but I get the
           | sense this is not the full story.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | molticrystal wrote:
         | https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/commits/master
         | 
         | The previous update was July 25, and the one before that was
         | December 2020.
         | 
         | While the July update dealt with the updater, having 2 days of
         | small changes since December is not very active.
         | 
         | As far as the advantages, there are plenty of comments now
         | outlining them better than I could. For me there are many
         | additional sites that work with yt-dlp that do not work with
         | the other forks. I found myself using this fork more and more
         | instead of youtube-dl due to the additional support, until I've
         | now made it my default. It does have a compat mode so if you
         | use a lot of youtube-dl switches that yt-dlp may of removed or
         | depreciated in the cleanup, they will still usually work if
         | applicable with this fork as well.
        
       | Scaevolus wrote:
       | > NEW FEATURES
       | 
       | > Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted
       | from all major web browsers using --cookies-from-browser
       | BROWSER[:PROFILE]
       | 
       | Very nice. Having to manually copy cookies to get past login
       | walls is annoying.
        
         | mschuster91 wrote:
         | As much as I like this feature, it is _scary_ on the other side
         | how easy it is to essentially steal cookies - what yt-dlp can,
         | so can malware.
         | 
         | Why don't OSes have some sort of system-wide secret store
         | linked to an user's account (like the macOS Keychain) and an
         | application's code-signing certificate? That would at least
         | prevent easy file-dump attacks, moving the barrier to "execute
         | something in the browser process context" instead.
        
           | Popegaf wrote:
           | 1. Other OSes (at least linux) have user keychains.
           | 
           | 2. Once malware is running as your user, how do you expect to
           | protect against that even with a keychain? They can log all
           | your keystrokes, extract certificates and keys from
           | applications running as your user or anything your user has
           | access to, etc.
           | 
           | 3. How are you going to support different keychains on
           | different OSes? And what happens when they diverge? Say Apple
           | gets "brave" again and allows only Apple signed binaries to
           | access the keychain with the excuse of "user security", will
           | binaries have to roll their own keychain? Are you going to
           | make apps add another corporate dependency?
        
             | mschuster91 wrote:
             | > 2. Once malware is running as your user, how do you
             | expect to protect against that even with a keychain?
             | 
             | A kernel-backed mechanism could enforce that access to the
             | secret decryption syscalls can only be done from untampered
             | signed processes.
             | 
             | Assuming an user has a distinct login password they are not
             | using anywhere else and the public key of the codesign
             | certificate is part of the kernel-side secret, a malware
             | has _no chance_ of getting access to the secret, unless it
             | exploits a code execution vulnerability in the target
             | program.
             | 
             | > How are you going to support different keychains on
             | different OSes?
             | 
             | A minimal interface with three calls: 1) create/delete a
             | kernel-side secret, 2) encrypt a secret using a key derived
             | from the user's keychain and the application's public key,
             | 3) decrypt a secret using said key.
             | 
             | Android brings such an API (KeyStore), macOS' Keychain
             | should support something like that via its ACL feature.
             | Where additional work is needed is Windows (its DPAPI only
             | protects secrets from other users, apps can get other apps'
             | secrets by design to implement SSO) and Linux (which
             | doesn't have any way to verify in the kernel if an
             | application has a code signature).
             | 
             | Browsers and other apps wishing to protect secrets from
             | malware could use an abstraction layer that uses the best
             | available mechanism on each platform, the three operations
             | should be enough for this purpose.
        
           | q-rews wrote:
           | It's annoying that this has been downvoted because having
           | your identity in easily-readable files on your computer is
           | literally worse than saving passwords in a text file:
           | Passwords will prompt 2FA, notifications and whatnot; Cookies
           | might just work, albeit temporarily.
        
             | avhception wrote:
             | While I see the problem with malicious applications
             | pillaging your users home directory, let's not forget that
             | being able to tinker and hack together things is also one
             | of the greatest strengths of the desktop platform.
        
           | qqii wrote:
           | Linux does right? I believe this is how android works but you
           | can set something up manually by creating a seperate user and
           | changing the permissions on the browser cache/data folder,
           | then run the browser as one user and yt-dlp as a seperate
           | one.
           | 
           | There might be a more modern and streamlined solution for
           | Linux, but in Windows land they also introduced Controlled
           | Folder Access into defender.
        
           | fsflover wrote:
           | If you really need security through isolation, have a look at
           | Qubes OS.
        
           | Jenda_ wrote:
           | Run browser under different user.
           | 
           | And have a look at AppArmor.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | Oh yes, that's what I need as a user: files on my drive that
           | I can't read.
           | 
           | It's enough that I already can't read the data that's being
           | sent and received by my own computer, because of certificate
           | pinning.
        
         | 22c wrote:
         | I was recently looking for a library that did this and couldn't
         | find anything nice. I was surprised but also slightly
         | disappointed to see that yt-dlp has essentially rolled their
         | own (cookies.py [1]).
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
         | dlp/blob/master/yt_dlp/cookies....
        
           | c6401 wrote:
           | There's https://github.com/richardpenman/browsercookie. Also
           | at least for firefox it's quite easy to implement in like 5
           | strings or so.
        
           | vxNsr wrote:
           | It's open source so you could theoretically pull it out and
           | generalize it... idk if anyone wants to manage that project
           | (seems like a ton of work even for an open source project)
           | but I'm sure it be interesting.
        
           | Scaevolus wrote:
           | I've used pycookiecheat successfully with Chrome on Ubuntu:
           | https://pypi.org/project/pycookiecheat/
           | chr_cookies =
           | pycookiecheat.chrome_cookies('https://example.com')
           | session = requests.Session()         for k, v in
           | cookies.items():             session.cookies.set(k, v,
           | domain='.example.com')
        
       | paulcarroty wrote:
       | Actually it works with mpv: create `~/.config/mpv/script-
       | opts/ytdl_hook.conf` file with content `ytdl_path=yt-dlp`.
        
       | wp381640 wrote:
       | If you use youtube-dl and haven't noticed that it hasn't been
       | receiving updates it's worth aliasing youtube-dl with this
       | project
        
       | pluc wrote:
       | There's this too: https://github.com/deepjyoti30/ytmdl
        
         | TillE wrote:
         | A neat tool, but YouTube is generally an abysmal source for
         | music. That's partly deliberate (from record labels) and partly
         | an inevitable consequence of recompression with different lossy
         | formats.
         | 
         | Unless something is completely unavailable elsewhere, you'll
         | find far better audio quality from other (original) sources.
        
           | themodelplumber wrote:
           | It's not so much about availability or even quality as it is
           | convenience for a lot of us. Soviet funk here, favorite TV
           | news theme there, C64 remixes over here, NPR tiny desk over
           | this way, and a rendition of the full original vocal lyrics
           | to the M:I theme which is basically only available on YT
           | itself...
           | 
           | I can't imagine trying to source this stuff independently and
           | keeping up with it, and if some commercial music crept in I
           | imagine it'd be easier to simply stay on YT and ask what
           | level of quality one subjectively needs for dental drilling,
           | or mindless work, or throne-in-lair-sitting, or whatever it
           | is...
        
           | Macha wrote:
           | > Unless something is completely unavailable elsewhere
           | 
           | I do run into this from time to time. Let's say I want the
           | soundtrack to one of my favourite anime, from 2006.
           | 
           | Some items from it are also on the source game soundtrack, so
           | are available on iTunes. This is actually kind of rare for
           | older anime which usually don't bother releasing in iTunes
           | outside Japan, but being a game adaptation helps it here, I
           | guess. Still, anything composed for the anime are not
           | included.
           | 
           | Some of it is there on Spotify. Actually, at one point it all
           | was, and I can still see the tracks are there but grayed out
           | in other people's playlists, so I assume there exists some
           | region in which it was available, and the availability in my
           | region initially was a mistake by a licensee who forgot to
           | limit it to the regions they had rights for. Either way, it's
           | no longer legally available for me.
           | 
           | So I could.... VPN to Japanese iTunes, thereby breaking the
           | terms of service, (assuming it's still there) or I could try
           | import some decade old special edition DVDs of the anime
           | which contained the OST.
           | 
           | Or I could rip it from YouTube. Eventually, if you make no
           | effort to sell to me, I'm going to resort to other options.
        
             | input_sh wrote:
             | > So I could.... VPN to Japanese iTunes, thereby breaking
             | the terms of service...
             | 
             | In my experience, you'd immediately enter "vacation mode",
             | which is limited to two weeks in free version, but
             | unlimited in premium. Spotify doesn't even complain when
             | you switch countries in a couple of seconds. They're very
             | lenient on enforcement, I've used it for like five years
             | before Spotify actually became available in my country
             | (though I couldn't pay for the premium with a card from a
             | different country). Just log in via VPN once, then it works
             | for two weeks.
        
           | Fogest wrote:
           | That and a lot of music I have found on there has a music
           | video version of the song which can sometimes be slightly
           | different than the original song. It's usually something like
           | a longer intro before the music starts or something like
           | cheering from a crowd or whatever to mimic it being a live
           | performance music video. So you're getting a subpar sound
           | quality combined with a sometimes differing song from the
           | original.
        
             | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
             | You can usually find a lyric version with the unedited
             | album track.
        
           | iainmerrick wrote:
           | YouTube has a ton of obscure music that can't be found on
           | Spotify, plus things like old TV specials, theme tunes,
           | outtakes and the like.
           | 
           | The quality is usually pretty bad, it's true. But in many
           | cases, this stuff is almost impossible to buy even if you
           | wanted to, so YouTube is your only option.
           | 
           | YT is also fairly unpleasant to use, which is why a lot of
           | people go for youtube-dl.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | haven't paid attention to this since all the drama last year but
       | again - what are all of you using youtube-dl for? Archiving your
       | channel subs?
        
         | ronnier wrote:
         | I made a tool for myself so I could 1 click download videos to
         | my iphone's camera roll. It's based on youtube-dl. I like to
         | share raw videos and do not like to share URLs. I use this tool
         | to make that easy -- I copy a url and run the iOS shortcut and
         | the video auto saves to my camera roll.
         | 
         | https://github.com/rroller/media-roller
        
           | vxNsr wrote:
           | Where do you direct share videos that will allow >5min of
           | 1080p?
        
             | hansel_der wrote:
             | telegram for example
        
         | arp242 wrote:
         | My internet connection can be flaky, and just downloading stuff
         | and playing it locally works a lot better. YouTube tries very
         | hard to minimize the buffer size to only what's needed - which
         | makes a lot of sense at their scale - but it also means that
         | less-than-stable internet connections are difficult because
         | it'll never buffer enough to bridge the 3 minute outage.
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | My experience is that the internet is really bad at forgetting
         | the stuff you want gone, but really good at turning all your
         | bookmarks into 404s and parked domains (another reason why
         | bookmarks are pretty much worthless). So if you don't save it,
         | it'll be gone next time you're trying to look it up. Doubly so
         | if it is something even mildly controversial (now or then).
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | > _Doubly so if it is something even mildly controversial
           | (now or then)._
           | 
           | Triply so if it's hosted by a corporation.
           | 
           | Looking at you, Microsoft. For all the good[0] things you're
           | doing for developers using your platforms, I'm still angry at
           | the way your documentation links rot. It seems that
           | everything that ever linked to MSDN prior to ~2015 will now
           | have their links redirected to 404 or "buy new Surface" page.
           | Hell, plenty of internal links are broken too. It's
           | particularly apparent when trying to read about C++ and COM
           | (vs. C#/.NET, which seems to be MS's main focus).
           | 
           | --
           | 
           | [0] - In a pragmatic, day-to-day dev experience sense.
           | Explicitly not talking about wider ethical issues here.
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | So... on-the-go playback, general data-hoarding, music piracy,
         | weird 'raw video' sharing instead of URLs that everyone has
         | been doing since 2006 (please stop this! It's baffling to
         | receive video files in emails from boomers in this day and
         | age), and a bit too much attention to the abundance of terrible
         | passively consumed content that you all spend too much time on
         | youtube.com itself for
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | Watching videos in my media player rather than my browser.
         | Hardware acceleration has better support in mpv than Firefox.
        
         | marbu wrote:
         | Mostly for off-line usage. Especially for videos where I care
         | about audio only, I can download the audio part and then save
         | it to my phone so that I can listen to it later without a need
         | to have network connection. Another use case is archival.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | 1) Videos disappear. Anything I think I might want to watch
         | again in the future, I always download rather than bookmark.
         | Not just YouTube but any video site (e.g. Reddit).
         | 
         | 2) When Internet is flaky or doesn't exist. I've downloaded
         | whole sets of tutorial videos for example to watch on a plane.
         | 
         | 3) Stuff in 4K where my video player does a better job with
         | hardware acceleration than my web browser does
         | 
         | I mean out of all the video I watch from the internet, 95% is
         | streaming, but youtube-dl is for that other 5% that falls into
         | the three categories above.
        
           | arthur2e5 wrote:
           | A recent example of videos disappearing is when Radio TV Hong
           | Kong got a new, more pro-Beijing head. The "inflammatory"
           | stuff first went down, followed by anything older than 1 year
           | on YouTube as cover.
        
         | thewebcount wrote:
         | I genuinely hate using YouTube because it's awful. Random pop-
         | ups all over the page. Weird suggestions on the sidebar because
         | I don't have an account and don't want one. Ads that start in
         | the middle of a sentence and play again if you rewind, etc. so
         | you can't actually understand the video you're watching. So I
         | wrote an app that takes a YouTube URL, downloads the video with
         | youtube-dl, and just plays it in a normal OS window. No web
         | browser needed. No junk. It's awesome!
        
           | lorenzhs wrote:
           | You can just run "vlc https://youtube.com/watch/...". There's
           | also YouTube-dl integration for mpv if I'm not mistaken.
        
           | dryfish wrote:
           | I did the same but it's all bodged together which means I
           | usually don't watch anything from Youtube.
           | 
           | It's a shame that the only video links on HN seem to be from
           | Youtube.
        
           | xelxebar wrote:
           | You might also enjoy invidio.us, in the off chance you end up
           | stranded on a remote island without youtube-dl handy.
        
         | austhrow743 wrote:
         | Watching YouTube videos with no or poor internet connection.
         | 
         | Watching many high res videos without destroying phone data
         | plan.
        
         | sralbert wrote:
         | I download Twitch vods and Youtube videos at home and copy them
         | to my work PC to listen to during the day.
        
         | Aachen wrote:
         | Safekeeping, offline viewing, producing derivative works (it's
         | great they allow setting CC licenses on videos, but are
         | subsequently hostile to anyone trying to actually use those
         | rights), and viewing on platforms where the browser or player
         | doesn't work (that's been a few years by now though, now that
         | all my hardware is newer and I'm no poor student anymore).
         | 
         | A great example I recently saw is someone extracting the audio
         | feed and double checking the Doppler shift of a passing
         | quadcopter to confirm a speed claim. It checked out and the
         | math was included. Stellar comment. Harder to do if obtaining
         | the video's data is made hard.
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | Live music performances, both new and old. YT is a great
         | resource for that sort of thing, and I don't trust that that
         | stuff will remain on YT and readily accessible for years to
         | come, so I slap them on my NAS and watch them via Plex.
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | Mainly not having to worry about reliability of my connection
         | to youtube. I get loading-spinners and changes in resolution
         | fairly regularly on YT.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Larrikin wrote:
         | I've started saving anything I ever watch more than once.
         | Cooking recipes, music videos, learning materials, etc.
         | 
         | I started when a group I listened to removed all the content
         | they had put up over the past year and said it was promotional
         | material for their latest album which was garbage.
         | 
         | Ads have gotten so bad that any videos over three minutes have
         | multiple ad breaks so watching longer music videos or sets are
         | just completely ruined when watching on YouTube.
         | 
         | I wish there was a good set up for single watch videos since
         | the ad algorithm tries to anticipate good places for breaks,
         | which often times is right before punch lines to joke and when
         | you skip over the ad they tend to put you back a few
         | milliseconds ahead of where you stopped which can ruin jokes. I
         | rarely watch for enjoyment (as opposed to learning) on a
         | computer so I don't get the benefit of using an ad blocker like
         | Ad Nauseam.
        
           | IronWolve wrote:
           | Good for saving music videos or concerts to throw up on the
           | tv at the cabin on the weekends.
           | 
           | Theres tons of place without internet access, or I dont have
           | a device with internet access.
        
         | ufo wrote:
         | I also use it to stream videos, not just for downloading. I can
         | watch using a native video player (such as mpv) instead of the
         | web interface. More control over the playback speed and less
         | buffering when I pause or fast forward. Very useful for longer
         | lectures and presentations.                   mpv --ytdl-
         | format="best[height<=720]" "$URL"
        
         | krick wrote:
         | Literally everything.
         | 
         | 1. I download whole channels if there's a series I want to
         | watch.
         | 
         | 2. I download music, since youtube is a really quite nice music
         | library.
         | 
         | 3. I download long videos before I watch it, because it's just
         | more pleasant to rewind the thing when it's already on your
         | SSD. Also, it won't freeze spoiling a beautiful scene because
         | of some stupid WiFi problem.
         | 
         | 4. Even if I don't download it _before_ watching, I still use
         | mpv to watch it, which uses youtube-dl internally, because mpv
         | is a much nicer video-player than what you can have in a
         | browser.
         | 
         | And I'm sure I forgot some important use-cases. Browsers are
         | evil, js-apps are stupid, don't use them, if you can.
        
           | nsomaru wrote:
           | What is your workflow for this?
        
             | hansel_der wrote:
             | this effectively extracts media urls from the current page,
             | puts them into a m3u file and let's you open it with any
             | application https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
             | US/firefox/addon/play-with/
             | 
             | mpv itself uses ytdl (or others) for accessing streming
             | sites and will buffer the whole vid if you crank up cache
             | settings like:                 cache=yes       demuxer-max-
             | bytes=5G       demuxer-max-back-bytes=5G       prefetch-
             | playlist=yes       force-seekable=yes
        
           | Ruthalas wrote:
           | If you feel like chatting with others who also archive
           | YouTube content, consider stopping by my discord server:
           | https://discord.gg/xjj538vD
           | 
           | We maintain a central list [1] of content that various
           | members have archived, such that when content is removed from
           | YouTube, people can direct inquiries to contributors who have
           | archived that content.
           | 
           | It's a small way to keep track of what things have been
           | successfully archived, and occasionally direct efforts to
           | preserve specific content.
           | 
           | [1] https://tinyurl.com/v4rpe9w
        
         | cfn wrote:
         | For me was YouTube playing the same add every few minutes on
         | almost every video I watched (some tooth paste ad) on the iPad.
         | I started by downloading the videos on a PC and watching them
         | later from my NAS but in the end I gave up on YouTube on the
         | iPad and bought a Surface Pro.
        
       | nikisweeting wrote:
       | I wonder if I should switch ArchiveBox to use this... is it
       | available as easily via apt/pip/brew/Pkg/etc as YouTube-dL?
       | Otherwise vendoring is always a pain.
        
         | dewey wrote:
         | Doesn't look like yet, but at least for brew there's a pending
         | MR: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#installation
        
       | mattl wrote:
       | How much to get a way to block "hey guys" at the start of a
       | video?
        
         | sodality2 wrote:
         | Sponsorblock can skip sponsors, self-promos, subscribe
         | reminders, intro animation, and end credits. (crowd-sources the
         | timestamps)
         | 
         | https://sponsor.ajay.app/
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | Alas not really watching a video on a browser.
        
             | Ruthalas wrote:
             | If you use youtube-dlp to download the videos, it can use
             | sponskrub to cut out those sections entirely (or flag
             | them).
        
             | sodality2 wrote:
             | Android? Youtube vanced offers this built-in.
        
               | mattl wrote:
               | iOS/Mac OS X
        
               | Synaesthesia wrote:
               | Youtube-dl works on Mac, and you can get it working on
               | iOS too. https://www.macstories.net/linked/downloading-
               | youtube-videos...
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Never heard of YouTube Vanced. I see it's not open
               | source. The feature list is interesting, but it doesn't
               | say anything about tracking/telemetry. Does the app track
               | you (and how much), independently of YouTube tracking?
               | 
               | I'm currently happy with NewPipe - which is essentially a
               | youtube-dl GUI, and has to be updated just as often,
               | which is damn annoying because FDroid is _still_
               | completely broken UX-wise - but I have less tech-savvy
               | people around me, who would very much like an alternative
               | to the official YouTube app.
        
               | sodality2 wrote:
               | Newpipe works as well. Youtube vanced cannot be open
               | source as it is just a nodded youtube client, which isn't
               | open source. I cannot speak on tracking but I tracked its
               | DNS requests and nothing out of the ordinary.
        
               | aero-glide2 wrote:
               | Need to check out vanced, NewPipe keeps breaking.
        
       | Tistron wrote:
       | For me, something like this is exactly where Deno would shine. I
       | could just run `deno run <script url> --allow-net=YouTube.com
       | --allow-write=.` and not worry about that it could do anything
       | dangerous. Probably the url list would be a bit more complicated,
       | but I could also just blanket allow net without worrying, since
       | allow-read isn't needed.
        
         | xmprt wrote:
         | Do you know if generic sandboxing tools exist? I feel like it
         | should be possible to use Docker and some sort of Firewall to
         | isolate your running application from your system if you're
         | worried about it accessing things that it should be able to.
         | And that way you don't need to worry about using deno or
         | relying on the program being written in a certain
         | framework/language.
        
           | NotEvil wrote:
           | Firejail?
        
         | dpacmittal wrote:
         | While it's great that Deno is sandboxing code, but I feel like
         | this should be a part of the OS and not the language.
        
           | chaorace wrote:
           | Should it also be the OS's job to sandbox JS from the
           | websites you visit?
           | 
           | Admittedly, that question is made in bad faith -- I know what
           | you mean, even if what you mean isn't necessarily
           | "sandboxing": permissions!
           | 
           | Android and iOS do it right. One OS-level source of truth
           | that manages application-level permissions for the entire
           | machine. When you frame it that way, it becomes clear that
           | Deno asking for rights on a per-run basis is indeed silly,
           | but only in the context of the user experience... not
           | necessarily the core software design.
        
       | dasl wrote:
       | youtube has recently been implementing download speed throttling
       | on some video downloads. See: https://github.com/ytdl-
       | org/youtube-dl/issues/29326 . Youtube-dl does not yet have a
       | solution for this occasional download speed throttling.
       | 
       | This yt-dlp fork has a workaround (though not a true fix) for the
       | issue: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-
       | dl/issues/29326#issuecom...
        
         | makeworld wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure you don't even need those flags, and it just
         | uses the non-throttled mdoe by default: https://github.com/yt-
         | dlp/yt-dlp/pull/492
        
       | banana_giraffe wrote:
       | One of the nice features added to yt-dlp recently: It integrates
       | with sponskrub to call into the SponsorBlock database and with
       | the right options will strip the sponsor segments from downloaded
       | videos.
       | 
       | Edit: Correct typo
        
         | DavideNL wrote:
         | Has anyone managed to build/install sponskrub for the Raspberry
         | Pi 4?
         | 
         | https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub
        
         | app4soft wrote:
         | > _It integrates with sponskrub to call into the SponsorBlock
         | database and with the right options will strip the sponsor
         | segments from downloaded videos._
         | 
         | Also here is a fork of _NewPipe_ with _SponsorBlock_
         | functionality.[0]
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | dlc? Don't tell me that's a different one...
        
           | LeoPanthera wrote:
           | dlc is abandoned and dlp integrates its features.
        
             | stinos wrote:
             | So dlc is a fork of dl, but dl itself has actually a bunch
             | of fairly recent commits which dlc does not have. And dlp
             | nor dlc are 'forks' in the Github sense of forking. So how
             | does one figure out whether recent dl commits are in dlp?
             | And does this matter? Is this the downside of 'if you don't
             | like it then just fork it and fix it'?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | nnt38 wrote:
               | Just get dlp its the most up to date version
        
           | banana_giraffe wrote:
           | Whoops, typo on my part. Sorry about that.
        
         | azinman2 wrote:
         | Are the sponsor parts really so bad? To me not only is it easy
         | to skip, I want indie people to make enough money to produce
         | high quality content; otherwise media is just what a few
         | biggies want to fund. They're not enough from YouTube itself
         | unless you're in the top percentile.
         | 
         | Also what sponsored content are people downloading versus just
         | streaming live? I don't get the use case.
        
           | chalupaman wrote:
           | For me, the issue is that overwhelmingly the sponsor blocks
           | are for products and services not available in or relevant to
           | my country. Unlike the regular ads loaded through YouTube,
           | they can't be customized based on the viewer's region. They
           | will just assume that viewers of English-language content are
           | in the USA, mostly. When you subtract mobile games, which I
           | don't play, I would say that maybe 1 in 20 of them are things
           | I could buy even if I wanted to. So it just feels pointless,
           | they see no benefit from my seeing the sponsorships and it
           | wastes my time.
           | 
           | As for what sponsored content people are streaming: where I
           | live Internet providers provide unlimited bandwidth during
           | off peak hours (midnight to 8AM) but give you a monthly data
           | limit outside those hours. If you are in an area not wired
           | for high-speed internet, you might be relying on 4G which can
           | have a monthly limit of as little as 50 GB... which isn't
           | much at all for a family. So it's nice to be able to queue up
           | all the videos you want to watch to download overnight,
           | making the answer "everything/anything."
           | 
           | (And that is the chief use of YouTube-DL for me. YouTube
           | premium lets you save videos to watch offline, but only on
           | mobile devices --- which typically have little storage for
           | them --- and you can't schedule it, you'd have to get up at
           | midnight to manually select each video. With YouTube-DL I can
           | schedule downloads of all my subscriptions and bookmarks to a
           | nice big hard drive and then automatically put my PC to
           | sleep.)
        
           | grapist420 wrote:
           | I'm not gonna buy your headphones or VPN or "online course",
           | and I skip over them whenever possible. So no point in seeing
           | them.
        
           | MrGilbert wrote:
           | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad?
           | 
           | It depends. Some Creators get pretty creative with their
           | sponsor blocks. JayzTwoCents comes to mind with his "iFixit"
           | ad - it's hilarous every time it appears.
        
           | CraneWorm wrote:
           | I just want the advertisers to burn money paying for content
           | I watch, but I don't want to see the ads.
           | 
           | That, or post-scarcity to finally happen, whichever cones
           | first :).
           | 
           | I would be fine with adblock that fakes that I saw the ad
           | without me having to wait for it to buffer.
        
           | xmprt wrote:
           | I usually see sponsorships for products that I already know
           | about. If it's a creator's first sponsorship or if it's a new
           | product (I check the description links to see) then I watch
           | it through but otherwise, it's a massive waste of time to sit
           | through a bunch 1 minute sponsorship in the middle of a 10
           | minute video.
        
           | sen wrote:
           | I pay for YouTube premium but still see them. That's not OK,
           | especially when the creators make 10x more money off YouTube
           | Premium users than from ad-based users.
           | 
           | YouTube needs to make a way for creators to label the sponsor
           | sections and it skips it for Premium users.
           | 
           | As for why downloading, I download any/every video I find
           | useful so I don't have to go back to YouTube to watch it
           | later. Everything from blender tutorials to car build videos
           | that taught me something to music video clips and generally
           | just anything interesting. It all goes to my NAS and I can
           | instantly pull it up for reference and scrub quicker and
           | don't have to deal with YouTube's increasingly annoying
           | website.
        
             | sbarre wrote:
             | > YouTube needs to make a way for creators to label the
             | sponsor sections and it skips it for Premium users.
             | 
             | I have read that more and more creators use sponsored
             | segments because that pays much better than YT revshare..
             | 
             | So they may not care about the Premium user experience as
             | much, and if Premium lets people skip sponsored segements,
             | that might drive down the overall segment viewership, AND
             | increase Premium subscribers and then it's a lose-lose for
             | the creator since those segments will be less and less
             | valuable to the sponsor.
        
               | sen wrote:
               | They're talking about the free ad-watching type users.
               | It's been published by multiple creators that YT Premium
               | is easily their biggest income stream but there's just
               | very very few people willing to pay Premium (for most
               | creators it's like 1-2% or less).
               | 
               | If YouTube made it more appealing to buy Premium, eg by
               | letting you block sponsored segments, download videos
               | easily, etc etc... everyone would win.
        
               | sbarre wrote:
               | I've heard the opposite, that people don't really see a
               | bump from premium.
               | 
               | While I'm sure it's different for every creator I would
               | be curious to see the math.
               | 
               | But you may be right.
        
             | saghm wrote:
             | > YouTube needs to make a way for creators to label the
             | sponsor sections and it skips it for Premium users
             | 
             | I have to imagine it wouldn't be long before some clever
             | sponsor offers extra money not to mark their sections...
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | Solution: a report ad button for Premium subscribers.
               | 
               | Once a significant (number && percentage) of users report
               | it kt is flagged,
               | 
               | - first to the creator
               | 
               | - and then shortly afterwards - if the creator does not
               | either fix it or verify it - to a review team or even to
               | a customer panel
               | 
               | Some logic can be applied to filter out abuses of the
               | system by:
               | 
               | - looking for reports by new viewers of this channel
               | (brigading)
               | 
               | - dismissing / less weighting for people who have
               | previously attempted to abuse the report button
               | 
               | - look at the clustering of reports in time
        
               | f1refly wrote:
               | Why not just use the original sponsorskip at that point?
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | Im not against sponsorskip.
               | 
               | I'm just pointing out that this should be the job of the
               | premium team at YouTube, not left to subscribers.
               | 
               | so:
               | 
               | - Sponsorskip is a good solution to a problem that
               | shouldn't exist
               | 
               | - If YouTube cared they could make this an even better
               | experience and make sure both honest producers, paying
               | customers and sponsors got a better deal. Today the
               | revenue maximizing play seems to be to add sponsors on
               | top of premium and hope advertisers doesn't realize they
               | are being skipped.
        
               | pbhjpbhj wrote:
               | Surely as soon as you have this there'll be a service to
               | leak the time codes to non-subscribers so embeds, yt-dl's
               | forks, etc. can auto-skip.
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | Already happens which us a good thing given how YouTube
               | drag their feet on this.
               | 
               | Maybe there had been less enthusiasm around such projects
               | though if they didn't have legitimate uses?
        
           | kortilla wrote:
           | Yes, they are just ads in an even worse form because it's not
           | clear when to skip to to pass over them.
        
             | JKCalhoun wrote:
             | Like how all the wood-workers on YouTube have $1K Festool
             | track saws and $4K SawStop table saws.
        
           | globular-toast wrote:
           | It doesn't make any difference to the channel whether you
           | watch the sponsored segment or not. If you want to archive
           | some videos then sponsored segments are just a waste of
           | space. I archive any useful information that I intend to use.
           | For example, an instructional video showing how to repair my
           | car.
        
           | peoplefromibiza wrote:
           | not per se.
           | 
           | but if you are like me and watch a lot of curated playlists,
           | you end up watching the same sponsor segments over and over.
           | 
           | it's like watching anime on primevideo without hitting the
           | skip intro button
           | 
           | it gets annoying pretty soon.
        
           | krick wrote:
           | Bad? No, not really. If you ask me, (almost?) nothing is
           | inherently bad. But it's a nice and obvious feature to skip
           | them if you want, so it's pretty amazing that such options
           | are possible now. (However, I don't think I'll use it,
           | because there is an mpv plugin for that, and it feels pretty
           | weird, to actually skip parts of the video when downloading.
           | I mean, what if I'll need it one time: do I have to re-
           | download the video?)
        
           | nextlevelwizard wrote:
           | If the products where A) relevant B) good.
           | 
           | How many youtubers have you seen shilling out raid shadow
           | legends? They all praise it like it's the next coming of
           | Jesus while everyone knows that the game is absolute garbage.
           | 
           | How many times will I get ad for NordVPN? Why would I use
           | such a widely known and blocked VPN for streaming services?
           | It is literal noob trap.
           | 
           | Worst is the reybud or whatever ear buds. Everyone says how
           | good they sound and how amazing they are, but realistically
           | if a brand comes out of nowhere with no other products what
           | are the chances that they are good or even decent?
           | 
           | All of these are terrible sponsor ads for me. All they do is
           | annoy me and waste my time. At least many video makers I
           | follow have the decency to somehow indicate in the video how
           | long the ad will go on so it is easier to skip. Only reason I
           | don't use the automatic extension is that anyone can mark any
           | segment of any video as an ad and it will be automatically
           | skipped and I don't like that idea. Maybe if it was just some
           | friends who I trust.
        
           | httpsterio wrote:
           | Some people, like Internet Historian puts some effort in and
           | the sponsor segments are actually entertaining and I don't
           | mind watching those. Some people also do the quick shout out
           | that takes some 10 seconds and they're fine too.
           | 
           | I also watch some meme compilations with my SO and they're
           | usually pretty different. I appreciate that compiling those
           | memes into one video is for the convenience of the viewer but
           | the original video creators don't benefit from those, only
           | the ones making the compilations so I don't want to support
           | that. On top of that, there are some channels that have
           | several minutes long product ads inside the video, not the
           | normal YouTube adverts. I simply hate those.
        
           | lawl wrote:
           | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad? To me not only is it
           | easy to skip, I want indie people to make enough money to
           | produce high quality content; otherwise media is just what a
           | few biggies want to fund.
           | 
           | In my experience, it's the same with ads everywhere else. It
           | (usually) starts out not being overly obnoxious, with just a
           | "this video is sponsored by [garbage tier mobile
           | game/earphones/vpn/whatever] more about them at the end of
           | the video" and then the pitch at the end.
           | 
           | I don't mind these. They quickly get the name out at the
           | beginning and then don't interrupt the video. What really
           | annoys me are the ones that interrupt the video. At some
           | point a few of them annoyed me enough that I installed
           | SponsorBlock. Because I don't _want_ to hear or see these
           | ads, but i tolerated them. But once that threshold is crossed
           | where I don 't tolerate all of them anymore, why would I not
           | just block all of them? I'm not going to unblock specific
           | channels that are well-behaved to listen to ads for products
           | i will definitely never buy.
           | 
           | It's the exact same thing with regular ad-blocking. Sometimes
           | when I'm on a fresh OS I start browsing the web and only
           | notice I don't have an adblocker once I visit a page with
           | super obnoxious ads (e.g. google on mobile and realize
           | there's only ads and no organic results for like the first 5
           | screens).
        
             | midasuni wrote:
             | Map Men do great sponsor parts, actually entertaining to
             | watch.
             | 
             | I find the same with christmas adverts each year - I don't
             | do tv, but go out of my way to watch the adverts and get in
             | the festive mood come December.
        
               | RealStickman_ wrote:
               | The only adverts I actually unskip (using SponsorBlock
               | normally) are those by InternetHistorian.
        
               | eptcyka wrote:
               | I find their sponsor parts to be obnoxious enough to
               | deter from watching their videos when a new one comes out
               | :/
        
               | swiley wrote:
               | Theirs are very creative, I almost always watch them just
               | because they're like a little encore.
        
             | input_sh wrote:
             | > What really annoys me are the ones that interrupt the
             | video.
             | 
             | Especially when those interruptions take two minutes. I
             | don't mind them up to 30 seconds, but their length does get
             | pretty ridiculous from time to time.
             | 
             | There's no medium that's gonna make watch two minutes ad
             | without looking away or trying to skip it. You either sell
             | it quickly or don't.
        
             | azinman2 wrote:
             | But what then do you think is a realistic alternative?
             | YouTube costing $20/mo or more? Can't watch videos without
             | a patron?
             | 
             | If your answer is nothing -- I expect everything for free,
             | then that's both unrealistic and parasitic.
        
               | lawl wrote:
               | > But what then do you think is a realistic alternative?
               | 
               | Not my department. I'm perfectly happy being a parasite.
               | I used to watch Twitch every now and then. Twitch
               | introduced server side ads and made ad-blocking
               | unreliable and annoying - so i stopped using twitch.
               | 
               | My life doesn't depend on youtube, and if they decide to
               | shut me out or the platform stops existing, that's fine
               | with me. Maybe other video platforms can try out other
               | models instead of that effective monopoly google has on
               | online video currently.
               | 
               | I've also already said that I tolerate non-obnoxious ads.
               | But looking at the rest of the web, it doesn't seem to go
               | in that direction, so I'll keep blocking until they kick
               | me out.
        
               | russelg wrote:
               | Twitch is still perfectly fine with streamlink. There's a
               | 15 second loading screen where ads are meant to go (only
               | at the start of your stream), but you don't see any ads.
        
               | opan wrote:
               | mpv + youtube-dl also works fine.
        
               | Barrin92 wrote:
               | apparently the average viewer spends 41 minutes per day
               | on youtube, so that's about 20 hours per month. 1 dollar
               | per hour is pretty cheap when it comes to entertainment,
               | no?
        
               | InvertedRhodium wrote:
               | I already pay $24 NZD for YouTube Premium. I'm simply
               | using SponsorBlock to get the actual experience that
               | payment implies - no ads.
        
               | CamperBob2 wrote:
               | Psst. We're trying to keep YouTube from turning into
               | cable TV. Please don't interfere.
        
               | dvtrn wrote:
               | Were you the guy I was having this exact comparison
               | conversation with last night over bourbon and ginger
               | ales?
               | 
               | I'm terrified we're already well on the other side of the
               | Rubicon
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | I pay $10/mo for YouTube Premium, and my expectation is
               | that I will not have to sit through any ads. A
               | sponsorship is an ad, which violates that expectation, so
               | I use SponsorBlock to skip them.
               | 
               | For channels that I watch regularly, I contribute to
               | their Patreon if they have one. I shouldn't have to sit
               | through a sponsorship segment in addition to that.
        
               | willow-x wrote:
               | If you pay for YouTube Premium, the creators of monetized
               | videos you watch get paid an order of magnitude more than
               | with just YouTube ads.
        
               | throwaway2037 wrote:
               | "order of magnitude" implies 10x. That's great news for
               | small / independent creators! Can someone point me to a
               | source for this information?
        
               | epse wrote:
               | It's hard to compare apples to apples, as ad revenue is
               | based on amount of ads shown and your premium
               | subscription is divvied up among your most watched
               | creators based on watchtime [1]
               | 
               | [1]
               | https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7060016?hl=en
        
               | throwaway2037 wrote:
               | Great link! Do you think it is fair to say the YouTube
               | Premium payout model is similar to the music streaming
               | platform, Spotify?
               | 
               | At the risk of nerd sniping myself, thinking deeper, I
               | wonder if people who sign up for YouTube Premium do
               | _less_ random surfing on YouTube and instead focus on a
               | few channels they love? That would _further_ concentrate
               | their payouts. If true, then the 10x figure sounds
               | reasonable.
        
               | chupasaurus wrote:
               | Nope. Spotify divides the whole subscription revenue per
               | content's share in total time being played, thus it
               | doesn't matter if you listen exclusively to some garage
               | band - your money would go to whatever pop is now
               | topping.
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | It's not possible to give that specific information
               | 
               | The reason being that people in the businessy genre
               | already get 10x (~$10CPM) what a gaming channel (~$1CPM)
               | gets because there's more advertisers and less channels.
               | You'd need to know the source channel
        
               | deeblering4 wrote:
               | Its not entirely the channels fault. If youtube paid
               | creators a higher share on monetized videos and didn't
               | keep changing the ranking and terms there would be less
               | need to add alternate forms of monetization.
               | 
               | Heck, youtube could even build in a patron feature much
               | like twitch has with subscriptions.
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | Realistic alternative is others will pick up the slack
               | 
               | Mass market viewers don't care, adblockers get ad free
               | content, creator gets their slice. We all win
        
               | Nadya wrote:
               | For about 20 years most everything was supported on
               | nothing but some person's own desire to put themselves
               | out into the world. This meant spending out of their own
               | pocket if necessary. If hosting became too much of a
               | bandwidth issue for them to be able to pay for hosting
               | they would release it as a torrent and it would become
               | shared and distributed peer2peer or they'd throw it up on
               | a free file share and the it became the file sharing
               | platform's problem to deal with the bandwidth and try to
               | collect (typically through member-only "premium download
               | speeds").
               | 
               | In the past 10 years or so quality has largely gone down
               | and annoyances like ads and sponsor shoutouts have gone
               | up to the extent "Sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends" is
               | an actual meme. There are very, very few content creators
               | I feel are worth supporting. This ends up being a bit
               | classist as mostly people with enough personal cash flow
               | and free time can afford to become full-time content
               | creators but by and large that's already kind of the case
               | if you look at the people who become full-time content
               | creators. But I personally feel that if your content is
               | more of the "popcorn" variety that people use to fill
               | their day but don't actually value compared to something
               | people do value then the world at large isn't missing
               | out. If enough people felt they would miss out - they'd
               | pay to keep it around.
               | 
               | There are plenty of content creators I watch where I
               | would not be all that sad if they vanished and they
               | stopped creating content - because I use their content to
               | fill gaps of boredom in my day and not because I place
               | any significant value in their content. Then there are a
               | few I absolutely do value and I already support them when
               | possible. I assume ones without a method to directly
               | support them are OK with losing some revenue to ad-
               | blockers and the like. I have absolutely let personal
               | opportunities of collecting cash slide past me because I
               | weighed the effort to collect it to be greater than it
               | was worth so I assume the reason they haven't opened up a
               | way to donate to them directly is for similar reasons.
               | 
               | I consider ads to be psychological warfare and something
               | that should (but never will) be illegal if they are
               | designed to be emotionally manipulative in any way. If a
               | dry, boring informercial doesn't inspire you to buy their
               | product then it probably isn't worth buying howdy. I feel
               | absolutely nothing bad about blocking them.
        
               | Brian_K_White wrote:
               | In fact I do pay for yt premium, yet still get these
               | kinds of ads.
               | 
               | So much for that misplaced and invalid attempt at
               | moralizing.
               | 
               | "are they so terrible?" and "what's the alternative?" are
               | not my problem to answer, and I don't even have to agree
               | they are valid questions that _someone_ has to answer.
               | 
               | I do not accept the premise that the only way content can
               | exist is if advertisers pay for it. That's a false
               | dichotomy. There is no such either/or choice.
               | 
               | I will _happily_ live in a world that only has content
               | that was either fully paid for by purchasing copies or
               | subscriptions, or given to the world for free.
               | 
               | You attempted to paint anyone using this software or
               | anyone complaining about the ads as somehow morally
               | lacking. I say, if you don't understand why anyone would
               | give away something for free, and only think of the
               | consumers as ungrateful parasites, then I think that says
               | something worse about you than what you tried to say
               | about anyone else.
        
               | realityking wrote:
               | > I will happily live in a world that only has content
               | that was either fully paid for by purchasing copies or
               | subscriptions, or given to the world for free.
               | 
               | How do you feel about DRM to make sure content is only
               | accessible to those who paid for it?
        
               | p1necone wrote:
               | I'm perfectly fine with businesses that use intrusive ads
               | going out of business - none of this is essential to my
               | well being. The onus is on them to find revenue gathering
               | methods that don't suck, not me.
               | 
               | And before you say "but creators have to make money too"
               | - independent art gets created just fine without
               | capitalistic motives, and I _vastly_ prefer the patreon
               | model, or just paying up front for larger content
               | (documentaries, games, films etc).
               | 
               | (Although in this particular case, I'm pretty fine with
               | the sponsor method with most of the creators I watch on
               | youtube - there's definitely a line where it could get
               | overbearing, but for the most part it's pretty easy to
               | skip if you want and the brand they're shilling still
               | gets shown to you over and over again so the advertisers
               | aren't really losing out).
               | 
               | (Also chiming in with the "I do pay for YouTube premium"
               | gang as well).
        
               | helloworld11 wrote:
               | One thing I absolutely despise about "creators have to
               | make money" is when some of those creators actually use
               | YouTube to cram their shitty music down my throat via ads
               | while I'm playing some other, completely different music
               | that I actually chose.
               | 
               | It's grotesque that they think this is an ideal way to
               | promote fan appreciation. I mean, the music styles don't
               | even sync: You could be listening to Bach, with a
               | playback history that clearly shows a preference for
               | classical music, and some idiotic teen pop song by some
               | attention-desperate, barely known singer starts playing
               | via ad, which if you don't click to skip it (say you're
               | in the kitchen with your hands dirty while listening to
               | your interrupted Bach) will play FULLY for its entire 3
               | to 4 minute duration. Just bloody stupid...
        
               | nextlevelwizard wrote:
               | > I expect everything for free, then that's both
               | unrealistic and parasitic.
               | 
               | There are plenty of youtubers who do videos as a hobby
               | with no money and the videos still are amazing. Then
               | there are plenty of youtubers who only make 10 minute
               | videos so they can get as many ad breaks as possible and
               | add sponsor ads in the videos and the video quality and
               | content is just terrible.
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | I'm 100% not going to buy whatever they're selling. If
               | anything I'm less likely to buy something that's
               | advertised to me. I've specifically stopped using
               | services/products if I notice their ads too much.
               | 
               | So who is benefiting from me watching sponsor segments?
               | Not me, not the content creator, not the brand.
               | 
               | I just skip them manually though tbh, haven't gotten
               | around to automating it.
        
               | anonymousab wrote:
               | What is the difference between running this code and
               | simply clicking ahead on the video timeline past the ad?
               | How is it any different from recording a show on tape and
               | just fastforwarding past the commercials?
        
               | helloworld11 wrote:
               | Youtube doesn't really let you do that. If you're
               | watching a video you chose and some shitty little ad gets
               | crammed in there to screw with your enjoyment, its own
               | little yellow timeline appears that you have to sit
               | through until you can click to skip ahead after X
               | seconds.
        
               | varelse wrote:
               | Easy: a downloader that makes it look like you've watched
               | those stupid commercials, but you actually haven't and
               | you're back to the original video. Let the sponsors
               | beware.
        
               | azinman2 wrote:
               | Until they see they get very little ROI and stop
               | advertising that way. It's not like people sponsoring
               | aren't looking to see what these channels do for them and
               | just spend blindly...
        
               | genewitch wrote:
               | In the 1940s and 1950s radio programs and eventually
               | television shows were sponsored by advertisers. soap
               | operas get their name for being vehicles for soap
               | companies. Off the top of my head Fitch's soap company
               | was a big advertiser in the 40s. Another big advertiser
               | in the forties and fifties was rexall.
               | 
               | I don't know what the return on investment was, I always
               | figured they did it as a way to show that they supported
               | the arts.
        
               | pbhjpbhj wrote:
               | I've long known this, but not how they used it to
               | advertise -- was it product placement, pre-roll, being
               | the only mid-roll adverts??
        
               | comprev wrote:
               | Unilever was a sponsor of early TV dramas in the UK
        
             | path411 wrote:
             | Do you have YouTube premium? If not consider at some point,
             | someone has to give the channel revenue stream or the
             | channel will die
        
               | jtbayly wrote:
               | I would think that cutting sponsored sections of videos
               | wouldn't affect the money they receive at all. With
               | Adblock, they can tell it wasn't loaded. Can the sponsor
               | tell that your view skipped the sponsor part?
        
               | vxNsr wrote:
               | YouTube Premium doesn't get rid of embedded ads, they're
               | part of the video, not a part of YouTube.
        
               | ElCapitanMarkla wrote:
               | I've got YouTube premium but I've noticed more and more
               | channels breaking mid video to go into ad mode. Ordinary
               | Sausage has been a too channel with the kids but jeez the
               | last few videos there are nearly more ad than content.
        
               | fsckboy wrote:
               | > Do you have YouTube premium? ... someone has to give
               | the channel revenue stream
               | 
               | doesn't youtube premium give GOOGLE a revenue stream?
        
               | thinkloop wrote:
               | YouTube premium sends money to creators as people watch
               | their videos. According to a redditor [1], CGP Grey (a
               | prominent youtuber) claims to get more money from premium
               | users than ads.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeMusic/comments/8s1b70
               | /does_y...
        
               | epse wrote:
               | It gives a very significant cut to the creators, based on
               | how much you ask them
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | Why not just throw some money at their patreon, or buy
               | some merch? Fairly sure they'll get more of that anyway.
        
               | wpietri wrote:
               | Exactly.
               | 
               | Personally I am done with indirect funding models where
               | people burn my time and attention in hopes of getting me
               | to waste enough money on something that surplus cash can
               | be skimmed to pay for the original content. It's
               | ridiculous. Direct payment or GTFO.
               | 
               | And I'm putting my money where my mouth is. My Patreon
               | bill was $150 this month. And that's not counting direct
               | payments to creators.
        
               | thinkloop wrote:
               | I love this, but that means you are now paying 3 times:
               | ads/premium, sponsored messages, and patreon. Even if you
               | block ads - as well as the much more complicated
               | sponsored messages - you are still paying by having to
               | manage that system and work around its edge cases. Direct
               | "donation" should include ad-free and sponosor-free
               | access to videos.
        
               | wpietri wrote:
               | I'm mostly supporting people who are writers and the
               | like, so that's less of a problem for me. But I hope that
               | more direct payment shifts things in that direction.
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | In some cases it does, but that requires basically way
               | too much work from the content creator, they have to have
               | a separate way to give paying subscribers videos. For
               | example, LinusTechTips has videos on their own video
               | delivery service available, and they're pretty much ad
               | free. I know some other creators do a similar thing (not
               | setting up their own youtube competitor, but the rest).
               | 
               | Personally I just use adblock, skip the sponsor segments
               | and live with it. Sponsor stuff is really easy to skip in
               | my experience, especially on mobile where if you double
               | tap the right side it skips 10 seconds. You get used to
               | how many taps to do per content creator, their sponsor
               | segments seem to be consistent lengths usually.
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | > And I'm putting my money where my mouth is. My Patreon
               | bill was $150 this month. And that's not counting direct
               | payments to creators.
               | 
               | Nice!
               | 
               | I'm still not using Patreon but I "guilty" of paying for
               | promising alpha quality stuff, subscribing to services I
               | don't use deliberately even after realizing I cannot use
               | it yet etc.
               | 
               | I think we IT people have a reputation for being a bunch
               | of cynical whiners and I also think it is somewhat
               | deserved so I am happy to hear that I am not alone in
               | actually wanting to pay for good stuff.
               | 
               | If anyone wonder what makes me pay, here is the best I
               | can come up with:
               | 
               | - stuff I use or can see myself using
               | 
               | - one time payments, no subscriptions (unless there is a
               | specific ongoing cost that I realized must be there)
               | 
               | - tokens are a nice alternative to subscriptions (eg: $10
               | for 50 tokens that let me start multi-player games is
               | something I would easily consider for a good game like
               | Polytopia)
               | 
               | - not too expensive, once it passes impulse buy at around
               | $10 monthly or $40 one time it gets significantly harder
               | bjt not impossible
        
               | nextlevelwizard wrote:
               | I'd be willing to pay 5EUR/mo for ad less youtube. That
               | can't be achieved by patreon in any shape or form and
               | youtuber merch is pretty cringe.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | Then throw 5 pounds at a rotating list of whoever you
               | like's patreon and install an adblocker.
               | 
               | Merch, it depends. I've grabbed some tshirts here and
               | there that are comfy and not branded all to hell, couple
               | of random knick knacks. A lot of it is indeed not
               | appealing, so I mostly just send money.
        
               | nextlevelwizard wrote:
               | That's the problem. That is too much effort for the value
               | provided.
        
               | nextlevelwizard wrote:
               | This is pretty much same thing as other websites in
               | general. While the content is entertaining and good
               | enough to watch it is not consistent enough to pay for.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | Why would you pay YouTube only to watch videos with
               | hardcoded ads? Let it die.
        
           | ithinkso wrote:
           | 'This video was sponsored by X' is ok.
           | 
           | And that is ho... 'HEY! Don't forget to check out X!' is not
        
           | j1elo wrote:
           | At first I saw the sponsor segments, later it became too
           | repetitive so I started doing the double-touch action (skip
           | 10 or 20 seconds forward) when a video would start talking
           | _once again_ about the VPN service of the month (really, it
           | seems to always be VPN services!), and later I ended up
           | having to actually pause the video, scroll forward even a
           | couple minutes (some sponsor segments have gone wild in
           | duration lately).
           | 
           | Then I started using[1] SponsorBlock, and now we're back at
           | square 0.
           | 
           | [1]: I had known about it for a long time but didn't feel
           | like using it, until I did (or you can see it as "they made
           | me feel like using it"...)
        
           | Ansil849 wrote:
           | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad?
           | 
           | Yes. Some of us don't like being assaulted with sales pitches
           | everywhere we look.
        
             | matheusmoreira wrote:
             | Yeah! Why do people think this is acceptable? It boggles my
             | mind.
        
             | kaladin-jasnah wrote:
             | I think for some us pro-sponsor-segment people, I feel like
             | regular ads are particularly dry and more of an "assault."
             | But sponsor segments... can be creative, funny, and
             | sometimes make me actually want to buy the product (...not
             | the generic Raid: Shadow Legends ones... but even those if
             | they're well done). I appreciate well-made ads, so I don't
             | mind sponsor segments.
             | 
             | Here's an example of one that is... nonsensical and perhaps
             | a bit humorous (well, at least I liked it):
             | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jPLRtEEjhU
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | I watch a video for whatever topic the video title and
               | description leads me to expect I'm going to hear about. A
               | sponsorship segment, no matter how "clever", is still an
               | ad.
               | 
               | > _But sponsor segments... sometimes make me actually
               | want to buy the product_
               | 
               | That's exactly what I don't want: more sophisticated
               | psychological manipulation that gets me to buy more
               | stuff.
        
               | Ansil849 wrote:
               | > I appreciate well-made ads, so I don't mind sponsor
               | segments.
               | 
               | Then don't use the sponsor segment removal portion of the
               | tool. Simple as that.
               | 
               | Those of us who don't want "clever" advertising any more
               | than "annoying" advertising can use it. And that's that.
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | > sometimes make me actually want to buy the product
               | 
               | Yes this is why we dislike them (other than time wasting)
               | 
               | I don't want to be manipulated into buying crap, I'm good
               | enough doing that myself
        
               | BeFlatXIII wrote:
               | The only time I don't smash the fast-forward button
               | during podcast ads is during the Unmade Podcast. They
               | actually manage to continue the show's conversation while
               | they promote Hover and Story Blocks. It also means that
               | sometimes their ad slots (as defined by the time between
               | "and now a word from this episode's sponsor" and "thank
               | you very much for supporting this episode") can be over
               | seven minutes at times.
        
             | nerdponx wrote:
             | Maybe these creators should post sponsor-free versions of
             | their videos on Patreon?
             | 
             | If you are watching for free, and you're that annoyed by
             | ads, then maybe you just feel entitled.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | puchatek wrote:
             | You conveniently skipped the rest of his comment which was
             | really the important part...
             | 
             | There is no need to state the obvious. Nobody would miss
             | any kind of advertisement in the media they consume but
             | that doesn't answer how content creators are supposed to be
             | compensated for the effort they put in.
        
             | JKCalhoun wrote:
             | I'll add another wrinkle: I like content-creators that
             | create for the love of doing it and not to try and turn it
             | into a business.
             | 
             | When I follow a YouRuber (I'm borrowing that typo, I like
             | it) and have seen them descend into the paid/promotional
             | arena, I have been turned off and stopped subscribing to
             | their channel.
             | 
             | Advertising tends to naturally weed out, for me, the ones
             | who are not as passionate about what they do. Sorry if this
             | model is counter to YT's business model.
             | 
             | Better: if you want to make a business out of it, sell
             | plans like WoodenGears guy, or kits like Ben Eater.
        
               | AkBKukU wrote:
               | Preface: I am a Youtuber who prefers not to do sponsored
               | segments but has done some in the past.
               | 
               | > Advertising tends to naturally weed out, for me, the
               | ones who are not as passionate about what they do.
               | 
               | This is a remark I see over and over again, basically
               | "You're only in it for the money" once you do sponsors.
               | Here's the thing that no one really gets, Youtube is not
               | a hobby. I don't care what the channel topic is, building
               | cars, lathe projects, tech reviews, pets, etc. The hobby
               | for the creator is the subject, not the video production
               | platform or process. Youtube is not social media, we're
               | not posting videos so our friends can see what we're up
               | to. The entire system is built completely differently
               | from something like facebook, twitter, instgram, etc. It
               | requires actual work. Planning videos, making thumbnails,
               | responding to comments from strangers, making business
               | connections, and more when you get larger. "Making
               | videos" themselves isn't just waving a camera around
               | while you do something either and requires it's own
               | thought and effort.
               | 
               | Anyone who has reasonable success on Youtube can be
               | monetarily rewarded for that. That alone creates an
               | expectation that it could possibly be a source of income
               | from the outset. If you can achieve making it a
               | sustainable income source capable of being lived off of,
               | why wouldn't you? You can continue to do and build upon
               | your actual hobby, whatever it is. But instead of working
               | a different "conventional" job you do video production,
               | PR, marketing, and potentially advertising. The problem
               | is that the on platform advertisement revenue is not
               | enough to cover the effort and resources required to make
               | videos as you become more serious about it. Part of this
               | is on viewers because Youtube knows if you are using
               | adblock. I can see this on the back end, on average for
               | my channel less than 50% of views are monetized. So if
               | nobody used adblock I could make literally double the
               | amount on just the on platform ads alone. But that's not
               | how it is and it's not going to change.
               | 
               | So you have to do something else as well. Personally, as
               | a Youtuber, I see two revenue paths. You either go crowd
               | funded with something like Patreon or do sponsors. You
               | can do both but unless it's well done and relevant it
               | feels like double dipping to me. But the in video
               | sponsors aren't any different than the other
               | advertisements on platform on youtube, except they aren't
               | blocked by adblock. (Youtubers properly disclosing the
               | ads is a completely separate issue that should not
               | besmirch everyone who does it.) Youtubers don't get to
               | choose their sponsor partners unless they are gigantic
               | and have to take what they can get. We get tons of spam
               | offers that try to screw us, taking real ones from even
               | slightly reputable companies can make a big impact.
               | Youtubers should do a better job of picking them, but not
               | everybody understands something like what a VPN actually
               | is and how is just moves your endpoint to a different set
               | of private hands. But advertising is tied to media and
               | not new at all. Complaining about a slightly more
               | effective version of it is just naivety about how the
               | service works and what the people who make the videos do.
               | 
               | TL;DR: Youtube is not a hobby, the subject Youtubers talk
               | about is. Youtube is a job that takes real work, but it
               | can't pay well enough, partly because of adblock. In
               | video sponsors are just a different ad method that
               | directly pays bypassing the adblock problem.
               | 
               | PS: I do not use adblock, partly because it feels
               | hypocritical to make money on ads and then block them for
               | others. The internet is indeed annoying without it, but I
               | manage just fine.
        
               | JKCalhoun wrote:
               | YouTube is not a hobby? Interesting. I don't think I ever
               | thought it was. I guess I consider it closer to art.
               | 
               | Plenty of musicians, artists perform/create with no
               | prospect of monetary gain. They do it for the accolades.
               | They do it for the positive feedback. They do it because
               | they have to: they're artists.
               | 
               | I suspect YouTubers like "Applied Science" are artists of
               | a sort. I guess I'm drawn to YouTube artists.
        
               | AkBKukU wrote:
               | I am conflating things in my mind a bit because most of
               | the comments on my own videos that complain about
               | sponsors or other revenue options use the "not as
               | passionate" argument alongside the idea of "Youtube
               | should just be a hobby". My apologies if that came off
               | wrong. But it is inevitable that anyone making videos
               | that is successful will have to treat it as a business
               | because it is work.
               | 
               | Applied Science is a good example of someone who has not
               | gone the sponsor route. He is crowd funded and has a
               | Patreon page that is setup to charge when he releases a
               | video(I'm a patron of his actually). It is still work to
               | make the videos and describe what he's doing and how it
               | works. He could be sponsored, even relevantly, if for
               | example he used a Rigol scope to show something and then
               | talked about it for a bit. But that wouldn't mean he is
               | any less passionate about what he is doing.
               | 
               | The musicians and artists example is different though.
               | Their hobbies produce media as an end result. Publishing
               | it is part of the process. I make videos about vintage
               | computers. My hobby without youtube would just be me
               | sitting alone in a room tinkering. Creating a video out
               | of whatever I'm doing requires deliberate additional
               | effort.
        
               | JKCalhoun wrote:
               | I don't want to suggest in any way that creating the
               | videos is easy and not work. I have put together probably
               | 30 to 40 videos myself (Final Cut) and know how much work
               | it is.
               | 
               | Gessoing a canvas is work. Setting up, taking down a drum
               | kit is work too. If you want the world to see your hobby,
               | or your art, there is a cost involved. We accept that
               | cost for exposure in return: for the joy of sharing in
               | return.
               | 
               | I don't fault anyone wanting to make money from their
               | hobby or their art. But I also respect a little more
               | perhaps those, like Applied Science, that don't want to
               | ... _sully_ their art with a blatant sponsor plug.
               | 
               | Again though, I'm just a viewer, fan, enthusiast, lurker
               | -- the content creators get to make their own rules, I
               | don't get to tell them how to run their channel.
               | 
               | Subscribed to your YT channel, BTW. Wrote a very early
               | game on the Commodore PET, LOL.
        
             | judge2020 wrote:
             | Sure, but creators don't have many other avenues for
             | revenue when you're already using YouTube-dl(p) to download
             | videos without watching ads. I imagine sponsor spots will
             | be devalued over time as sponsorblock usage continues to
             | grow, especially for creators with audiences that watch
             | content on desktop more than mobile.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | So what? Let creators figure out their business model.
               | That's their job.
               | 
               | We DO NOT want to look at ads. If their solution is ads,
               | we'll block them. When are they gonna understand this?
        
               | Forbo wrote:
               | Is it apparent to the sponsor when someone is watching
               | using youtube-dlp versus a regular view? I'd imagine most
               | sponsored segments are negotiated based on subscriber
               | count or view numbers.
        
               | crtasm wrote:
               | I don't believe the view counter gets incremented when
               | using any unofficial front-end/downloader.
        
               | boolemancer wrote:
               | How would Google's backend know whether the traffic comes
               | from their own frontend vs a utility like youtube-dl
               | (assume for the sake of argument that the utility is
               | trying to make the traffic look like normal YouTube
               | traffic)?
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | If the actual video URL is somehow grabbable from the API
               | you might miss whatever triggers a +1 view from the
               | website in theory
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | Youtube proper does a lot of JS, eg. a view is usually
               | only counted after ~30 seconds[0] and does other things
               | like logging the current timecode so that it can return
               | to that time in case the user clicks off the video and
               | returns to it later[1].
               | 
               | 0: https://www.tubics.com/blog/what-counts-as-a-view-on-
               | youtube....
               | 
               | 1: https://i.judge.sh/rare/Cherry/chrome_H0p9bAoLgy.png
               | the red line is how far in i've watched.
        
               | banana_giraffe wrote:
               | It does, it shows up as a "Other YouTube features" for
               | the source.
               | 
               | Though, YouTube seems to do some aggressive deduping
               | here, if I download from 5 different IPs, excluding the
               | IP I'm logged into YouTube's services, I see 5 views. If
               | I download 50 times from one IP, I see one view.
        
               | crtasm wrote:
               | Good to know, thanks for the correction!
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | Sponsors might ask for some of the creator's analytics,
               | eg. raid: shadow legends probably isn't going to sponsor
               | channels that have very low mobile viewership compared to
               | desktop. There are also paid analytics tools, eg. VidIQ,
               | which can make good guesses about some metrics.
        
           | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
           | I never buy anything based on ads, so it makes no difference
           | for the advertiser whether I remove the sponsored part or
           | not, they won't see a dime from me either way.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | > _Are the sponsor parts really so bad? To me not only is it
           | easy to skip_
           | 
           | Well, yes. Skipping involves effort. If I wanted to engage my
           | hands with the content, I would've opted for a book, not a
           | video.
           | 
           | Anyway, _actual_ sponsor parts I can stand. They 're at least
           | somewhat interesting, by virtue of being unexpected. Like,
           | who is this video sponsored by this time? Or, why this well-
           | known and otherwise respected science/technology video
           | vlogger keeps advertising scummy VPN services?
           | 
           | What I can't stand is the "like and subscribe" dance. It's
           | just completely mind-dumbing. Yes, I know you have a Patreon,
           | it's in the video description. Yes, I know where the stupid
           | "bell icon" is, I don't need unsolicited YouTube UI 101
           | lessons. No, I'm not going to click anyway, because I'm here
           | for a particular video, not the whole channel.
        
             | comprev wrote:
             | The more subscribers a channel has the closer they are to
             | gaining an official star from YouTube. They want to boost
             | the subscriber level to attract sponsorship too.
        
             | Popegaf wrote:
             | Considering the current system and real options that they
             | have right now, what are they supposed to do if they want
             | to earn money (or even a living) making videos that will
             | make you happy?
             | 
             | Perhaps more importantly, would you give them money?
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Well...
               | 
               | > _what are they supposed to do if they want to earn
               | money (or even a living) making videos that will make you
               | happy_
               | 
               | Make _me_ happy? It 's simple: don't do videos for a
               | living. If you have something interesting to say, say it,
               | and put a PayPal link (or Patreon, if you discover that
               | you regularly have something interesting to say). If you
               | don't have anything interesting to say, just don't do the
               | video. I'm not gonna watch it anyway.
               | 
               | But that's just me, really. There's no good answer to
               | your question, because for me, the moment a YouTuber
               | wants to do videos _in order to_ make money (or a
               | living), I don 't want to watch them anymore. Under the
               | current system, they're creating a huge conflict of
               | interest for themselves - monetizing views through
               | advertising is in _direct opposition_ to delivering
               | quality and trustworthy content. Almost all ways to
               | improve engagement degrade the value delivered to the
               | viewer.
               | 
               | I'd be more comfortable with creators doubling down on
               | Patron and one-time donations. Even the merch[0]. "I make
               | this stuff for as long as I can afford it, want to help,
               | send me money" is a honest deal. So is a paywall, but
               | that's tougher to implement on the Internet.
               | 
               | > _Perhaps more importantly, would you give them money?_
               | 
               | Yes, I would and I do. I subscribe to a bunch of
               | Patreons, occasionally buy stuff from creators or send
               | them direct donations. But not for everything, of course.
               | That's the nature of the market. A random video I got
               | linked to is worth $0 to me until I finish watching it,
               | and after I'm done, it's hard to price.
               | 
               | --
               | 
               | [0] - Though I seldom buy any, and really dislike the
               | concept. Most merch is a waste of matter and energy used
               | to create it; it exists only to break through people's
               | reluctance to spend money on intangible content, but at
               | the cost of most money being lost in making and shipping
               | stuff that will end up in a landfill after a short dust-
               | gathering break at some viewer's home. I hate these sorts
               | of "hacks" for human psyche, but I see why they're
               | needed.
               | 
               | There's also a conflict of interest here too - the videos
               | could become just a vector for peddling merch. But so
               | far, I haven't seen any YouTube creator falling into that
               | trap - unlike ad monetization, which affects everyone.
        
               | Tijdreiziger wrote:
               | Sure. I pay for YouTube Premium (which I understand gives
               | content creators a comparatively higher rate for my view)
               | and I still have to deal with sponsorships.
               | 
               | This also goes for channels with well over 1M
               | subscribers. I honestly have a hard time believing
               | they're struggling to make a living (but I haven't seen
               | the numbers).
               | 
               | Worst of all, the sponsorships tend to be for some scammy
               | VPN or gacha, even when it comes to creators who
               | otherwise create high-quality content.
        
               | tonypace wrote:
               | Don't forget the totally legitimate sites selling
               | software licences.
        
           | matheusmoreira wrote:
           | > Are the sponsor parts really so bad?
           | 
           | All marketing is bad. It's essentially mindhacking.
           | 
           | > I want indie people to make enough money to produce high
           | quality content
           | 
           | If people have something to say, they will say it whether
           | they get paid for it or not. That's what I want. Real
           | opinions from real people. Not some sponsored content you
           | can't trust is real.
           | 
           | > otherwise media is just what a few biggies want to fund
           | 
           | It already is. All they have to do to lose funding is say or
           | do something those sponsors don't like.
        
           | anshumankmr wrote:
           | There is only a certain number of times a person can watch a
           | video where the creator mentions they are sponsored by Raid
           | Shadow Legends before a person will go mad.
        
           | sildur wrote:
           | It is unnecessary filler that will also get stale pretty
           | quickly. I archive videos, and the ads would be obsolete in
           | less than 10 years.
        
             | esyir wrote:
             | An archivist might want to keep both the original and an
             | integration that strips the sponsor
        
               | detaro wrote:
               | Is there a way of attaching cut instructions to a video
               | file that players recognize?
        
               | Stephen304 wrote:
               | You could do something like how comchap works and just
               | mark ads / ad breaks with chapters in the video file.
        
           | Popegaf wrote:
           | While watching live, probably not, but once downloaded they
           | lose value, don't they?
        
           | banana_giraffe wrote:
           | For me, yes, they're bad. I get it's not the end of the
           | world, but a lot of the ad copy in sponsor segments really
           | grates on me, like VPN ones. I try to get rid of ads from my
           | life where I can, this is part of it.
           | 
           | And for me, a lot of the videos I download are played back,
           | audio only, while I go for walks or am otherwise away from
           | the Internet. YouTube lets you download videos, but my audio
           | comes from multiple sources, YouTube is just one source. I
           | can integrate yt-dlp into my feed reader so I don't need to
           | think about the source anymore than I need to worry about
           | going to a random podcast's website to listen to those.
           | 
           | In the end though, a tool like SponsorBlock is just another
           | way I remove the annoyances from the modern Internet.
        
             | arghwhat wrote:
             | Ugh, the blatant lies in VPN ads.
             | 
             | "MAKES IT SO YOUR ISP CAN'T SEE YOUR TRAFFIC" - yeah,
             | congrats, now it's just another ISP that sees your traffic,
             | which was probably protected by TLS anyway...
             | 
             | Heck, they even keep recommending the utility of Terms of
             | Service violations like accessing contents from other
             | regions.
             | 
             | VPN companies are scammy as hell.
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | > Heck, they even keep recommending the utility of Terms
               | of Service violations like accessing contents from other
               | regions.
               | 
               | You mean helping helpless US companies who doesn't
               | understand that Europeans can understand English?
               | 
               | Or actually get the full database of movies when we pay
               | the full price for Netflix?
               | 
               | Yeah, shame on us.
               | 
               | PS: I don't use VPNs to access Netflix, I just don't care
               | to look at it anymore and one day I'll cancel it. No way
               | I want to pay for the new stuff.
               | 
               | Edit: disagreement is acceptable but I'd like to see an
               | explanation if possible.
        
               | arghwhat wrote:
               | Not that I personally care if individuals violate terms
               | of service, but using that in a sales pitch seems akin to
               | advertising for piracy services.
               | 
               | Abiding by the terms of the agreement which you enter
               | into with the company providing the service is a
               | requirement to continue service and/or avoid liability,
               | irrespective of whether it includes completely idiotic
               | and archaic business practices and irrespective of
               | whether this causes harm.
               | 
               | And yes, I also find Netflix to have extremely limited
               | value.
               | 
               | This isn't the right way to overturn stupidity.
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | What is the right way to overturn stupidity then?
        
               | arghwhat wrote:
               | Legal means.
               | 
               | Not paying for a service whose terms you disagree with in
               | areas you disagree. Using alternative services that do
               | not have those terms. Demonstrating against the business
               | practice. Petitioning for law that renders the terms
               | illegal or invalid. Finding way to challenge the
               | parasitic middlemen that are to blame. And so forth.
        
               | Cederfjard wrote:
               | I think you know that geo-blocking is due to licensing
               | agreements with copyrights holders, which is a tangled
               | mess in itself, not that streaming platforms believe that
               | the content won't be appreciated by foreign audiences.
               | Most of what's on them over here is already in English
               | anyway. Besides, I don't think Americans have access to
               | 100% of the content available on Netflix worldwide,
               | either.
               | 
               | That said, I agree that it's ridiculous if you take a
               | step back, and in a sane world we wouldn't have these
               | types of restrictions. But it's an artifact of an old,
               | complicated system and isn't something Netflix or anyone
               | else can unilaterally fix.
               | 
               | I also agree with arghwhat that marketing your service as
               | a way to violate another business' terms of service
               | doesn't come across as serious, even if it's not
               | something I'd necessarily have a problem with personally.
        
           | ajdude wrote:
           | I always remember the HN comment[0] where developer explained
           | which video was the breaking point that pushed them into
           | creating this app, and it was kurzgesagt of all authors.
           | 
           | I am personally wondering if Yourube themselves are going to
           | start implementing some thing like this sooner or later;
           | after all, you are paying for an ad free experience on
           | YouTube premium, just to watch all of those new videos become
           | filled with in-video advertisements.
           | 
           | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781415
        
             | TeMPOraL wrote:
             | Holy shit. Kurzgesagt of all things, indeed. It's the one
             | channel where I could actually stand their sponsor section.
             | Most other channels I know do much worse. But I guess the
             | video referenced was kind of low, surprisingly low.
        
             | gizdan wrote:
             | > I am personally wondering if Yourube themselves are going
             | to start implementing some thing like this sooner or later;
             | after all, you are paying for an ad free experience on
             | YouTube premium, just to watch all of those new videos
             | become filled with in-video advertisements.
             | 
             | Unlikely. It requires monitoring content and ensuring they
             | people add (correct) timestamps for sponsored content. This
             | would need to be verified by YouTube moderators and in
             | general requires a lot more resources than you think.
             | Crowdsourcing like SponsorBlock is feasible but it's
             | unlikely that YouTube will integrate SponsorBlock into the
             | site.
        
         | nebula8804 wrote:
         | Man I thought I was in heaven when I accidentally stumbled upon
         | SponsorBlock. Now you're telling me about this?! Amazing! How
         | does the video quality fare after stripping? Is it re-encoding
         | the video or somehow stripping it without altering the quality?
        
           | banana_giraffe wrote:
           | It re-encodes. Actually, I think it defaults to marking the
           | sponsor bits ... somehow. Whatever it's doing wasn't enough
           | for my player to notice.
           | 
           | That said, for this stuff, I've only downloaded audio, and of
           | that mostly talking head type stuff, where I let it cut out
           | the segments. Whatever re-encoding is done would have to be
           | pretty bad before I'd care.
        
             | banana_giraffe wrote:
             | What am I missing? This looks like a re-encode:
             | $ yt-dlp -x --sponskrub --sponskrub-cut
             | "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7vPNcnYWQ4"
             | [youtube] _7vPNcnYWQ4: Downloading webpage
             | [youtube] _7vPNcnYWQ4: Downloading android player API JSON
             | [info] _7vPNcnYWQ4: Downloading 1 format(s): 251
             | [download] Destination: Making an unpickable lock. Calling
             | locksmiths [_7vPNcnYWQ4].webm         [download] 100% of
             | 12.72MiB in 00:00         [ExtractAudio] Destination:
             | Making an unpickable lock. Calling locksmiths
             | [_7vPNcnYWQ4].opus         Deleting original file Making an
             | unpickable lock. Calling locksmiths [_7vPNcnYWQ4].webm
             | (pass -k to keep)         [SponSkrub] Trying to remove
             | sponsor sections         WARNING: Cutting out sponsor
             | segments will cause the subtitles to go out of sync.
             | [libopus @ 0x5462c20] No bit rate set. Defaulting to 96000
             | bps.         size=    3515kB time=00:04:33.53 bitrate=
             | 105.3kbits/s speed=  26x
             | 
             | Without the audio only option, it's more clear it's re-
             | encoding:                   [SponSkrub] Trying to remove
             | sponsor sections         WARNING: Cutting out sponsor
             | segments will cause the subtitles to go out of sync.
             | [libopus @ 0x5575420] No bit rate set. Defaulting to 96000
             | bps.         frame=   51 fps=8.5 q=0.0 size=       1kB
             | time=00:00:01.95 bitrate=   3.5kbits/s speed=0.326x
        
           | radicality wrote:
           | I doubt it would have to re-encode. First it would split the
           | video into separate files which don't include the sponsored
           | content. Then would use something like the ffmpeg concat
           | demuxer which will adjust timestamps of the input streams,
           | and then output a concatenated result stream (no reencode)
           | (https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#concat-1). So it
           | should probably have zero quality loss.
        
       | jokoon wrote:
       | I noticed Reddit videos are sometimes mp4 iso5, which is an
       | unusual format and refused by WhatsApp status.
        
       | svnpenn wrote:
       | I have a similar tool here
       | 
       | https://github.com/89z/mech
        
       | DarthNebo wrote:
       | Nice, sponsor scrub!
        
       | say_it_as_it_is wrote:
       | The killer feature of YouTube-dl is that it has been actively
       | maintained for years. Any competing tool will need to do the
       | same, and it is highly unlikely that others will carry it on.
        
       | kragen wrote:
       | Nice to see this. youtube-dl -U keeps telling me:
       | youtube-dl is up-to-date (2021.06.06)
        
       | krick wrote:
       | I know it sounds incredibly picky, but given it's supposed to be
       | a drop-in youtube-dl replacement, it's quite annoying to suddenly
       | change the name to something as hard to remember as yt-dlp
       | instead of, say, youtube-dlp. I will be mixing it up every time
       | I'll google it, I guess. Not to mention it messes with naming
       | scheme of bash scripts and aliases I already have.
        
         | aethanol wrote:
         | alias it?
        
           | krick wrote:
           | I alias "youtube-dt <options>" to "yt-<something>". i guess a
           | lot of people do. I won't be surprised if I already have some
           | yt-dlp among the other variations. Also, I already said it's
           | not hte only problem. So suddenly naming the thing itself yt-
           | dlp is a "fuck you".
        
             | gitgud wrote:
             | Please remember it's an open source free project...
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | peterburkimsher wrote:
           | Here's the aliases that I typically use. I'm very pleased to
           | see that yt-dlp added --split-chapters, it's great for
           | separating long videos into separate songs! e.g. the Faca
           | Voce Mesmo EP from Under Control, a Brazilian punk rock bank
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSHEZ_HdjHs
           | alias yt-mp3='yt-dlp --extract-audio --audio-format mp3
           | --split-chapters --no-check-certificate'            alias
           | youtube-mp3='youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 '
           | alias youtube-mp4='youtube-dl -f
           | "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/mp4"'            alias
           | youtube-mp4-480p='youtube-dl -f
           | "bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]"'
           | alias youtube-playlist='youtube-dl -f
           | "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/mp4" -ciw -o
           | "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v '            #alias ffmpeg-mkv=find .
           | -type f -name "*.mkv" -exec bash -c 'FILE="$1"; ffmpeg -i
           | "${FILE}" -vn -c:a libmp3lame -y "${FILE%.mkv}.mp3";' _ '{}'
           | \;            #alias ffmpeg-webm=find . -type f -iname
           | "*.webm" -exec bash -c 'FILE="$1"; ffmpeg -i "${FILE}" -vn
           | -ab 128k -ar 44100 -y "${FILE%.webm}.mp3";' _ '{}' \;
           | #alias ffmpeg-mp3=find . -type f -iname "*.mp4" -exec bash -c
           | 'FILE="$1"; ffmpeg -i "${FILE}" -vn -y "${FILE%.mp4}.mp3";' _
           | '{}' \;
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | I've switched very recently, but searching "youtube-dlp" still
         | got me the answer I was looking for. I will admit I've typed
         | "you [tab]" and gotten confused why it wasn't working almost
         | every time so far, but I imagine that'll change in under a
         | week.
        
         | ehsankia wrote:
         | Honestly, I think they should've fully changed the name while
         | at it. youtube-dl is such an antiquated name that doesn't even
         | fit the tool anymore, as it now supports thousands of sources.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-27 23:02 UTC)