[HN Gopher] Juno - A YouTube Client for Vision Pro
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Juno - A YouTube Client for Vision Pro
        
       Author : axxl
       Score  : 634 points
       Date   : 2024-02-02 04:25 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (christianselig.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (christianselig.com)
        
       | user2344597 wrote:
       | How do you record the POV from the Vision Pro goggles?
        
         | shuckles wrote:
         | The screenshots in the post are likely from the simulator.
        
         | axxl wrote:
         | These were recorded in the simulator as stated in the article
         | by Christian. However there is a recording mode on the device
         | itself as well, although as I don't have one I don't know the
         | specifics.
        
           | user2344597 wrote:
           | I see, thank you. I was watching MKBHD and Brian Tong on YT
           | and they were using extensive actual POV recording:
           | https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4
        
             | ryankrage77 wrote:
             | In those reviews it looks like a mix of screen recording
             | (what the user sees), and you can also record and take
             | pictures from the onboard cameras (headset PoV). Thanks to
             | the passthrough, screen recording will often also capture
             | the room and the users hands.
        
           | ugh123 wrote:
           | well now those rooms look totally rendered! :)
        
         | basil-rash wrote:
         | There's a screen record function, the same as the rest of iOS.
         | MKBHD uses it extensively in his review video.
        
           | user2344597 wrote:
           | Thanks
        
       | mickle00 wrote:
       | love that this was built from the Apollo developer. Obviously
       | incredibly talented.
        
         | p-e-w wrote:
         | I'm amazed that someone who has been this badly burned by a
         | corporation controlling their API access would even think about
         | writing another app that uses third-party APIs, to be honest.
        
           | dumbo-octopus wrote:
           | Seems like a lot of the motivation was just recouping lost
           | revenue from his existing YouTube player integration code.
        
           | shiroiuma wrote:
           | You don't need third-party APIs to make a YouTube viewer.
           | There's a bunch of 3rd-party YouTube viewers like SmartTube,
           | ReVanced, etc. that bypass ads and don't use the official
           | API, plus of course the yt-dlp downloader.
           | 
           | I'd say the lesson here is NOT to rely on official APIs.
           | 
           | However, upon reading this blog post, it does seem he's using
           | the official API so I guess he thinks he'll be fine as long
           | as he doesn't block ads. Time will tell.
        
             | qt31415926 wrote:
             | A lot of the internet would break if YouTube
             | removed/tweaked their embedded video player so I doubt he
             | has to worry.
        
               | yard2010 wrote:
               | Keep in mind that this didn't prevent Facebook and
               | Twitter doing the same, Google is just behind with these
               | patterns, just like with everything else
        
             | ryandrake wrote:
             | > However, upon reading this blog post, it does seem he's
             | using the official API so I guess he thinks he'll be fine
             | as long as he doesn't block ads.
             | 
             | The idea of strapping something to my face that's going to
             | project ads into my eyeballs that I cannot look away from--
             | well, let's say it's pretty clear technology took a wrong
             | term some time ago.
             | 
             | Apple should do the right thing and enforce a strong "no
             | ads" policy for this product. Keep it premium for people
             | who shell out thousands of dollars for it.
        
               | Gigachad wrote:
               | You can look away from it. The OS doesn't give apps
               | access to the eye tracking info.
        
               | Kwpolska wrote:
               | You can get rid of the ads on YouTube by paying 0.4% of
               | the Vision Pro base model price per month.
        
               | shiroiuma wrote:
               | That does nothing for all the "sponsor segments" embedded
               | in the videos.
        
               | hunter2_ wrote:
               | Try sponsorblock, or stn which includes it.
        
               | shiroiuma wrote:
               | AFAIK, sponsorblock isn't going to work with a 3rd-party
               | YouTube viewer app like this.
        
               | hunter2_ wrote:
               | Yeah, I guess STN (a viewer app in which sponsorblock
               | works) is of the variety that TFA says makes Google
               | "grumpy."
        
             | yard2010 wrote:
             | I wanted my bot to "see" a youtube video and sum it up - so
             | me being the naive 1998 kid me, spent like 2 hours setting
             | up the API access to get the transcript of a video only to
             | realize I can use this API only on videos I uploaded which
             | is a complete bullshit because as soon as that happened I
             | ditched it and wrote a script using puppeteer scraping the
             | the transcript of ANY video, which ironically took less
             | time than setting up the API.
             | 
             | So yeah I learned my lesson I should not resort to piracy,
             | but start with it
        
           | kccqzy wrote:
           | If you had read the article you would find that this app
           | doesn't really need YouTube API access. It's just an iframe.
           | It's 1998 tech.
        
             | andsoitis wrote:
             | In that case, isn't it a race to the bottom with just
             | someone else doing something similar? What makes this
             | special?
        
               | dharmab wrote:
               | Technology doesn't need to be "special" to be useful.
        
               | Kwpolska wrote:
               | Nothing makes this special, maybe a well-known indie
               | developer.
        
               | notso411 wrote:
               | The fact that he wrote the apollo app? I don't know. It's
               | not exactly revolutionary is it
        
               | manquer wrote:
               | Good product is first about understanding the user and
               | the problem statement very well foremost. Most product
               | moats are just that, everything else is a function of
               | that.
               | 
               | Designing a great UX to interact with the system is the
               | other key ingredient, that requires step 1 and also a
               | great deal of creativity.
               | 
               | Anyone can copy same the features _after_ someone as good
               | as Christian Selig has made an app, Few can do similar or
               | better starting on their own, especially indie
               | developers, so he can always be ahead if he wants to.
               | 
               | Christian also chooses apps to work which are third party
               | platform controlled for a reason I think. He can operate
               | in markets like this as a extremely talented indie
               | developer that very few competent teams with capital
               | funding would attempt with platform risk. Beeper is the
               | most recent example on Apple, Christian himself got
               | burned in Reddit[1][2].
               | 
               | Finally he prices at a point so low that people are just
               | paying for the brand - for a well designed reliable
               | software which won't crash on them.
               | 
               | He likely will not lose all that much sales if a lower
               | priced/free product comes out Safari browser based
               | Youtube.com is already there .
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | [1] He can afford to in the sense his monthly cash burn
               | is very low compared to any normal company and he doesn't
               | have 100's of employees to worry about if he gets kicked
               | out.
               | 
               | [2] Even then he has carefully choose an API that Google
               | will have a hard time just blocking him ( and not every
               | other use of embedded playback), and he also is careful
               | not to use APIs to render the UI he has just skinned the
               | main website with light CSS.
        
               | RockRobotRock wrote:
               | It's the first one so it's currently the best one. If
               | someone else makes a worse app, why would you use it? I
               | don't get what's confusing here.
        
               | lagt_t wrote:
               | "There are three ways to make a living in this business:
               | be first, be smarter, or cheat."
        
               | cnity wrote:
               | If you have a link to the other similar ones that would
               | be useful.
        
               | roland35 wrote:
               | I thought the article did a good job addressing it. There
               | were a lot of nice touches which make this app work well
               | with the vision pro.
        
             | p-e-w wrote:
             | The iframe embed API _is_ API access, and YouTube can
             | remove, paywall, or rate limit it any time they want. How
             | old the underlying technology is is completely irrelevant
             | to that.
        
               | adesanmi wrote:
               | Unlike Reddit, Apollo was stopping users from seeing ads
               | and Reddit gaining ad revenue from them, so they went to
               | charge the Reddit app devs for this loss in revenue.
               | 
               | The YouTube embed API supports ads, and works perfectly
               | with Premium so Google are not losing any potential
               | revenue with this app existing.
               | 
               | Sounds like Christian learned his lesson with his
               | experience with Reddit: "don't get in the way of the
               | company's ad revenue".
               | 
               | Your statement still stands though, you are ultimately
               | correct.
        
               | speff wrote:
               | That's an interesting way to frame the reddit debacle.
               | Reddit could have mandated ads to be displayed as a part
               | of their TOS of API usage, but just decided not to - for
               | the clear reason of centralizing users to their app. It
               | wasn't /just/ about the loss of revenue - it was also
               | about the metrics they can collect on their platform
               | which they could not do on others'.
        
               | shafyy wrote:
               | YouTube disabling embedding would be fucking insane.
        
           | wahnfrieden wrote:
           | Nah this approach is solid. It's web views not api. It's
           | basically a web browser. I imagine other iOS browsers like
           | brave will come to vision and have YouTube etc video playback
           | and demonstrate it's tolerated even with Adblock probably.
           | But maybe easier to get by if more clearly a multipurpose web
           | browser.
        
           | po wrote:
           | He's not selling it as a subscription so there's very little
           | downside. Some people will send him $5 and if/when YouTube
           | cuts it off (can they really?) he doesn't really owe anyone
           | anything.
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | > _if /when YouTube cuts it off (can they really?)_
             | 
             | It's called "Juno for YouTube" so they could definitely
             | send a cease and desist for the YouTube trademark.
        
               | withinboredom wrote:
               | It uses the magic word: "for"
               | 
               | They'll probably still send a C&D but it will be
               | defensible.
        
               | yard2010 wrote:
               | But.. aren't most of the c&d defensible? It's like a
               | mafia scare tactic to dominate something - sometimes just
               | the "or else" destroys ppl lives
        
           | unobatbayar wrote:
           | It seems that he found a (momentary?) gap in the Vision Pro
           | app market and promptly seized the opportunity.
        
             | consumer451 wrote:
             | Absolutely. He's an indie product hacker who we could all
             | learn from.
             | 
             | "oh, he's entirely reliant on the platforms!"
             | 
             | Meanwhile, his cap table is himself, he does quite well,
             | and doesn't owe anything to anybody.
             | 
             | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/largest-spca-
             | fund...
        
         | zyang wrote:
         | I have a feeling is going to be a speedrun of the reddit saga.
         | Google obviously doesn't want a smooth youtube experience on
         | vision pro.
        
           | spiderice wrote:
           | Why is that? Obviously they don't want a third party app to
           | be that experience, but they make native apps for everything
           | else.
           | 
           | Also, Christian can't help himself but attach his apps to
           | large companies that can cut him off overnight. Haha.
        
             | justworkout wrote:
             | > but they make native apps for everything else.
             | 
             | They do. But it's difficult to call anything they make
             | "smooth." Google does some decent backend stuff but their
             | frontend experience is not.
        
               | jack_pp wrote:
               | the android youtube / music app is much better than any
               | other audio / video app i have including spotify, netflix
        
               | Mindwipe wrote:
               | Come on.
               | 
               | The YouTube Music app blocks you from navigating to a
               | different song at the same time as playing a track if it
               | decides that the track is primarily aimed at under 18s
               | (such as the theme from a retro cartoon).
               | 
               | It's UI might charitably be described as a total
               | catastrophe.
        
               | heapoverflow wrote:
               | That is a COPPA compliance thing and is true on the
               | regular YouTube app as well:
               | 
               | https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/30/why-youtube-
               | videos-...
        
               | jack_pp wrote:
               | Well compare that to Spotify which can only show videos
               | full screen in one orientation and needs to be force
               | stopped constantly because podcasts block a lot.
               | 
               | Also, I never encountered the problem you complain about.
        
               | echelon wrote:
               | Everything Google does in their own ecosystem is smooth.
        
               | unobatbayar wrote:
               | Not as smooth as Apple.
        
               | ricardobeat wrote:
               | I don't know if that's still true. The Music app is still
               | sluggish, Notes has poor UX, almost every built-in app
               | has a better third-party replacement. It has been
               | downhill since iOS 7.
        
               | SSLy wrote:
               | What the replacements for contacts and clock would be?
        
               | ricardobeat wrote:
               | Contacts+ and Cardhop are two.
               | 
               | To be fair the clock app is a lot better since they
               | introduced the sleep schedule, but I used to have a
               | separate alarm app, and still use Sleepytime to calculate
               | wake up times.
        
               | lawgimenez wrote:
               | What's so poor about Apple Notes? It's my most used app.
               | Just curious.
        
               | Gorbzel wrote:
               | And in all 3 cases, the Google equivalents are worse.
               | History shows they'll probably just be replaced with a
               | different product to solve the same problem which will be
               | worse in its own ways.
               | 
               | Subjective, but I use both Android and iOS daily.
               | Interesting byproduct of Android being the favorite of
               | those obsessed with customization is that the stock apps
               | are almost universally bad because everyone just replaces
               | them with different niche alternatives.
        
               | tiltowait wrote:
               | Has it ever been the case that the built-in apps are the
               | best in their category? _Should_ it be the case? Apple 's
               | strategy seems to be to make a simple offering that
               | appeals to most people, and to leave the
               | advanced/special/power features to third-party
               | developers. I think that's a pretty healthy arrangement,
               | though I bet many devs would prefer Apple not offer
               | defaults in some categories at all.
        
               | ciroduran wrote:
               | until the product gets killed
        
             | Gigachad wrote:
             | The YouTube app would have just worked on the vison pro if
             | they hadn't explicitly opted out.
        
             | erk__ wrote:
             | A example would be Windows phone where they just not only
             | did not make a YouTube app they denied access to the
             | YouTube app made by Microsoft.
        
               | Mindwipe wrote:
               | That app literally broke YouTube's agreements with the
               | music labels though (by allowing free downloads etc),
               | which this one doesn't.
        
             | nindalf wrote:
             | Short answer - usually individual app developers, even of
             | Google's size, need the platform (iOS) more than the
             | platform needs them. This means Apple has historically
             | driven hard bargains with even the most popular apps. Now
             | Apple is launching a new platform (visionOS) the 3 most
             | popular in their categories - YouTube, Netflix and Spotify
             | decided that visionOS needs them more than they need
             | visionOS. For now.
             | 
             | It's possible they might use this leverage to negotiate
             | better terms on iOS. For example, Netflix would like to
             | offer in app subscriptions and to keep more the revenue
             | without sharing with Apple.
             | 
             | If Apple sells millions of visionOS devices then that gives
             | Apple more leverage and these 3 might come crawling back.
             | 
             | Long answer - The Apple Vision Pro's Missing Apps by
             | Stratechery (https://stratechery.com/2024/the-apple-vision-
             | pros-missing-a...)
        
               | yard2010 wrote:
               | That's just apple being apple though, shipping half baked
               | stuff 3 years before they're ready
        
               | turquoisevar wrote:
               | > For example, Netflix would like to offer in app
               | subscriptions and to keep more the revenue without
               | sharing with Apple.
               | 
               | Netflix already has that option[0] at a 15% commission
               | rate, but they snubbed their nose. Allegedly because they
               | didn't want to play nice with the TV app, like other
               | streamers do.
               | 
               | Personally I think it's that (and the potential loss of
               | data) + them just wanting to pay $0.
               | 
               | 0: https://developer.apple.com/programs/video-partner/
        
               | HHaan wrote:
               | Tons of respect for Ben Thompson, but reason for not
               | shipping visionOS apps (or allowing your iPad app to work
               | on them) for these big co's is literally a matter of
               | "Bang for your buck":
               | 
               | > Building a new app from scratch makes zero sense for
               | the size of the install base. Only reason to ever do that
               | would be to get some love back from Apple in the form of
               | features and attention (which, for YouTube / Netflix /
               | Spotify are hardly necessary) > Allowing YOUR iPad app to
               | function on visionOS means that your customers will hold
               | YOU responsible for its functioning. At the size of
               | customer base of these companies, that's a bunch of risk
               | for no reward > When your users use a browser that
               | promises 'regular access to all websites' (built by
               | Apple) to access your service, the responsibility for
               | that experience lies with the browser builder, not you
               | 
               | There's 100% no negotiation over fees happening with
               | individual developers, regardless of how big they are,
               | regardless of what type of support for a platform they
               | promise Apple, as that's exactly what has gotten Apple
               | and Google in hot water with regulators worldwide.
               | 
               | Ben worded it well in the article:
               | 
               | "It's certainly possible that I'm reading too much into
               | these absences" < Yes
        
             | whywhywhywhy wrote:
             | >Why is that?
             | 
             | Operating system fatigue, supporting three native apps as
             | well as apples own browser engine is a lot of engineering
             | time.
             | 
             | End of the day Vision Pro needs YouTube more than YouTube
             | needs it.
        
               | jwells89 wrote:
               | On the other hand, I have to imagine that to some extent
               | YouTube is making maintaining their apps across multiple
               | platforms harder than it has to be.
               | 
               | The app is almost entirely made up of
               | tableviews/collection views/recycler views, save for the
               | video player... really not rocket science. If YouTube's
               | public API were more capable I'm positive that third
               | party devs would have no issue maintaining their YouTube
               | apps across N platforms simply because they wouldn't be
               | overcomplicating them like Google is theirs.
        
           | madeofpalk wrote:
           | Why do you say that?
           | 
           | I don't think the Youtube product managers really care enough
           | about Vision Pro to prioritise making an app for it. That
           | doesn't mean they strategically disgree with the product and
           | actively wish to hamper it.
           | 
           | Indepedently of Vision Pro, I think they just might not be
           | that enthusastic about third party youtube apps.
        
             | shmoogy wrote:
             | They explicitly opted the YouTube iPad app out of working
             | on vision pro
        
               | frei wrote:
               | Maybe it was a UX bug that hampers the experience to the
               | point that where the website is a better experience, and
               | they felt that a bad app would hurt the brand more than
               | no app.
        
               | madeofpalk wrote:
               | Or, maybe there wasn't but they didn't care enough to
               | test so they disabled it 'just to be on the safe side'.
        
       | ewzimm wrote:
       | This looks beautiful. I think Alphabet just won a more premium
       | app than they might have made by choosing not to play. I hope a
       | Quest port might happen someday.
        
         | drusepth wrote:
         | There might be less incentive for a Quest port because there's
         | already an official YouTube app that works quite well on the
         | platform.
        
           | ewzimm wrote:
           | It's not meant for MR like this. An immersive app for YouTube
           | that let you have a window management experiece closer to the
           | Vision Pro would be welcome.
        
             | drusepth wrote:
             | For the record, both the YouTube app and YouTube in the
             | built-in browser seem to work just fine in mixed reality /
             | passthrough (at least on my Quest 3), but the big feature
             | they're both missing from Juno's feature list is resizable
             | MR windows.
             | 
             | Would love to see a Juno port at some point if it includes
             | this too!
             | 
             | Edit: According to the Internet, apparently there is
             | actually a way to resize the MR windows (their "switch
             | view" button lets you resize them); I'm apparently just
             | blind. Would still love to see a Juno port though; more
             | options is always good.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | You can resize windows by clicking and dragging the
               | corner of the window.
        
               | ewzimm wrote:
               | I would just like to see people copy some of Apple's UI
               | functionality inside Quest apps. The official YouTube app
               | can do the standard flat panels that any Quest app can
               | do, but it's limited to living inside the 1x3 app row
               | that all flat Quest apps are bound to. The thing I like
               | best about the Vision Pro is that it's MR-first and apps
               | can be placed and anchored anywhere without being locked
               | to each other. That's not implemented in the base UI of
               | Quest yet, but it could be implemented inside an app like
               | YouTube, allowing either virtual screens or various
               | levels of immersive 3D to be anchored to spots in a room.
               | With the v62 update, the Quest can now bring up its 1x3
               | app row while running an immersive app and also save
               | multiple rooms. My dream YouTube app would be something
               | that could play videos anchored to spots in various rooms
               | while also running regular 2d apps through the standard
               | Quest interface. For example, imagine that you had your
               | favorite news program attached to your refrigerator and a
               | night sky view attached to your bedroom ceiling and a 3D
               | jungle instead of the brick wall outside your apartment
               | if you have an unlucky view. This is obviously beyond the
               | scope of this app right now, but I think there will be
               | interest among Quest owners to run apps that copy some of
               | the MR-focused features of the Vision Pro interface and
               | expand upon them. Using something like an embedded web
               | view with a nice interface and then incorporating some
               | anchoring abilities would be enough to expand the
               | usability of something like a video player. And although
               | this app doesn't run 3D videos, I think that's more of a
               | limitation of the Safari APIs right now. Something using
               | the Quest browser's native ability to run 3D video should
               | theoretically work.
        
         | makeitdouble wrote:
         | I might be missing it but I don't see any mention of actual VR
         | videos (180 and 360).
         | 
         | It probably would require a huge dev effort to support, but
         | that's definitely a miss compared to the offical Quest app.
        
           | zachrip wrote:
           | AFAIK this is a webview that Christian is hijacking certain
           | navigation events on. So the app itself isn't really
           | native/probably wouldn't support this feature.
        
       | basil-rash wrote:
       | > and YouTube still gets to show ads
       | 
       | Is this true? I have never seen an ad on my embedded youtube
       | player. Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted
       | some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was
       | rendering.
        
         | shiroiuma wrote:
         | >Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some
         | way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was
         | rendering.
         | 
         | I'm sure they'd be happy to take direct donations. Many have
         | Patreon accounts you can subscribe to. Those creators aren't
         | getting any meaningful revenue from ads; that's why they all
         | added those annoying sponsor segments.
        
           | basil-rash wrote:
           | If I had any revenue, I'd be happy to share it. In reality I
           | bear the full cost of all the resources required to host the
           | site at the benefit of the community with no ads or anything
           | else to offset it, and despite having several thousand active
           | users nobody has interacted with the prominent "tip {channel
           | name}" buttons I added.
           | 
           | I'd love if folks could use my site as a 0-guilt alternative
           | to watching the same videos on youtube (plus lots of AI-
           | enhanced goodness), but with the ads stripped away its not
           | quite the same.
        
       | cityzen wrote:
       | I miss Apollo every day :(
        
         | sssilverman wrote:
         | I tried using the official client for a while but just couldn't
         | stand it and switched back to Apollo about a month ago.
         | 
         | Sideloadly + ApolloPatcher was surprisingly easy to set up. Who
         | knows how long it'll last, but it's basically set and forget
         | once you create the Reddit+imgur API keys and enable wifi
         | sync/auto refresh.
        
         | Oreb wrote:
         | I always kind of liked Apollo, but I never saw what was so
         | exceptional about it. These days, I use Narwhal 2, and I can't
         | say I miss any functionality from Apollo. For my use, Narwhal
         | is just as good as Apollo on the iPhone, and vastly superior on
         | the iPad.
        
       | andsoitis wrote:
       | Indy developer charges $5 for app to access 1.78 trillion dollar
       | company's ad-driven video sharing platform.
        
         | ubiquitysc wrote:
         | That seems pretty fair given the work put in to make what
         | appears to be a much better experience than having to use it in
         | the browser in VisionOS
        
         | michaelhoney wrote:
         | I'm not sure what your point is. Should they not charge
         | anything?
        
           | huytersd wrote:
           | It's a solo developer, a guy.
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | 'they' is a great pronoun for ambiguous cases of sex &
             | plurality
        
               | theshrike79 wrote:
               | My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, so I
               | make an explicit point of using "they" for a pronoun
               | every time I can.
        
               | danjc wrote:
               | It's a terrible pronoun since that usage is a retrofit of
               | a word intended to be used as a plural.
        
               | GaryNumanVevo wrote:
               | Retrofit? The singular they has been used in English
               | literature as far back as the 13th century, not exactly
               | recent
        
               | zapzupnz wrote:
               | Singular they dates back to the 14th century. Isn't 600
               | years long enough to stop quibbling over it?
        
               | weego wrote:
               | Was here to say the same thing. OP ignoring history to
               | double-down on gender bigotry is disappointing to find on
               | HN.
        
               | Merik wrote:
               | I know an individual who used to think like that; do you
               | want to know why they changed their mind?
        
               | swexbe wrote:
               | So just like "you"? What's thi problem?
        
               | wodenokoto wrote:
               | Do you also avoid "you" when referring to just one
               | person?
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | There is no ambiguity here.
        
             | Someone wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
        
               | manquer wrote:
               | This is not reddit however have to say relevant username
               | :'-)
        
             | hiddencost wrote:
             | Bad hill to die on.
        
         | yakkityyak wrote:
         | 1.78 trillion dollar company could have made app, or even
         | better, not disable the iPad version in contempt.
        
           | jazzyjackson wrote:
           | is it contempt or simply a negotiation tactic?
        
             | yard2010 wrote:
             | Does it matter?
        
               | yellow_lead wrote:
               | It would matter to me, or maybe a Vision Pro user. If
               | Google is holding out as a negotiation tactic, there may
               | be an official app in the future, if Apple compromises on
               | revenue share.
               | 
               | If it is contempt or another reason, maybe the
               | possibility if an official app is less likely.
        
               | sbarre wrote:
               | Again, as a user, why is this our problem?
               | 
               | Let's all stop picking sides when trillion dollar
               | companies fight each other at the expense of an open
               | inter-operable Internet.
        
               | endisneigh wrote:
               | If you want an open internet don't use the app and just
               | use the website that works.
               | 
               | Good grief
        
               | sbarre wrote:
               | I think you missed my point there, but yes I agree with
               | you on that.
        
         | dubrocks wrote:
         | They surely have their own business plan for AR/VR that you're
         | not aware of.
        
       | p-e-w wrote:
       | > So I dunno, if you can afford an expensive Apple Vision Pro,
       | I'd really consider treating yourself to YouTube Premium!
       | 
       | The reason I don't have premium (and one of the reasons I block
       | ads) is that I don't want YouTube tracking my viewing habits,
       | which I cannot prevent if I'm forced to log in to access premium.
       | 
       | It has nothing to do with monetary cost. I'm always surprised
       | when I see statements like this one that appear to be completely
       | ignorant of this aspect.
        
         | diebeforei485 wrote:
         | Does their Incognito Mode meet your needs?
        
           | p-e-w wrote:
           | No, because I don't trust them. Otherwise I wouldn't have to
           | worry in the first place.
        
             | eurekin wrote:
             | I love this comic on-topic:
             | 
             | https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11gxpcu/our_little
             | _...
        
         | joemi wrote:
         | Stopping Google's tracking isn't as big a priority to most
         | people as it seems to be to you (otherwise google would be out
         | of business). So it shouldn't really be all that surprising
         | when people make statements that aren't about stopping google's
         | tracking.
        
         | newaccount74 wrote:
         | They track you whether you are logged in or not. I really don't
         | think it is easy to escape their tracking.
        
         | simiones wrote:
         | I think most people log in to YouTube specifically so YouTube
         | can see what they look at and show them more content like that
         | and sync across their device, even when they don't have
         | Premium. Yours is a tiny tiny niche use case, even among people
         | who would pay for a YT app.
        
       | jdminhbg wrote:
       | So nice to see a YouTube client that makes sense on the platform
       | it's on. Compare to the official YT client for iPad, for example,
       | which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on
       | phones.
        
         | MengerSponge wrote:
         | FYI, Vinegar is well worth a couple of bucks.
         | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303...
         | 
         | Install it, and delete the janky "native" app. Now Youtube is a
         | webpage that does everything it does on a regular browser. PiP?
         | Audio with the screen locked or in the background? Yes and yes.
        
           | rjzzleep wrote:
           | I've been using vinegar forever(Orion browser supports PiP
           | without extension by the way)
           | 
           | But it's bizarre to me how bad the PiP experience on iOS is.
           | When you press play on your bluetooth headset it will pause
           | the video you're playing instead play whatever was on your
           | Music app.
           | 
           | If you lock your screen, it will stop playing the youtube
           | video and then you have press play again on the lock screen
           | to resume.
           | 
           | Contrast that to either third party youtube clients on
           | Android or (Re)vanced, and it's not even close.
           | 
           | And it seems every app has its own PiP issues. Every iOS I'm
           | secretly hoping that Apple will address this issue, but it
           | never happens ...
        
             | callalex wrote:
             | The first problem you describe (wanting to play both music
             | and a video?) is just weird, and I'm glad the default
             | pehavior doesn't do that. Your second problem is jank
             | intentionally introduced by YouTube.
        
           | isametry wrote:
           | Does it still block ads? I happily used Vinegar before, but
           | it lost that functionality when YouTube's crusade against ad
           | blockers began (I don't recall if it just let the ads
           | through, or if it triggered the "Ad Blocker Detected" pop-
           | up).
           | 
           | With that, YouTube single-handedly forced me to move browsers
           | on all my devices - from Safari to Orion, where I get to use
           | uBlock Origin. uBlock seems to have stayed a step ahead of YT
           | since.
        
             | moi2388 wrote:
             | Set your vpn to India and buy YouTube premium there for
             | like 1 dollar a month. Cheaper than adblockers and works
             | everywhere
        
               | shiroiuma wrote:
               | In what universe is 1 less than 0? I haven't paid one red
               | cent for uBlock Origin.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | Yeah, but does that work everyw-
        
               | oliwarner wrote:
               | Universes where your time isn't worthless? A low cost,
               | fire-and-forget solution might easily out-value free.
        
               | chrismorgan wrote:
               | I'm confident that installing uBlock Origin will be
               | faster and easier than subscribing to YouTube Premium.
        
               | oliwarner wrote:
               | Until YouTube blocks you.
               | 
               | I'm really not arguing for any particular course of
               | action but these options have real and potential time
               | costs that need to be weighed against financial and
               | mental load.
        
               | lupusreal wrote:
               | If you're using a VPN already, youtube won't block you
               | for using an adblocker. At least, not if you don't use an
               | account. I definitely spend less than a dollar a month in
               | time spent keeping my adblocker working, I haven't
               | fiddled with it in years...
        
             | kergonath wrote:
             | > Does it still block ads? I happily used Vinegar before,
             | but it lost that functionality when YouTube's crusade
             | against ad blockers began (I don't recall if it just let
             | the ads through, or if it triggered the "Ad Blocker
             | Detected" pop-up).
             | 
             | It does. The experience is worse than it was a couple of
             | months ago, though, as both YouTube and the blockers have
             | to get creative. I think it's engaged in the general cat-
             | and-mouse game and occasionally I see YouTube's anti-ad
             | blocker screen, but usually it resolves after a day or two.
             | Overall it's still much better than out-of-the-box YouTube.
        
         | thrdbndndn wrote:
         | > which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as
         | on phones
         | 
         | I personally think iPad YouTube app's touch is not too bad; but
         | in general (not limited to YouTube), I think the UI design of
         | web video players are _all_ too fixated on the existing design.
         | 
         | For example, when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all
         | the controls need to be confined to the video frame and
         | disappear when not hovering. While this design choice has its
         | benefits, it also presents significant drawbacks: it obscures
         | the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a
         | problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens), and
         | performing quick, repetitive actions becomes difficult because
         | the controls aren't visible until you hover over them, among
         | other issues. This approach to web video player UI has been a
         | pet peeve of mine for some time.
        
           | eurekin wrote:
           | Another one with a same pet peeve here.
           | 
           | It's especially "interesting", when the slider allows to
           | navigate to the exact frame you want (that happens very
           | rarely) and the information you want to see is in the
           | subtitles burned into the video - the ones not shifting with
           | UI controls. The UI obscures that and I have to make tens of
           | attempts with increased sloppiness due to frustration to take
           | it all in.
           | 
           | Most often it's something I keep mishearing and need
           | subtitles to actually understand what's being talked about.
           | For example, I keep hearing "Hello awful person" in Anton
           | Petrov's videos.
           | https://youtu.be/PyRf7B1Ji4A?si=bIA7S8qB_WLdLgVs&t=45
        
           | andrepd wrote:
           | You just need to accept that "user interface design" has
           | stopped being a thing in everything but niche/pro
           | applications for at least the past 10 years. You have "follow
           | the trend", yes, or "design it so it looks good on
           | screenshots", but not "user interface design".
           | 
           | Accept it and you will be less frustrated.
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | Acceptance can be wise, but this is not a 10 year old
             | problem. Look at your oven; unless you are very lucky (or
             | picky, if you bought it yourself), it has terrible UX.
             | 
             | Most people don't care enough about UX to make purchasing
             | decisions based on it. Therefore, most companies don't
             | prioritize it. Therefore, most product designers have no
             | incentive to care about UX.
             | 
             | This has always been true.
        
             | wolpoli wrote:
             | In other words, the designers are just engaging in
             | screenshot-centric design.
        
               | thrdbndndn wrote:
               | It would be helpful if you you can hide the UI when
               | pausing for screenshot, then!
        
           | edflsafoiewq wrote:
           | It used to be like that.
           | 
           | https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/websites/youtube-
           | websit...
        
           | bisRepetita wrote:
           | _> it obscures the actual content when you 're interacting
           | with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on
           | smaller screens) _
           | 
           | What's the right trade-off here in your mind then? Leave the
           | controls always-on/visible? On a small screen, it takes a lot
           | of real estate (except in portrait mode), and small UI
           | controls are a pain to use so you need to make them big
           | enough. I struggle with this, I really don't know what is the
           | right trade-off here.
        
             | rakoo wrote:
             | > On a small screen, it takes a lot of real estate
             | 
             | That's why the full-screen mode exists
        
               | Thorrez wrote:
               | thrdbndndn was only advocating for always-on controls in
               | non-fullscreen mode.
               | 
               | One reason people might enter fullscreen mode is to avoid
               | seeing distracting things on the screen. Controls might
               | be distracting.
        
             | thrdbndndn wrote:
             | > except in portrait mode
             | 
             | Portrait mode is exactly what I have in my mind. You have
             | plenty of places on the bottom of the video canvas.
             | 
             | For YouTube at least, you only has full-screen mode when in
             | landscape anyway.
        
               | TaylorAlexander wrote:
               | On iPhone the YouTube app will do full-screen in portrait
               | mode. Grab the video title (under the video) with your
               | finger and pull down. The rest of the UI goes away and
               | you just get the video shown in the middle of the screen
               | with large black areas above and below the screen.
               | 
               | This is besides your point but I thought I would mention
               | it. I like controls that hide in full screen mode
               | regardless of portrait or landscape because you want to
               | focus on the content.
        
               | joseda-hg wrote:
               | Not anymore, you can force portrait fullscreen In desktop
               | for example: If you go into a vertical video with a
               | regular "/watch?v=" URL, you can see vertical format
               | video with regular controls
               | 
               | There was some way to get the same effect in android, but
               | I can't recall right now
        
           | pests wrote:
           | > when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all the
           | controls need to be confined to the video frame and disappear
           | when not hovering
           | 
           | YouTube Premium offers Premium Controls which is a sidebox
           | with the controls like you are asking for.
        
             | SebFender wrote:
             | what what what? I've been using Premium for years what is
             | this feature exactly? I don't see it. Cheers.
        
               | barrell wrote:
               | If you tap on the settings/cog icon on a video, there's
               | an item for "additional settled", which then has another
               | item for playback controls or something.
               | 
               | Once you want to do anything else you have to exit
               | everything and open it back up though, it's not really
               | efficient
        
               | pests wrote:
               | Desktop only feature. Have to enable it. It puts a
               | sidebox with a mini remote where suggested videos usually
               | are.
               | 
               | It's under "Modify Playback with Premium Controls":
               | 
               | https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en
        
             | TaylorAlexander wrote:
             | Oh my gosh they're paywalling video controls now wow.
        
           | wodenokoto wrote:
           | And extra controls appear when pausing. I get that most of
           | the time when you pause it's because you are not watching,
           | but it completely obscures the use case where you want to
           | look at a still frame.
           | 
           | Worst though is YouTube shorts where you can't rewind
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | Oh wow, is this because I have YouTube premium? I
             | absolutely loathe this feature, because 99% of the time I
             | am pausing, it is because I want to read what text is on
             | the screen. It gets completely obscured by the controls,
             | and even the text that is visible is difficult to read
             | because it has a darkened background. Is there a way to
             | turn this feature off?
        
               | ek750 wrote:
               | I also have YT premium. On desktop, I use firefox and the
               | popout video feature. It is easily resizable and movable.
               | Downside is that js-player controls still show on the
               | webpage, not the popout. On ios, once paused, just tap
               | anywhere on the video anywhere there isn't a widget. That
               | hides all the video controls for me.
               | 
               | Edit: Also there are keyboard controls for going frame-
               | by-frame, if you need that much control. Or there was
               | last time I used it a long time ago.
        
         | yard2010 wrote:
         | It's on purpose though, YouTube app is designed to maximize
         | time spent on app, not UX
        
         | danpalmer wrote:
         | This strategy has changed now as far as I can remember. Google
         | used to have a strategy of using material on iOS, but has
         | decided to switch to a more native UIKit feel. I imagine that
         | will be a long transition, but it's promising.
        
         | cbovis wrote:
         | The YouTube app on our Sony TV kills me. Out of a variety of
         | apps installed (Netflix, HBO, Disney, Apple, Prime) it's the
         | only one that we need to adjust volume for EVERY SINGLE TIME
         | because they decided 15 should be loud vs 30 on all the other
         | apps. Especially frustrating when a lot of the time the first
         | play experience in YouTube is being blasted with some kind of
         | rapid-fire ad sequence.
        
           | bj-rn wrote:
           | Don't know about the volume difference. But haven't seen any
           | yt ads in a long time thanks to SmartTube:
           | https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube
        
             | datpiff wrote:
             | The volume issue persists on SmartTube
        
           | badgersnake wrote:
           | Same on AppleTV, YouTube is louder than everything else
           | except for Spotify which is even louder.
        
             | cbovis wrote:
             | I've been resisting the urge to splurge on an Apple TV to
             | try and solve this particular problem. Useful to know!
        
         | hapticmonkey wrote:
         | The AppleTV YouTube app is so bad that I'm convinced nobody
         | responsible for it owns a TV.
         | 
         | It even forces its own built in screensavers to run instead of
         | the OS one if the app is left paused. Who approves that?!
         | 
         | What Steve Jobs said about Microsoft in the 90s applies to
         | Google today: They have no taste.
        
           | deergomoo wrote:
           | > It even forces its own built in screensavers to run instead
           | of the OS one if the app is left paused
           | 
           | Eh? YouTube is my most-used app on Apple TV by a country mile
           | and I've never seen this, I get the tvOS screensavers. Is it
           | because I have YouTube Premium maybe?
           | 
           | I agree though, it is a garbage app. Everything on a TV, from
           | the built-in apps to Roku boxes to Apple TV use basically the
           | same app (certainly the same layout) and it's really quite
           | bad.
        
           | heapoverflow wrote:
           | This is because of YouTube's obsession to build cross-
           | platform, lowest-common-denominator apps, resulting in
           | mediocre experiences across all the platforms they support,
           | and rarely excellent on any single platform.
           | 
           | Their Apple TV app is basically a web view which doesn't
           | conform to any of AppleTV's UI principles. Same as their
           | YouTube TV app. It's sad.
        
           | isatty wrote:
           | N=1 obviously but I use the YouTube app a lot on my Apple tv
           | and think it works fine? I don't get anything besides the
           | native screensaver and they even added the option to browse
           | comments natively.
           | 
           | Only bug seems to be a black screen for a second when I close
           | the app (maybe a bug with suspend?).
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | Don't get me started on the official YT app on ChromeOS... it's
         | so bad (one example: the seek bar was barely usable with a
         | touchscreen) that I eventually disabled it, using the website
         | is much better.
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | Same, with the added benefit that in the browser I have lots
           | of knobs and dials I can turn with uMatrix and other Dev
           | tools. Oh and of course, sponsor block. Youtube should be
           | insanely grateful for sponsor block, because if not for that
           | tool I would have canceled my premium membership because I
           | hate seeing ads. I will simply find something else to watch
           | if I have to watch ads.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | all the youtube apps suck. I can't tell you how many times I've
         | accidentally clicked on another video while watching the one I
         | actually am trying to watch. If you aren't full screen they
         | fill up half the space with giant links to other videos and
         | there's no confirmation or option for confirmation. I'm not
         | sure anyone who works on them actually uses them in real life
         | situations.
        
       | ftio wrote:
       | Christian isn't charging enough! This could easily be $10 or
       | more.
       | 
       | I still grumble every time I use the Reddit app. RIP Apollo.
        
         | dcchambers wrote:
         | I basically just stopped using Reddit after that whole fiasco.
         | I had already been drifting away for years. The site has
         | changed. It was time to move on.
        
           | cookiesandmilk wrote:
           | I started using Yesterday for Old Reddit. It's a safari
           | extension which makes old.reddit.com very mobile friendly!
        
           | yard2010 wrote:
           | Same here. Twitter as well
        
           | midasz wrote:
           | I still selfhost a libreddit instance for search results but
           | no more browsing
        
             | vinnymac wrote:
             | That sounds very useful, how much space does it utilize?
        
               | midasz wrote:
               | Pretty much nothing. The docker image is less than 10mb
               | and it uses barely any RAM for me, like 15 idle? I've got
               | it running locally and can access it through tailscale
               | everywhere. Having it open to internet is a bad idea
               | since rate limiting becomes an issue but for a single
               | user it's perfect.
        
           | jjcm wrote:
           | You can sideload Apollo. It's a bit sketchy, but it's been
           | nice having it back.
        
         | slg wrote:
         | Seriously, what percentage of people who just spent at least
         | $3,500 on the hardware would quibble over an extra $5 when it
         | comes to as essential a native app as Youtube?
        
           | sammy2255 wrote:
           | Not everyone is greedy and profiteering
        
           | blagie wrote:
           | I didn't buy the hardware, but if I had, I would quibble over
           | the extra $5.
           | 
           | No, seriously. I would.
           | 
           | Here's the basic problem:
           | 
           | * I wouldn't mind spending $10 on something which I know I'm
           | using.
           | 
           | * Most apps sit on my phone unused. Most are horrible. I have
           | no idea before I buy whether it's good or horrible for me.
           | 
           | * I often don't mind spending a buck or two on something to
           | see if I'll use it. $10 is right above that threshold.
           | 
           | * No apps do a decent free trial. I'm busy, so one of the
           | 30-day things doesn't work for me. I'll install it, and when
           | / if I get around to using it, the trial is already done. My
           | life doesn't revolve around the app. Likewise, many apps will
           | limit functionality to where the free trial is basically an
           | advertisement, and I don't see if it's something I'd use.
           | 
           | I think what would work for me (n=1) is:
           | 
           | * The app is free for the first 40 hours of actual use. Or
           | perhaps some annual quota.
           | 
           | * Continuing using it beyond that costs e.g. $20 for
           | something simple like a video player and e.g. $100 for
           | something complex like a video editor.
           | 
           | That aligns incentives right too.
           | 
           | For a video player, I don't think I'd use one without the
           | option for an ad blocker. I'm not getting Youtube Premium no
           | matter how cheap or expensive it is, since I don't think it'd
           | be unethical for me to do so (it's a bit of a broken social
           | contract by Google). That's another story (and I'm not trying
           | to push my values on anyone else).
        
             | criddell wrote:
             | The app is only $5.
             | 
             | Best case scenario: you get an app you use all the time for
             | almost nothing and are supporting an independent developer
             | making cool stuff.
             | 
             | Worst case scenario: you never use the app but supported an
             | independent developer with a tiny donation.
        
               | blagie wrote:
               | The question wasn't over $5. The question was over an
               | extra $5, for a total of $10. $5 is basically the upper
               | bound of where I'm willing to experiment.
               | 
               | The question is also very much about whether I am
               | "supporting an independent developer with a tiny
               | donation." A lot of stuff on app stores is spammy,
               | scammy, and I explicitly don't want to support. Our
               | dollars determine where our resources (as a society) go.
               | I don't mind supporting good things, even with donations.
               | I am currently fighting a company over <$3 which they got
               | by fraud, not because it's worth my time, but because
               | it's my civic duty; if I don't, they'll scam another
               | million people.
               | 
               | The audience are HN readers -- entrepreneurs trying to
               | make apps. The point isn't about me as what I ought to be
               | doing (or about convincing others to be like me). The
               | point is to honestly give customer insight, again, with
               | an n=1. If enough people do that, there's a sample bias,
               | but you do get better insight than nothing.
               | 
               | I'm probably going to stop doing that since "customers
               | doing what we don't like" increasingly leads to
               | downvotes. Either I'm communicating badly, people reading
               | are increasingly bad at reading comprehension, or some
               | combination there-of. These posts used to be valued a few
               | years back.
               | 
               | However, as much as it didn't come across, the take-home
               | message was intended to be that if you're running an
               | honest business, you want to (and can) charge me more if
               | you:
               | 
               | 1) Clearly signal you're not evil. E.g. my data is
               | treated with respect, you won't scam me, etc.
               | 
               | 2) Give me enough information to be able to determine
               | it's a product I want.
               | 
               | That's basic transparency, and a lot of startups lose my
               | business because they screw it up.
        
           | spacedcowboy wrote:
           | Well, I don't really use Youtube, so ...
        
             | slg wrote:
             | Then why would you buy a $5 YouTube client?
        
         | monkeywork wrote:
         | While not as good as Apollo the "Dystopia for reddit" (iOS) or
         | the "Red Reader" (android) are both better than the official
         | reddit app.
        
           | geoelectric wrote:
           | iOS has Narwhal 2, as well. It's got its own subscription to
           | defray the API costs but it's a reasonable price.
        
           | pantulis wrote:
           | Dystopia is excellent not only because it's free but because
           | it is great for people with poor eyesight like myself,
           | allowing for pretty big fonts that are broken on the official
           | iOS Reddit App. The only alternative way I've found to
           | achieve this is to browse Reddit with Safari and use page
           | zoom.
           | 
           | I'm still missing Apollo quite a lot. Narwhal2 is good and
           | comes close but it's not exactly there.
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | thanks for reminding me to double check my stylesheets for
             | big text compatibility.
        
               | pantulis wrote:
               | I always used to think that accessibility is for blind
               | people, text readers and all that shit. Turns out that
               | over the years accessibility ends up catching you one way
               | or the other.
        
             | yard2010 wrote:
             | Yo just for this incident reddit should be fined, but not
             | peanuts, like 10-20% their revenue. Any business that
             | discriminates disabled people mustn't be a business IMHO
             | 
             | Don't worry. The EU will teach them a lesson when they're
             | done with everyone else. Thank god we have the EU to
             | balance US.
        
             | isatty wrote:
             | Dystopia is indeed amazing.
             | 
             | The "command line" lite experience for browsing is also
             | very good.
        
         | BlindEyeHalo wrote:
         | In general I would agree but charging $10 for something that
         | can be shut down tomorrow just because google doesn't like it
         | seems a bit much.
        
           | sbarre wrote:
           | He admits it uses the official embed API, doesn't block or
           | skip ads and generally plays nice with their systems. He's
           | not trying to circumvent anything, he's just filling a gap
           | left by Google themselves.
           | 
           | It would be quite the precedent for Google to shut someone
           | down who is _technically_ playing by all their rules.
           | 
           | (Yes I'm sure the ToS allows them to do this if they want to
           | - but it would be a bad look).
        
             | wahnfrieden wrote:
             | Lots of apps block YouTube ads by default. Including Brave
        
         | palla89 wrote:
         | You can sideload without jailbreak, it perfectly works!
        
         | snalty wrote:
         | I'm quite liking Winston for Reddit.
         | 
         | https://testflight.apple.com/join/3UF8bAUN
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Why do this when YouTube would have one eventually? This isn't
       | like Reddit client, I've never heard of a 3rd party YouTube
       | client. Is he doing it for fun or just to get the initial
       | impatient $$ before YouTube shows up?
        
         | hokumguru wrote:
         | You didn't use an iPhone before iOS6? Hate to break it to you
         | but they took quite a few years with the last platform!
        
         | wrsh07 wrote:
         | The worst part of being an early adopter (very first world
         | problems) is that nothing exists yet. When 4k HDR was first
         | being supported, a couple of Netflix shows were there and...
         | not much else (some YouTube videos of dubious quality) VisionOS
         | is going to have a lot of new app developer excitement, and
         | that's good! YouTube is one of the most used apps on my phone,
         | $5 seems pretty reasonable.
        
         | neurostimulant wrote:
         | > I've never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client.
         | 
         | There are plenty of cool 3rd party youtube clients. SmartTube,
         | NewPipe and Invidious come to mind. Youtube Revanced could be
         | considered as 3rd party youtube client as well.
        
       | jdoss wrote:
       | I echo the author's praise of YouTube Premium. When it first came
       | out I was like there is no way I would ever pay for such service.
       | Being an early YouTube user, pre Google buyout, I still was in
       | love with the platform that gave me content from real people.
       | 
       | Fast forward to 2020 the US election cycle broke me. I could not
       | stand the amount of political ads that were being shoved down my
       | throat. My kids were perma home due to COVID and we were running
       | out of things to watch. I finally caved and got YouTube Premium.
       | I told myself OK after this shit show of an election cycle ends I
       | will cancel and yet here I am still paying for it. It is that
       | good.
       | 
       | Yes I realize that I am part of the problem. I just got my first
       | Amazon Prime ad tonight trying to catch up on the train wreck
       | Wheel of Time show they are putting out... and I am going to
       | upgrade to not have them because I simply DGAF about whatever
       | bullshit that they are filling advertisement slots with.
       | 
       | $2.99 a month is worth it. Kill me now.
        
         | imiric wrote:
         | So a corporation acquired the platform you enjoyed using, and
         | corrupted the user experience so much that it forced you to pay
         | them to get the old UX back, and... you're happy about it?
         | 
         | Sounds like Stockholm syndrome, to be honest, with Google
         | laughing all the way to the bank.
        
           | brabel wrote:
           | I think running the biggest video platform on the planet
           | entirely for free is not realistic. Why are you so against
           | Google charging a minimum fee for doing that while still
           | giving you the opportunity to watch for free in exchange for
           | being shown a few ads? Do you think they should be run as a
           | charity?
        
             | imiric wrote:
             | > Why are you so against Google charging a minimum fee for
             | doing that while still giving you the opportunity to watch
             | for free in exchange for being shown a few ads?
             | 
             | I'm against it because advertising is not the only business
             | model that works at scale. Google effectively introduced
             | itself as a middleman between content creators and
             | consumers, which they continue to do whether you pay with
             | your attention/data or cash.
             | 
             | I happily support content creators who don't rely on
             | advertising or Google itself. I just refuse to be forced
             | into a corrupt business model.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | > Google effectively introduced itself as a middleman
               | between content creators and consumers, which they
               | continue to do whether you pay with your attention/data
               | or cash.
               | 
               | anybody else is free to introduce a content discovery &
               | delivery scheme that would obviate the need for a
               | advertising-laden middleman, but for some reason people
               | keep downloading the YouTube app
        
               | tiborsaas wrote:
               | What would be your ethical business model alternative to
               | maintain YoutTube's staff, engineering, energy bill and
               | hardware costs? Just to break even.
        
               | sbarre wrote:
               | Not to mention paying the creators!
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | Advertising is the only business model that works at
               | scale AND can support hypergrowth.
               | 
               | We know that subscriptions work at scale, mostly. YT
               | Premium[1] has 100 million (Maybe 90M if there are 10M
               | people only getting Music premium). But if YT was only
               | available via subscription in 2010 during the gaming
               | channel boom, it probably would have failed out of the
               | gate.
               | 
               | But advertising is necessary to maintain the scale YT
               | runs at today. 100 Million subscribers is nothing
               | compared to the >2.7 billion humans that use it. Not all
               | of them would pay even $2/month if you let them.
               | 
               | 1: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-music-
               | premium-1...
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | No ads is not sustainable. It's not like the alternative is
           | youtube remaining ad free. The alternative is youtube
           | shutting down.
        
             | imiric wrote:
             | That's a false dichotomy. There are many monetizing
             | alternatives besides advertising, or paying the platform to
             | remove advertising they introduced in the first place.
        
               | jdoss wrote:
               | OK, I'll bite. What are some alternatives besides
               | advertising or paying a fee to get no Ads?
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | It's not my role to come up with consumer-friendly
               | business models, or to vouch for any specific ones. I'm
               | just saying that, as a consumer, I don't want Google's
               | business.
               | 
               | If someone is selling apples in exchange for punching me
               | in the face (and actually watching me and doing that
               | while I eat, for a more accurate analogy :), then I
               | wouldn't like going to their store. I would prefer going
               | to the farmers' market and buying directly from the
               | farmer by paying for it with cash. Farm-to-table type of
               | transaction. Would this make the farmer as rich as
               | selling their apples to the face-punching store? Probably
               | not. They would probably have to work harder for less
               | money, because they would have to manage more of their
               | business themselves, and their products wouldn't reach as
               | many people. There would probably be less apple farmers
               | overall as well. But would it be a more consumer-friendly
               | business that is actually incentivized to put care in
               | their product? Absolutely.
               | 
               | It's not my fault that there aren't more farmers' market
               | equivalents on the web. I'll use them if/when they exist,
               | but in the meantime I'll have to resort to acquiring my
               | apples in alternative ways.
        
               | framapotari wrote:
               | In your analogy when you say buying directly from the
               | farmer by paying with cash, what does that translate to
               | in the real world? How are you supporting content
               | creators on YouTube if you block ads?
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | For most of them, I'm not. But some creators have
               | alternative revenue streams which I do support.
               | 
               | This is not my problem to fix. I don't feel guilty in any
               | way for refusing to participate in a business model I
               | don't agree with.
        
               | pb7 wrote:
               | You should feel guilty. It's no different than going to a
               | restaurant and not tipping knowing full well that is the
               | accepted business model. It's not illegal, but it's a
               | morally reprehensible thing to do. And tipping one server
               | $50 and the next 10 nothing is not worthy of praise
               | either.
        
               | Mindwipe wrote:
               | > It's not my role to come up with consumer-friendly
               | business models, or to vouch for any specific ones. I'm
               | just saying that, as a consumer, I don't want Google's
               | business.
               | 
               | "The many monetisation models I claimed exist go to
               | another school. In Canada."
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | With keeping the same old UX yes it is. What YouTube
               | offers for free is very generous. There is unlimited
               | uploads. The high resolution options are free. The site
               | is not behind a paywall. You can make an infinite amount
               | of playlists which each have an unlimited size. You can
               | have unlimited tabs open. Videos get automatic
               | transcriptions, subtitles, and translations. Your
               | streaming does not get throttled. Every user gets their
               | own personalized feed. etc
        
               | summerlight wrote:
               | You will be surprised to see how much money you need to
               | pay in order to match the ads numbers. And running a
               | global video platform needs very high CapEx/OpEx numbers
               | compared to other web businesses. YT premium is very
               | likely a much less profitable business, mostly meant for
               | mitigating user complaints against ads + revenue
               | diversification.
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | > You will be surprised to see how much money you need to
               | pay in order to match the ads numbers.
               | 
               | I'm well aware of that. Advertising is clearly the most
               | profitable online business model. It has a low barrier of
               | entry for users, it scales with the amount of users, and
               | is simple to implement. Companies can collect user data
               | and use it in perpetuity to monetize it in infinite ways
               | beyond just ad impressions. Data is gold.
               | 
               | My point is that it's all corrupt to the core. It's
               | driven by generating wealth for companies over anything
               | else, least of all the well-being of people. It actually
               | relies on manipulating the human psyche, pioneered by the
               | machiavellian mind of Edward Bernays nearly a century
               | ago. It inserts itself as a leech between the goods
               | producer and people, to not only connect producers with
               | interested consumers as its proponents would like us to
               | believe, but to create consumers out of people who
               | wouldn't otherwise be interested. And then the internet
               | came along, and made it more profitable than it's ever
               | been. Oh, and it's also being exploited to spread
               | propaganda, influence elections and topple democracies,
               | but no matter, the charts must go up and to the right.
               | 
               | So, yeah, sorry for the rant, but my point is that there
               | are plenty of ways that companies can monetize their
               | business that doesn't involve advertising. It might not
               | be as easy or profitable, but I have this silly opinion
               | that the well-being of society should be higher priority
               | than generating wealth for shareholders.
        
               | pb7 wrote:
               | Explain what role advertising plays in you not paying a
               | subscription to have access to ad-free videos.
               | 
               | You are using a lot of words to justify the fact that you
               | would prefer to steal from the same creators that you
               | rely on for information and entertainment. You do not
               | care about their well being but you're standing on that
               | soapbox nonetheless.
               | 
               | And please, don't tell me that you support them in other
               | ways because I don't believe you. People that are too
               | cheap to pay for a service that all parties have agreed
               | to the terms of are too cheap to support in other ways
               | too. No to mention there's no practical way to compensate
               | every creator whose videos you may have watched.
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | > Explain what role advertising plays in you not paying a
               | subscription to have access to ad-free videos.
               | 
               | Paying YouTube to not show me ads simply removes the
               | inconvenience of not interrupting my watching experience.
               | It doesn't get rid of any of the other issues I mentioned
               | inherent to advertising as a business, which Google still
               | is, whether I pay them or not. My data will still be used
               | to show me ads on other Google sites, I'm still training
               | their algorithms on how to keep me on their site for
               | longer and how to better show me ads in the future, etc.
               | And I'm supporting their empire, which I'd rather not do.
               | 
               | > And please, don't tell me that you support them in
               | other ways because I don't believe you.
               | 
               | I don't care whether you believe me or not. The creators
               | certainly don't get compensated nearly enough by
               | alternative means, and I don't do regular donations or
               | have any system to keep track of how much I've spent.
               | It's surely a minuscule amount compared to what they earn
               | from advertising. But it's not my problem they chose to
               | rely on a business model I refuse to be a part of. If
               | this bothers them, they're free to put up their content
               | on other platforms, or behind a paywall. If, however,
               | they upload their content on a public site, I have no
               | qualms with accessing a public resource on my own terms.
               | The fact you equate this to stealing is laughable.
        
             | reportgunner wrote:
             | You are very silly to think that youtube would shut down
             | just because you don't pay your three monthly doubloons.
        
               | datagram wrote:
               | As someone with a YouTube channel, from looking at my
               | metrics it's pretty clear that YouTube is being held
               | afloat by a) the fact that non-technical users can't
               | easily block YouTube ads on mobile devices, and b)
               | YouTube Premium.
               | 
               | A single user depriving YouTube of their revenue is
               | inconsequential sure, but when hundreds of millions of
               | people do it (like with blocking ads on desktop) it
               | obviously runs the risk of making the entire company
               | unviable. Hosting videos for free is a great way to lose
               | a lot of money.
        
             | 7jjjjjjj wrote:
             | >The alternative is youtube shutting down.
             | 
             | We can only hope.
        
           | joemi wrote:
           | Something like youtube (streaming _huge_ amounts of videos
           | with with no monetization) was bound to either get ads or
           | die. The corporation didn't kill it. In fact, quite the
           | opposite: they made it so it could keep living.
        
           | jdoss wrote:
           | I said kill me now at the end of my post and that I am part
           | of the problem and you yet think I am happy about it? Ok you
           | got me bud. Yep 100% Stockholm syndrome. No, I am not happy
           | about it, but what else is there? Do you block YouTube on
           | your network so you don't see content from that platform? I'd
           | wager you don't.
           | 
           | Also, do you really think that any platform as big as YouTube
           | can remain free forever? I will pay for things that bring
           | value to my life. YouTube Premium brings value almost every
           | day. I am pretty sure you pay for things that bring value or
           | make thing easier for you in life, so maybe don't post these
           | kinds of responses in the future as they are cynical and
           | bring no value to the conversation.
        
             | imiric wrote:
             | > Do you block YouTube on your network so you don't see
             | content from that platform? I'd wager you don't.
             | 
             | I don't block YouTube, I just don't use any of their
             | official frontends. There are plenty of alternatives in
             | this space[1]. This might not work for everyone, but I get
             | a much better UX with these tools. Not seeing ads is one
             | benefit, but it's also about not being a participant in
             | training algorithms that have a, mostly negative,
             | psychological impact.
             | 
             | > I am pretty sure you pay for things that bring value or
             | make thing easier for you in life
             | 
             | Of course. And I happily support content creators who don't
             | rely on advertising or Google itself. I just refuse to be
             | forced into a corrupt business model.
             | 
             | Anyway, I didn't mean to antagonize you, so apologies if my
             | response came across that way.
             | 
             | [1]: https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-
             | ends?tab=readme...
        
               | jdoss wrote:
               | You came across antagonistic, but fair enough, thanks for
               | the apology.
               | 
               | Let me put it this way. I understand that you can block
               | YouTube ads and have the techicnal means to block them at
               | the DNS level. I also understand I can run different
               | frontends for YouTube, but it is flat out easier and
               | faster for me personally to not do that and to pay $22.99
               | a month for my entire family to enjoy ad free content.
               | Time is money.
               | 
               | Also, I play a decent amount of video games and I send
               | money monthly to content creators on said games I play.
               | If something brings value to my life or makes things
               | easier, I will pay for it. Just because I pay for
               | something you do not like doesn't mean I don't support
               | content creators via other means.
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | That's fine. We obviously have different opinions and
               | priorities. I'm not saying that my approach is
               | objectively better, or that it works for everyone.
               | 
               | I just found your observation that YouTube Premium is a
               | good thing peculiar, especially coming from someone who's
               | experienced YT pre-Google. To me it only solves part of
               | the problem that Google introduced themselves, while
               | still making you a participant in the other less obvious
               | problems with the business.
        
         | manquer wrote:
         | it is $13.99 / month in the US now. $150/year is a lot of money
         | - for a product you can choose not to pay and still mostly use.
        
           | stevenwliao wrote:
           | I'm skipping 2 hours of ads per month for $15. IMO it's a
           | pretty good deal.
           | 
           | (Assumptions: I watch 10 hours of YouTube videos per week,
           | YouTube shows 30 seconds of ads per 10 minutes of video)
        
           | turquoisevar wrote:
           | Yeah, $2.99/mo would be a great value.
           | 
           | $13.99/mo is at streamer levels who spend millions on
           | production on top of infrastructure cost and allow you to
           | share (within same household).
           | 
           | $23/mo for family is just plain robbery.
        
         | orangepanda wrote:
         | But does it block the ads that are still shown with youtube
         | premium?
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | Only a matter of time until G blocks access to whatever API he is
       | using or throttles it. YT invests a shit ton of money to ensure
       | you use the official YT app to make sure you view their stupid
       | ads, pump their ad profits, or buy YoUtUbE PrEmIuM
       | 
       | looks good though! Won't be adopting the apple vision pro for
       | awhile. but the developers pushing their apps to this ecosystem
       | will definitely be awarded for early adoption until "native" apps
       | are made available.
       | 
       | pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10).
       | Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time
       | in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block
       | those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them.
       | Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up
       | on the official apps.
        
         | quic5 wrote:
         | > At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. No, not
         | scraped. It presents the website as you would load it, but
         | similar to how browser extensions work, it tweaks the theming
         | of the site through CSS and JavaScript.
        
           | serf wrote:
           | I don't know why it matters much, there is a near limitless
           | plethora of tools one can use to do agent profiling, meaning
           | that if Google cared enough they could still engage in
           | hostile behavior to break the product in various ways.
        
             | Moldoteck wrote:
             | they could, but on the other hand there are a lot of apps
             | like vanced/newpipe that still exist, so... Not just that,
             | if under the hood the dev is using webkit+some extension-
             | like blocking, it'll again be pretty hard to block and I'm
             | not sure google is willing to invest effort/money in
             | investigating this, esp considering that afaik juno doesn't
             | even block ads
        
             | agos wrote:
             | they can probably go at it with just lawyers
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Google already did this before, to Microsoft on Windows
           | Phone.
        
           | reportgunner wrote:
           | So kind of like adblock works
        
         | rvz wrote:
         | No idea why this comment was downvoted. YouTube (Google) can
         | easily get Apple to ban unauthorized third party apps.
         | 
         | Once YouTube releases support for the Vision Pro, either Google
         | will get Juno banned as an unauthorized third party app or make
         | the API expensive to use even if Juno becomes popular.
         | 
         | > pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy
         | ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take
         | their time in building their own app. Big companies then
         | throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require
         | fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and
         | thus people end up on the official apps.
         | 
         | Precisely. Unfortunately the creator of Apollo has not learned
         | anything about what happened to his reddit client and the same
         | will certainly happen with this YouTube client.
        
       | pjmlp wrote:
       | Just wait until Google blocks Juno, just like they did to
       | Microsoft on Windows Phone when they created their own client.
        
         | simiones wrote:
         | To be fair, there were plenty of 3rd party YouTube clients on
         | Windows Phone that they didn't block (I even payed for one).
         | They only really didn't want an official YouTube app to exist
         | on Windows Phone, and the same will likely be true for
         | VisionPro (even assuming that Google wants to try to bury
         | VisionOS like they did with Windows - which is not clear yet).
         | And a payed YouTube app will obviously have a tiny install base
         | on any platform, so they don't really care.
        
       | tobiasbischoff wrote:
       | Is there already a word for this fetish of putting your fate in
       | the hands of big companies not shutting you down from their APIs?
        
         | blowski wrote:
         | Let's ask some of the people who made a fortune out of doing
         | it. Entrepreneurial, maybe?
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | marketshareophelia
        
         | hiddencost wrote:
         | Capitalism
        
         | graphe wrote:
         | Fetishes are sexually derrived or worship of an idol. Are you
         | calling them losers for not scraping?
        
           | derefr wrote:
           | Masochists, more like.
        
             | graphe wrote:
             | Does scraping ever cause an app to stop working?
        
         | newaccount74 wrote:
         | I assume that Christian Selig made enough money with Apollo
         | before it was shut down to make it a worthwhile business, even
         | if it was not forever. He seems to be doing just fine despite a
         | big company shutting him down.
        
         | manquer wrote:
         | Why do you think this is a flawed decision to do so ? In my
         | opinion this is a conscious choice by Selig both times and a
         | good one.
         | 
         | There are business models where venture funding is unsuitable
         | as there will never be hockey stick growth or unit economics or
         | competitive moats etc, traditionally companies usually small
         | operate here, they are not startups, just SMB doing non flashy
         | stuff.
         | 
         | Similarly also many business models unsuitable talented product
         | teams to risk on , that are perfect for a highly talented
         | freelancer such as Christian Selig - like third party API
         | dependent ideas.
         | 
         | He is amongst the best indie developers in the Apple ecosystem
         | and doesn't have to worry about competition quality too much in
         | these ideas.
         | 
         | These are four main ways that I know of, to be a professional
         | talented product developer -
         | 
         | 1. Become a founder, raise funding, chase growth and do things
         | you don't really like anymore
         | 
         | 2. Freelance and do boring consulting work, trying to keep
         | customer happy
         | 
         | 3. Work in a big bureaucratic tech company and be frustrated
         | constantly with everything from politics to red tape.
         | 
         | 4. Pour your heart and soul into a early stage startup and
         | watch it either outgrow you or crash and burn.
         | 
         | He instead gets to build _products_ at a massive scale without
         | having any overhead of an organization, and also making decent
         | amount of money (upwards of few million /year with Apollo),
         | what more can a developer aspire for ?
        
       | notso411 wrote:
       | What is the point? Just load up youtube.com press a video full
       | screen it then drag the window around your vision UI
        
       | awsanswers wrote:
       | Great moves, great write up. This is simple world class software
       | decision making
        
       | nntwozz wrote:
       | If you're into self-hosting there is https://github.com/iv-
       | org/invidious which works great with
       | https://github.com/yattee/yattee for macOS/iOS/tvOS.
       | 
       | This combo is amazing, haven't looked back ever since I deployed
       | it with docker.
       | 
       | Hopefully Yattee will make a native visionOS app in the future.
        
         | smith7018 wrote:
         | Does this system provide the same level of content
         | recommendations as the Youtube homepage? If so then I'll set it
         | up tonight!
        
           | ozarker wrote:
           | There aren't recommendations like youd see on the YouTube
           | front page. There are "next video" recommendations like
           | YouTube though
        
           | keb_ wrote:
           | Part of the appeal for these privacy front-ends is the zero
           | tracking, so you don't get the hyper-aware recommendations of
           | normal YouTube. I'd say if that's a major selling point to
           | you, you probably wouldn't enjoy Invidious.
           | 
           | Though, I'd recommend people try self curating a list of
           | subscriptions and discover new videos a more organic way
           | (friends making recommendations, or seeing videos on HN or
           | Reddit). I personally have found my YouTube experience to be
           | less distracting when I started using Invidious.
        
         | keb_ wrote:
         | Also in this realm, for Roku there is
         | https://github.com/iBicha/playlet which works great when hooked
         | up to my self-hosted Invidious instance.
        
       | iseanstevens wrote:
       | Such a good read. This Apollo dev has a good worldview
        
       | Zenul_Abidin wrote:
       | Brought to you by the man who created Apollo for Reddit.
        
         | consumer451 wrote:
         | For reference, please see the #2 top post on Reddit in the last
         | year.
         | 
         | This is the impact that a single developer can have.
         | 
         | If that's not inspirational, then I don't know what is.
         | 
         | https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year
        
           | poochkoishi728 wrote:
           | All I see is a picture of a dick-shaped 9/11 memorial..
        
       | Sutanreyu wrote:
       | Needs VR video support. :)
        
       | KhalPanda wrote:
       | I think $5 is _beyond_ fair, considering every user will have
       | dropped >$3k on hardware.
        
         | graphe wrote:
         | With that logic every app that is free on an iPhone pro max
         | must be unfair.
        
           | spiderfarmer wrote:
           | If you think that for every fact in life, the inverse is also
           | true, then you're bad at logic.
        
           | KhalPanda wrote:
           | For apps that run exclusively on brand new iPhone pro max's,
           | sure.
           | 
           | ...but seeing as that isn't the case.
        
           | londons_explore wrote:
           | If developers could price apps differently for the cheap Vs
           | expensive iPhones, they would.
        
             | graphe wrote:
             | They do. Death stranding only works on the newest iphone.
             | You're free to buy a non functional app but it happens as
             | for ipad only.
        
         | simiones wrote:
         | Conversely, if I spent $3.5k on a device, I'm not paying a cent
         | more to watch YouTube on it.
        
           | dubcanada wrote:
           | You would certainly be in the minority, Apple profits alone
           | state that people are more then willing to pay an excessively
           | large sum of money for products and then buy $1000 stands.
        
       | Aissen wrote:
       | Question for Christian: doesn't YouTube limit the player when
       | using the embed API (max resolution for example) ?
        
         | whatsthatabout wrote:
         | He answers this on the website: "...There's no API keys, or
         | limits to how many times a day you can call it..."
        
           | Aissen wrote:
           | Have you never had an issue while using an embedded video on
           | a website ? Whether a message "it cannot be played, go to
           | YouTube", or trying to select a high-resolution, or subtitles
           | and failing ?
        
             | criddell wrote:
             | He addresses this:
             | 
             | > The one downside is that occasionally you'll get a
             | creator who disabled playback for YouTube embeds. This is
             | rare, especially with videos made in the last few years,
             | but for those Juno will auto-detect that and just load up
             | the normal video website page rather than the fancy player.
        
               | Aissen wrote:
               | That answers my question about the embeds not playing at
               | all (thank you, that's what I get for speed reading), but
               | I'm curious if there are other limitations.
        
       | yard2010 wrote:
       | I wish Google is the the Blockbuster of our time, making money
       | off nefarious patterns just to be replaced completely by
       | something more novel ...that ends up making money off nefarious
       | patterns
        
       | rixrax wrote:
       | I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about the Vision
       | Pro and how much I want it to be everything it claims to be! Are
       | there any info available from people who have received their
       | headsets that are 'standard' production versions, and not Apple
       | supplied early access versions? I want to hit that order button,
       | but the rational me tells me to wait for some initial real life
       | reviews to roll in.
        
         | lfkdev wrote:
         | I think the MKBHD video is on a normal consumer one
        
         | whywhywhywhy wrote:
         | They're the same thing you'll get at retail
        
       | julienreszka wrote:
       | Very cool
        
       | danjc wrote:
       | A little off topic but absence of a first party app like YouTube
       | is notable and will really hurt AVP - as intended of course.
        
       | SeriousM wrote:
       | > Does it block ads? It doesn't, I don't think Google would like
       | that, but if you have YouTube Premium you won't see ads, just
       | like the website.
       | 
       | I just realised that a new product means new eco system, means
       | less/no customization possibilities.
       | 
       | What a wonderful world...
        
         | reustle wrote:
         | I wouldn't necessarily call it a new ecosystem. It's mostly the
         | same walled garden that runs iOS/iPadOS.
        
         | password54321 wrote:
         | "Google layoffs x percent of its employees". HN: Fckin Google!
         | 
         | "Here is an option to support a platform you use without
         | watching ads". HN: Go fck yourself!
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | Do you think Google pays their employees directly from
           | Youtube ad revenue?
        
             | password54321 wrote:
             | That is definitely what I implied. /s
        
             | jameshart wrote:
             | What do _you_ think Google pays their employees with?
        
               | wahnfrieden wrote:
               | As little a share of it as they can get away with, in
               | other words market rate wages
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | ... which they fund from what source?
        
           | Nullabillity wrote:
           | Right, won't someone please think of the poor little
           | underpaid corporate behemoth.
        
       | mromanuk wrote:
       | I like how Christian Selig find big tech problematic UI/Ux
       | products and fix that with an app.
        
       | hhh wrote:
       | This feels like an early iPhone app launch in the best of ways.
        
       | CivBase wrote:
       | > Does it block ads? It doesn't, I don't think Google would like
       | that
       | 
       | I suspect Google already doesn't like what you're doing. They
       | chose to make their own app unavailable on the AVP even though it
       | sounds like it would be trivial for them to do so. Whatever their
       | reasons are, I doubt they're keen about a third party stepping in
       | with an alternative.
        
       | thatxliner wrote:
       | Just wondering, how does the logistics of pricing it at a one
       | time purchase work? Isn't there a $99/year Apple developer
       | program?
        
         | infinitecost wrote:
         | It's $5. Can you imagine it remaining supported in 5 years?
        
         | jdminhbg wrote:
         | He's probably hoping to get more than 20 purchases.
        
       | LeSaucy wrote:
       | Talented developer for sure, but has a knack for developing
       | software that piggy backs of silicon valley giants that can turn
       | off access at a moments notice.
        
         | grashalm wrote:
         | I don't understand what reasonable alternative there could be.
         | Develop your own YouTube?
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | For certain values of "reasonable":
           | 
           | Peertube is one distributed option[0].
           | 
           | Many content creators have started hosting videos on other
           | services like Patreon because of Youtube's censorship and
           | demonetization policies. Which doesn't entirely avoid the
           | centralization problem but it's better not to put all of your
           | eggs in one basket.
           | 
           | It's also possible (although obviously not always feasible)
           | to self-host or torrent.
           | 
           | [0]https://joinpeertube.org/en_US
        
             | grashalm wrote:
             | Thanks for the link. I didn't know Peertube, yet.
             | 
             | I can't see how you can avoid the centralization problem
             | and also have decent monetization for the videos. But I
             | want to certainly become convinced that it can work. Crypto
             | made me a decentralization skeptic.
        
             | docmars wrote:
             | Worth mentioning that Rumble, Odysee, and Bitchute are all
             | excellent alternative platforms to host videos at, without
             | the concerns YouTube has introduced. Although, I can't
             | speak to monetization for any of these -- which is where
             | Patreon excels here.
             | 
             | X.com is also trying to enter the space by hosting longer
             | videos and allowing accounts to earn ad revenue as well as
             | building a subscriber base who can support creators
             | directly. It's not half bad.
             | 
             | Full disclaimer:
             | 
             | I think it might be implied, but there's certainly a lot of
             | political distaste around these platforms since they
             | finally freed themselves from the shackles of government-
             | aided censorship, and takedowns that are heavily biased
             | towards promoting progressive views (especially radical).
             | 
             | With that said, everyone please refrain from attacking this
             | reply for merely mentioning these platforms as options, as
             | they are equally valid ways to build a following and/or
             | monetize your content, even if they support creators who
             | run against your own views. As they say, diversity is our
             | strength!
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | Alternative to what?
           | 
           | Most devs work on projects that don't actively compete with
           | large companies on their own ground.
           | 
           | Or do you mean alternative to watching video on Vision - I
           | suppose youtube still works via safari, is that not the case?
        
             | grashalm wrote:
             | Alternative to working with a big silicon valley giant. If
             | you want to integrate/use YouTube you need to deal with
             | whatever that company puts you up with. And as the article
             | states, you don't want them to become grumpy at you;
             | otherwise, they will turn you off even quicker. The only
             | alternative I see is to develop a new YouTube, which seems
             | unreasonable given how dominant Google is.
        
               | thih9 wrote:
               | You don't need a direct alternative to youtube to stop
               | using youtube. You can just not deal with it, or access
               | it via browser when needed, and use other platforms/media
               | more instead. It might even become irrelevant on its own,
               | like facebook and google search are slowly becoming.
               | 
               | But sure, if that's not enough and you need a clone of
               | youtube then yes, you need to develop a new youtube.
        
           | unshavedyak wrote:
           | I think the idea was that they would develop apps that don't
           | require the giants. Which sure, could be your own YouTube,
           | but more often it's a smaller in scope project because you're
           | a solo dev. If i understand them correctly, they're just
           | acknowledging the risk.
           | 
           | Ie work in a way that doesn't require the giants shadow, as
           | the giant may move unexpectedly. The shade can be quite
           | lucrative though, if you're nimble.
        
         | jimbokun wrote:
         | I'm assuming this developer is aware of that, and will move on
         | to the next thing as soon as Google develops their own Youtube
         | Vision OS app.
        
         | turtlebits wrote:
         | Or they might just find the user experience lacking and want to
         | improve on it.
         | 
         | I make all sorts of small apps and utilities because to improve
         | usability of services i consume. It doest mean I'm some lackey
         | to big corp.
        
         | alexsereno wrote:
         | That's more of a statement of the monopolization of hardware
         | access the App Store gives than it is him "piggy backing". It's
         | not like you have a real choice without Apple being forced to
         | allow software downloads via a web browser globally.
        
           | mynameisvlad wrote:
           | I think they meant more about being beholden to Youtube's
           | current implementation.
        
             | alexsereno wrote:
             | That's valid
        
         | PaulHoule wrote:
         | Here's an almost trivial bit of "permissionless innovation"
         | thanks to Silicon Valley giants:
         | 
         | https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111049822586450100
         | 
         | 30 years ago somebody who wanted to develop a "new object you
         | can use to distribute music" had to spend $100 million on some
         | project like
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette
         | 
         | today it is very simple because almost everyone has a player in
         | their pocket that connects the card to software which runs in
         | the cloud. It wouldn't be technically difficult at all for me
         | to host the music file in S3, R2 or Azure storage and the
         | storage and network costs are insignificant so far as I expect
         | these cards to be distributed. If I did that I could get in
         | trouble over copyright, so a link to YouTube is a safe and easy
         | solution w/ the disadvantage that people in many geographies
         | can't view licensed music videos.
         | 
         | Fortunately that QR code is a redirect and I can send it to
         | another service. I demoed the cards with quite a few people and
         | found that they usually felt it was a letdown to go to YouTube
         | (maybe because they go to YouTube all the time and there is
         | nothing special about it) but that there was more satisfaction
         | with a link to SongWhip which might send them to YouTUbe in the
         | end but gives them a feeling of agency at the expense of
         | another click.
        
           | dbtc wrote:
           | I've been imagining making song/album cards for a long time
           | now! Just like that! Very nice.
        
         | mlsu wrote:
         | Making something like youtube would be much easier technically
         | than it would have been in 2006 or so. A solo dev could create
         | a small scale streaming service for HTML5 video pretty
         | reasonably.
         | 
         | It's the copyright that's the problem. You would be
         | annihilated, not by YouTube's lawyers, but by UMG and Sony's
         | lawyers, immediately after getting even a small amount of
         | traction.
        
         | dharma1 wrote:
         | What other choice you have?
         | 
         | Anyway YouTube aren't going to disable embeds. So don't see it
         | being turned off
        
           | diggan wrote:
           | > What other choice you have?
           | 
           | Anything that isn't a client to proprietary platforms?
        
         | Moto7451 wrote:
         | He probably had fun with this one and expects (or hopes!) it to
         | become irrelevant after YouTube for VisionOS comes out. We'll
         | see.
        
       | ipshii wrote:
       | This look very very cool!
        
       | AISnakeOil wrote:
       | Why do you need an app when you can watch it on the web browser?
        
         | Shank wrote:
         | > but YouTube.com stinks -- it's a minefield of UI targets that
         | are too small for eye-tracking's precision [0]
         | 
         | [0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
        
       | bambax wrote:
       | > _Does it block ads? It doesn't_
       | 
       | Having recently tried to watch Youtube on iPad without an
       | adblocker, I discovered Youtube advertising. It's insufferable.
       | Ads appear every few minutes, and they're not like the TV ads of
       | yore. They're exclusively get-rich-quick schemes with people
       | explaining how they're able to earn $10,000 a month doing nothing
       | -- all one has to do is go to that website and subscribe to a
       | shady course.
       | 
       | Fortunately Brave still blocks ads successfully, even on an iPad.
       | Without it, it would be unusable. I wonder who puts up with this.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | I think youtube ads are terrible and frequent because youtube
         | decided they have no competition and if people want to watch
         | videos, they'll either put up with that shit or pay for premium
         | which is what youtube actually wants.
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | > There's no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can
       | call it
       | 
       | Yet. Just like with Apollo and Reddit API, at some point there
       | weren't any.
        
       | vessenes wrote:
       | This looks awesome. Christian, you mention comments as a possible
       | future feature -- I think the idea of a livestream off in the
       | corner with comments as a separate spatial box might be nice. I
       | don't like to leave streams on while I'm doing other things, but
       | lots of younger folk I know do, and part of the stream
       | consumption experience is the comments.
        
       | thallavajhula wrote:
       | I like Christian. I was a Apollo (Reddit client) user. I
       | supported him during the whole Reddit vs Devs fiasco of 2023.
       | 
       | I'm not sure this is a good idea. YouTube (Google) intentionally
       | didn't want to put up their app on the AppStore. They had their
       | reasons. Ignoring their reasons and creating an app using their
       | APIs and putting up an app in the AppStore against their will,
       | just doesn't seem like a good move here.
        
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