cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/1872634
So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.
This reeks of DRM.
UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.
UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.
Well the problem for google is that Youtube MUST be accessible to almost any internet user in the world - that’s a key reason why it’s so ubiquitous.
The reason this cat and mouse game has lasted as long as it has in the first place is because any method that is currently being quashed has a solution lying in another user agent that youtube can’t kill.
If one day YT sets a “minimum requirements” page on their website to access their content, they’ve immediately ceded market share to the next upstart. Imagine if they broke viewing for all of the countless cheap (and e-waste) phones, tablets, low end IOT devices, “smart TVs”, and so on because they place a requirement that the device cannot meet. Those users will not throw away their hardware - they’ll migrate to the first available alternative way to watch content.
As long as YT caters to the lowest common denominator (Their business model essentially binds them to do so), there will always be a software/hardware environment that these tools can spoof. The moment that stops being the case, people look for other options.
A similar analogy would be how Microsoft handled the windows 11 requirements - the strict requirements locking out years upon years of hardware has resulted in a substantial amount of users finding workarounds for their machines (like windows 10 IOT LTSC), or to even jump to linux entirely. They abandoned the entry level users, so entry level users are abandoning them.
Not-so-fun fact, this is exactly what ATSC 3 is trying to do for OTA broadcast TV.
This all incorrectly assumes that there exists any viable competition to switch to. YouTube ran at a net loss for over a decade to get the reach they currently have, only because Google was one of the very few companies who could feasibly afford to do so. Nobody else with the resources to compete with YouTube is willing to compete with YouTube, because of the massive cost required to get even a fraction of that user base, let alone a critical mass.
And most of the content people access YouTube for is only found on YouTube, so those hypothetical users aren’t going to switch to a new platform, they’re going to either just flat-out stop watching or will replace their devices.
Tiktok and intagam are standing by to at least take over short form video.
Tiktok has also experimented with longer videos.
Staying in windows 10 sure, but I’ve yet to see much evidence people have been switching much to Linux.
Good point, but the result is still the same - people defect away from the “modern” product instead of complying and buying a new machine.
Anecdotally, I’ve recently helped friends and family (a sample size of about 4 people now) to set up either windows LTSC or Linux mint on their machines as they are uninterested in replacing their computers, so maybe linux is a minority solution (although still occurring)