2y ago

My Opinion: NewPipe, Piped, Invidious, etc's days are numbered.

With Reddit shutting down its API setting a precedent in the corporate tech world (and Reddit was a major outlier in that a ton of their users are technical minded and support third party clients, YouTube does not have that kind of userbase and will not get backlash for it), Twitter doing whatever the fuck they're doing, and Google already hellbent on destroying ad blockers, the days of Newpipe, Invidious, and Freetube are numbered. Wouldn't be surprised if they implement Netflix level DRM tomorrow that makes alt clients impossible. I say savour your alt clients while you can guys, you won't be able to soon.

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NewPipe at least already doesn't use the API, it scrapes the website.
... Which it just occurred to me might be one of the reasons Google is pushing that web integrity thing. Dang.
- All the web integrity thing would do is force them to use a specific client when accessing YouTube to scrape their site.
  The problem is none of the attested browsers will let you to use them in this way.
  We already have DRM for video on the web. I believe it would be a similar problem to getting WideVine L1 content from e.g. Netflix in an open source app.
- Yep... Bummer, but completely in character and expected.
Invidious doesn't use YouTube's API. It merely requests content from YouTube either directly or through a proxy. So, I don't think it'll disappear forever unless the developers stop working on it. It's probably gonna be a game of cat and mouse where YouTube figures out how to break Invidious, and the devs keep finding a workaround.
- requests content from Youtube
  You mean through an API
  
  But pretty much in the same way as the YouTube's frontend requesting content from YouTube's backend. This is an equivalent of you loading a video on YouTube then going to developer tools and copying links from the Network tab. AFAIK all tools (Invidious, Piped, yt-dl) work this way.
  
  Depending on the definition, loading a web page might me called an API, but that’s not what people mean when they talk about APIs.
- The more we use Odysee the more will it seem like a valid alternative.
  Personally I watch videos from the creators that have mirrored their YT channel to Odysee.
- Frankly, I've had it with band-aid solutions like alt clients. Gonna say it now: if you claim to be a FLOSS/open web supporting creator and you're still exclusively using YouTube, you obviously value revenue over FLOSS or open web. Yes I'm gatekeeping FLOSS/open web with that statement, but corporate tech is actively trying to destroy both, and if you side with them, why shouldn't you be called out for it? Don't have to quit YouTube IMO, but at least mirror on Peertube if you care.
  
  I'm subscribed to 94 channels on PeerTube and get barely one new video to watch every 2 days. This is both a problem that the people just don't post anything but also that for some reason new videos just don't show up even if I subscribe to them, that especially happens with TILvids channels for some reason.
  Also here is the very short list of PeerTube instances I found which are not about conspiracy theories or nazi shit:
  https://tube.jeena.net
  https://tilvids.com
  https://share.tube/videos/local
  https://videos.lukesmith.xyz
  https://lastbreach.tv
  https://peertube.linuxrocks.online/videos/local
  https://spectra.video/
  https://peertube.kx.studio
  https://neat.tube/
  https://tube.tchncs.de/
- I suggest subscribing to YouTube via RSS (yes, YouTube still has an RSS feed for channels and playlists). I've been doing this for years and it works great. You can use your RSS reader or an add-on like Livemarks to discover the feed.
  If you subscribe via RSS, you can then easily substitute the feed URL for any other platform, if the creator happens to upload their content to platforms other than YouTube.
  Even though the videos are hosted on different platforms, you still have a single feed in a single location with all new videos thanks to RSS. You're also able to manage a "watch later" list with your RSS reader.
- Vimeo is still around, and has a ton of content. It's still no match for YouTube of course, but if Google pull the same shit like Reddit did, then I'd imagine a decent chunk of creators would migrate to Vimeo.
- https://www.tubearchivist.com/
all of these are scrapers, so they will work unless YouTube gets rid of its web version
- Or if Google implements some kind of feature that requires your browser to vouch that it's not gonna play shenanigans with the page.
  Nah, nobody would be that crazy.
  
  Fair.
  
  Would this new thing they’re doing to chrome stop it?
- I think they mean something like widevine a la Netflix. Granted there are bypasses for some levels, but that could be a problem imo, iiuc that's why there aren't any alternate frontends for Netflix or HBO. I think that would also potentially mean issues playing YouTube in chromium or firefox on Linux if they used L1 (not sure what the current state of widevine on Linux is, last time I had Netflix I couldn't watch on Linux and had to use my phone or Chromecast)
Oh, thought this was an article with facts and figures, no someone's doomsaying and fear mongering....
Many YouTube's third party clients don't use an API and having a public API with built in ads is a gold mine that many of YouTube's embeds rely on for revenue. Doubt they'll destroy that anytime soon.
Along with that, many of YouTube's top creators are already looking for alternatives, floatplane, nebula etc... It just takes a mass exodus to kick start them. And you bet Google is aware of that.
- I have clarified the title.
Was talking to a friend who is a senior tech dude about the YT viewing habits of our kids. Asked if he had any recommendations for alt clients and he said… just pay for YT premium 🙃
- To be fair, the guy just probably didn't want to become your tech support for life. :P
  If you care, you can try this, assuming you meant clients for TV: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
  
  I use this in my TV and it is amazing. But I won't advertise it anywhere because I'm afraid Google will just come up with a way to kill it.
  
  Thanks, I was looking for something like this and banging my head against using Newpipe.
- "Don't want your kids seeing ads that are absolutely not for kids? Easy! Just pay us!"
  Seriously it's so hypocritical that they demonetize swearing yet show gambling, alcohol, and even the occasional barely-not-porn sexualized ad without a second thought.
  
  It's not hypocrisy, it's for $. $ means it's not hypocrisy. Haven't you been paying attention?
- I'm about to have a daughter and was thinking about this also.
  I have been using Tube Archivist for months and its exactly what you need. You can control what subscriptions they watch, set download limits, etc.
  https://www.tubearchivist.com/
- My solution? I just blocked youtube.com at dns level in my house. Fuck it. It's not like there aren't books around to learn stuff from.
As long as youtube has RSS, you can still get videos.
I built this https://codeberg.org/mister_monster/YouTube2Peertube many years ago to help people resolve these problems.
- The Git data underlying this repository cannot be read. Contact the administrator of this instance or delete this repository.
  
  I've never seen that problem before, but if you're having trouble the codeberg repo is a mirror of a github repo I published it to first, https://github.com/mister-monster/youtube2peertube
- Cool looking project. So is this something you use to mirror other people's YouTube channels? Does this only mirror them to a self-hosted PeerTube? I have a home server that could process the mirroring itself but I have nowhere near the storage. If this is something I can point at a subscription feed and then point at a PeerTube server then I'd be happy running it in a Docker container or something. I already run ArchiveTeam agents.
  
  You can mirror your own as well.
  It doesn't have to be self hosted peertube, as long as you have auth on the peertube server and you have a high enough upload cap it will work.
  Yes, that is exactly how you'd use it, it runs on a server with some youtube channels to check periodically and some peertube accounts to mirror them to and it does it.
I welcome the rise of their replacements.
There are a few creators who I can’t watch anywhere else, but as soon as Invidious stops working I’m out.
Well there's Kodi's Netflix interface, looks pretty alternative to me: https://github.com/CastagnaIT/plugin.video.netflix
There's always a way
You can't save anything unless there's a YouTube competitor. Google can do whatever it wants.
Nah, we’ll just switch to webscraping if APIs get locked behind a paywall. Let’s see how those sites handle it when millions of people are using a scraping based client in the future. I can imagine it feeling a lot like being the victim a relentless ddos attack.
- This is exactly what the proposed Web Integrity API seeks to prevent. That's what makes it terrifying.
  
  Show me me a 10ft wall, I'll show you a 12ft ladder.
  No matter what they try, there will always be someone that manages to completely bypass those bullshit blocks.
  
  Hmm, so no API, no scraping, nothing but some ad infested privacy invading unusable mess. I guess isolating from the whole web is becoming an increasingly appealing option.
They successfully went after Vanced 2 years ago so it's shouldn't be too far fetched for them.
- And yet here I am using Revanced, which is even better than Vanced was
  https://revanced.app/
  
  Doesn't work for a lot of accounts anymore. It plays one minute for me, first minute of a video and then dies.
  New account works. Incognito works.
- it's a common theory that the only reason they went after Vanced is because the Vanced team tried to monetize the mod by introducing NFTs
  
  Many people in modding and fan communities convince themselves that companies only go after projects if they try to make money, but we also see that happening with free projects all the time, if they get enough attention.
  Seeing that Google is already sending warnings to people who try to watch YouTube with adblockers, I don't think that's what made the difference.
- They went after vanced because they made money (they tried selling nfts) from from modifying google's proprietary code. NewPipe team wrote everything themselves and dont make money from google code (they probably make no money at all)
Welp, time to "Archive" some good YouTube videos :)
- https://www.tubearchivist.com/
Nooo, I just recently discovered NewPipe 😔
At this point maybe we should all just make onion sites popular I mean isn’t the majority of the internet down there anyways? Fuck YouTube, Facebook,(enter clear net greedy company here) shit keeps getting worse.

83 comments