Youtube General thread (formerly Youtube Censorship discussion thread)

[GNU Abyss]

I remember during one of the interviews the Ladybird guy did he said that YouTube is a really complicated site under the hood that “makes heavy use of the Web standard” and I’m convinced that’s intentional to indirectly try to sabotage the site’s functionality on other browsers that aren’t chrome.

Whatever Google does is the de-facto Web standard and Youtube is one of their biggest platforms. You are the beta tester for their latest web slop, especially on Chrome and derivatives since they support all of it.

It's a shame. My friend's trying to convince me to start a Youtube channel and I wanted to for a long time. But I honestly, sincerely, do not see the fucking point anymore.

Unless your long term plan is becoming part of the influencer cancer cluster, it's still free video storage with some exposure. Why not?

 

[The handsome tard]

It's a shame. My friend's trying to convince me to start a Youtube channel and I wanted to for a long time. But I honestly, sincerely, do not see the fucking point anymore.

I think the worst possible thing is the literal psyop I see being ran at all times. I'll get recommendations for things pertaining to a conversation I had that I never even searched for. They're not even trying to hide the fact that they are openly spying on you.
Tell someone: "Yeah man, I think it'd be cool to move outside the States."
Youtube Suggestion: The Disillusioned Foreigner: WHY JAPAN SUCKS AND YOU SHOULD KILL YOURSELF!
I wish I was joking but this is where we're at now.
It's always an intentionally incendiary clickbait title or shitty grifting drama channel I don't want to watch. Doesn't matter if I use for 90% music. Nope. You're going to have nothing and you will like it.

It's really amazing how shitty every popular website is now.

You might as well make some videos, but mostly for your own sake, if people enjoy it, thats a big bonus.

 

[(((I am NOT a jew)))]

You might as well make some videos, but mostly for your own sake, if people enjoy it, thats a big bonus.

Unless your long term plan is becoming part of the influencer cancer cluster, it's still free video storage with some exposure. Why not?

It's more out of anger of what it's become. My friend told me that you can actually get away with a lot more "nono" words than you think just as you're not monetizing yourself, but people have bent over backwards to suck that algo-dick.
I'm sure you can have your channel, but someone just being a straight shooter and doing what they like isn't what they want anymore. There was a time when you could discover any fetish, hear any slur, watch any shitty 80s horror movie and you could make a review of E.T: The Porno and monetize it.
Sure you can make your thing but in order for it to actually have a viewbase beyond 2000, you're going to have to become a soulless basic bitch. It's just part of the ritual now.

I guess for me it just seems like mix of seeing it as a waste of effort and hypocritical to post content on a site I'm actively hoping dies at this point.

 

[The handsome tard]

It's more out of anger of what it's become. My friend told me that you can actually get away with a lot more "nono" words than you think just as you're not monetizing yourself, but people have bent over backwards to suck that algo-dick.

You will be surprised what you can get away with if you wisely dont make youtubing anything beyond a hobby.

I'm sure you can have your channel, but someone just being a straight shooter and doing what they like isn't what they want anymore. There was a time when you could discover any fetish, hear any slur, watch any shitty 80s horror movie and you could make a review of E.T: The Porno and monetize it.
Sure you can make your thing but in order for it to actually have a viewbase beyond 2000, you're going to have to become a soulless basic bitch. It's just part of the ritual now.

Thats not even a youtube thing, thats just an old to new internet sort of thing. You could get away with so much and it was a way more enjoyable wild wild west...

I guess for me it just seems like mix of seeing it as a waste of effort and hypocritical to post content on a site I'm actively hoping dies at this point.

1- As long as you like it, its hardly wasted
2- You can go with other sites too, nothing stops you from posting on the alternatives and maybe getting some views from there too

my point is, dont sell yourself short, man

 

[(((I am NOT a jew)))]

my point is, dont sell yourself short, man

Nah, I ain't selling myself short.
I legitimately want to make some reviews or skits and just have fun. I have no pretentions about making it anything more than a fun side thing.
I just actually lament it. It's amazing how sometimes you really don't know what you have until it's gone gay.
I miss when the biggest annoyance on the site was some shitty new redesign google did or videos not being able to be longer than 15 minutes.
It just feels like having a friend who was a cool punk rocker and then seeing him become the most generic square to be around post marriage.
I'm being all sentimental... but I really miss when Youtube was one of the only good things in my life and not something I actively avoided outside of music and old videos.

 

[Jang Joo]

I have been wondering if YouTube has intentionally made video bitrate actively worse as the years go by, since I felt like 720p videos used looked good in the early 2010s. But now 720p or below makes some videos outright unwatchable due to how blurry as shit it all is if too much is happening at once.

I want to bring this back to ask for input from those more into encoding and compression than I am.
Is the .webm format to blame for this, or does it run deeper? It consistently has the smallest file size within a given category (480p, 720p, 1080p, ...)

Spoiler: youtube-dl output

$ youtube-dl -F foobar ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── sb3 mhtml 48x27 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb2 mhtml 80x45 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb1 mhtml 160x90 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb0 mhtml 320x180 0 │ mhtml │ images storyboard 233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default 249-drc webm audio only 2 │ 9.35MiB 50k https │ audio only opus 50k 48k low, DRC, webm_dash 250-drc webm audio only 2 │ 12.24MiB 65k https │ audio only opus 65k 48k low, DRC, webm_dash 249 webm audio only 2 │ 9.30MiB 49k https │ audio only opus 49k 48k low, webm_dash 250 webm audio only 2 │ 12.19MiB 65k https │ audio only opus 65k 48k low, webm_dash 140-drc m4a audio only 2 │ 24.38MiB 129k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 129k 44k medium, DRC, m4a_dash 251-drc webm audio only 2 │ 23.85MiB 127k https │ audio only opus 127k 48k medium, DRC, webm_dash 140 m4a audio only 2 │ 24.38MiB 129k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 129k 44k medium, m4a_dash 251 webm audio only 2 │ 23.76MiB 126k https │ audio only opus 126k 48k medium, webm_dash 602 mp4 256x144 15 │ ~ 18.70MiB 99k m3u8 │ vp09.00.10.08 99k video only 269 mp4 256x144 30 │ ~ 32.34MiB 172k m3u8 │ avc1.4D400C 172k video only 160 mp4 256x144 30 │ 15.29MiB 81k https │ avc1.4d400c 81k video only 144p, mp4_dash 603 mp4 256x144 30 │ ~ 33.18MiB 176k m3u8 │ vp09.00.11.08 176k video only 278 webm 256x144 30 │ 14.00MiB 74k https │ vp9 74k video only 144p, webm_dash 229 mp4 426x240 30 │ ~ 58.80MiB 312k m3u8 │ avc1.4D4015 312k video only 133 mp4 426x240 30 │ 35.14MiB 187k https │ avc1.4d4015 187k video only 240p, mp4_dash 604 mp4 426x240 30 │ ~ 58.18MiB 309k m3u8 │ vp09.00.20.08 309k video only 242 webm 426x240 30 │ 25.73MiB 137k https │ vp9 137k video only 240p, webm_dash 230 mp4 640x360 30 │ ~151.62MiB 805k m3u8 │ avc1.4D401E 805k video only 134 mp4 640x360 30 │ 69.90MiB 371k https │ avc1.4d401e 371k video only 360p, mp4_dash 18 mp4 640x360 30 2 │ 128.52MiB 682k https │ avc1.42001E mp4a.40.2 44k 360p 605 mp4 640x360 30 │ ~152.82MiB 811k m3u8 │ vp09.00.21.08 811k video only 243 webm 640x360 30 │ 65.75MiB 349k https │ vp9 349k video only 360p, webm_dash 231 mp4 854x480 30 │ ~255.33MiB 1356k m3u8 │ avc1.4D401F 1356k video only 135 mp4 854x480 30 │ 114.05MiB 606k https │ avc1.4d401f 606k video only 480p, mp4_dash 606 mp4 854x480 30 │ ~222.53MiB 1181k m3u8 │ vp09.00.30.08 1181k video only 244 webm 854x480 30 │ 90.78MiB 482k https │ vp9 482k video only 480p, webm_dash 232 mp4 1280x720 30 │ ~483.78MiB 2568k m3u8 │ avc1.4D401F 2568k video only 136 mp4 1280x720 30 │ 179.46MiB 953k https │ avc1.4d401f 953k video only 720p, mp4_dash 609 mp4 1280x720 30 │ ~400.15MiB 2124k m3u8 │ vp09.00.31.08 2124k video only 247 webm 1280x720 30 │ 166.69MiB 885k https │ vp9 885k video only 720p, webm_dash 270 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ ~886.63MiB 4707k m3u8 │ avc1.640028 4707k video only 137 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ 627.73MiB 3333k https │ avc1.640028 3333k video only 1080p, mp4_dash 614 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ ~645.43MiB 3427k m3u8 │ vp09.00.40.08 3427k video only 248 webm 1920x1080 30 │ 299.24MiB 1589k https │ vp9 1589k video only 1080p, webm_dash 616 mp4 1920x1080 30 │ ~ 1.06GiB 5760k m3u8 │ vp09.00.40.08 5760k video only Premium

 

[The Spoils of War]

I want to bring this back to ask for input from those more into encoding and compression than I am.
Is the .webm format to blame for this, or does it run deeper? It consistently has the smallest file size within a given category (480p, 720p, 1080p, ...)

youtube-dl is dead. Use yt-dlp.

 

[Jang Joo]

youtube-dl is dead. Use yt-dlp.

yt-dlp is the one I use, but I invoke it the old fashioned way.

 

[GNU Abyss]

I want to bring this back to ask for input from those more into encoding and compression than I am.
Is the .webm format to blame for this, or does it run deeper? It consistently has the smallest file size within a given category (480p, 720p, 1080p, ...)

I wanted to do a dumb comparison between 3 videos (April 2011 when WEBM first landed on Youtube, 2021 and now) using ffprobe, but every video I tried - even <20 view ones with IMG and DSC default names from the time period - have been transcoded after their upload date. Creation time varies from 2020-2021 to 2024-2025 from the dozen or so videos I reviewed. Maybe it's the transcoding process itself that fucked with video quality? Or they lowered the bitrate/fucked with CBR to save on file size.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Yet another YT algo/homepage overhaul.

Suddenly my homescreen is full of suggested channels I've never heard of, let alone showing me new uploads from my subs.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

Yet another YT algo/homepage overhaul.

Suddenly my homescreen is full of suggested channels I've never heard of, let alone showing me new uploads from my subs.

I've blocked and said I wasn't interested in so many channels that YouTube has given up trying to suggest videos on my homepage.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

Yet another YT algo/homepage overhaul.

Suddenly my homescreen is full of suggested channels I've never heard of, let alone showing me new uploads from my subs.

I did wonder what the fuck happened. There's just mountains of pure slop content on there now that I have never been interested in. Jeet coders are just the worst.

"SAAAR, ARE YOU INTERESTED IN AMORANTH TITS SAAAR PLEASE DO BE CLICKING ON ALL 10 SECOND VIDEOS SAAR!"
This is my homepage as of a few seconds ago.

I literally watch gardening, cooking, history and racism videos.

 

[Jang Joo]

I wanted to do a dumb comparison between 3 videos (April 2011 when WEBM first landed on Youtube, 2021 and now) using ffprobe, but every video I tried - even <20 view ones with IMG and DSC default names from the time period - have been transcoded after their upload date. Creation time varies from 2020-2021 to 2024-2025 from the dozen or so videos I reviewed. Maybe it's the transcoding process itself that fucked with video quality? Or they lowered the bitrate/fucked with CBR to save on file size.

You might be on to something. A week ago I was archiving a channel whose most videos are 12+ years old, but glancing at the files' timestamps a big portion of them say 2019, 2023, 2024.
Fuckers have been re-encoding shit silently.

 

[Merton J. Dingle]

Yet another YT algo/homepage overhaul.

Suddenly my homescreen is full of suggested channels I've never heard of, let alone showing me new uploads from my subs.

This is why I almost exclusively watch YouTube on Freetube, on both PC and Android. Best way to avoid having slop put in front of your eyes.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

This is why I almost exclusively watch YouTube on Freetube, on both PC and Android. Best way to avoid having slop put in front of your eyes.

I tried NewPipe for awhile after my device got too old to root whatever YT Revanced became.

Having to manually import my YT subscriber list individually was just too high effort for me.

I also could never get the Sponsor Block function to work as well as Revanced did, which was another reason to try it out (I'm guessing because it required community flagging, but also didn't seem to work on old vids).

I've been back on Brave Browser YT Android since.

Livestream comments, message replies and community posts are still borked on Brave though and have been for a long time.

 

[Merton J. Dingle]

I tried NewPipe for awhile after my device got too old to root whatever YT Revanced became.

Having to manually import my YT subscriber list individually was just too high effort for me.

I also could never get the Sponsor Block function to work as well as Revanced did, which was another reason to try it out (I'm guessing because it required community flagging, but also didn't seem to work on old vids).

I've been back on Brave Browser YT Android since.

Livestream comments, message replies and community posts are still borked on Brave though and have been for a long time.

I had no idea that Revanced couldn't be installed on devices that are too old. Are you using an extremely old device?

 

[clipartfan92]

Fuckers have been re-encoding shit silently.

You're right. I just checked a 16 year old upload and this was in the metadata:

File Modification Date/Time     : 2024:11:23 14:13:23+00:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2024:11:23 14:13:23+00:00
Handler Description             : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 11/04/2024.

 

[Anonitolia]

I'm getting this too, but... for some reason, only in Incognito? Sometimes it won't load at all or it'll load 19 seconds and then pause. But if I'm logged in on a normal browser it's all good.

Makes me suspicious. Are they trying to farm data off of uBlock users to hammer their accounts later or something? Maybe i'm just paranoid. Still, at least I can still use YouTube I guess. Not that I want to, but I can't afford the extra space I'd need to back up all the music I listen to on there + the videos I used to like and want to keep.

holy shit it's been nearly a month

for reference: it is still not working, in Incognito and regular windows: either videos won't load at all or they'll go to exactly 19 seconds and infinitely buffer

am I missing something? getting really annoyed with it. I've been constantly updating uBlock in the vain hopes that it'll magically fix things because I don't know what else to do (filter lists are set to auto-update).

They're not even trying to hide the fact that they are openly spying on you.

And your incognito tabs! Over the past month (conveniently, just when videos stopped working), I've been getting recommendations on my normal account from shit that I only ever searched for or watched on Incognito. When logged out. You know, in the place where everything you do is supposed to be wiped after closing the window.
I know Incognito's always been questionable for privacy, but this is ridiculous. I never used it for privacy, just to watch shit I didn't want affecting my recommendations. What the fuck is the point of YouTube Incognito if it just saves my watch history anyways?

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

I had no idea that Revanced couldn't be installed on devices that are too old. Are you using an extremely old device?

Five years old, COVID era.

I'm a tech dummy, but I really liked YT Vanced, so tried really hard to install the replacement when the OG succumbed to Cease & Desist.

I kept hitting an error during the root kit installation parts on Android.

All the IT support stuff I read online at the time said I'd hit a hard stop and my device/OS was simply too old to run it.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

You might be on to something. A week ago I was archiving a channel whose most videos are 12+ years old, but glancing at the files' timestamps a big portion of them say 2019, 2023, 2024.
Fuckers have been re-encoding shit silently.

That explains the shitty encoding quality I've been seeing on new and old videos. In a few years most videos will be unwatchable due to being encoded dozens of times.