For about a year, I’ve gotten notes from readers asking why our YouTube embeds are broken in one very specific way: you can no longer click the title to open the video on YouTube.com or in the YouTube app. This used to work just fine, but now you can’t.
This bothers us, too, and it’s doubly frustrating because everyone assumes that we’ve chosen to disable links, which makes a certain kind of sense — after all, why on earth wouldn’t YouTube want people to click over to its app?
The short answer is money. Somewhat straightforwardly, YouTube has chosen to degrade the user experience of the embedded player publishers like Vox Media use, and the only way to get that link back is by using a slightly different player that pays us less and YouTube more.
the only way to get that link back is by using a slightly different player that pays us less and YouTube more.
Add a “watch on YouTube” link above or below your embedded videos?
Don’t host on YouTube? They’re a big company, I’m sure they’ve got the resources for a couple of video files.
Then they need to find advertisers. This is the hard part. Advertisers are familiar with the platform and tools of YouTube, having them to submit ads in other platforms is where the for-profit video hosting becomes tricky
Get out of here with your logic!
Here’s the really long version: like everyone, we publish our videos on YouTube
I think I’ve found the underlying issue
We won’t have a competitor until people start posting shit elsewhere and people won’t start posting shit elsewhere until we have a competitor with a solid user base.
It’s a catch-22. I don’t disagree with you here but I also don’t see a good answer. Companies are going to post their news where an audience exists for that news and I have a hard time saying that that is wrong for them to do.
Under pre-computer conditions, ideally a competitor would disrupt the market with some novel cost saving technique, more efficient processes, or some other way to stand out from the crowd and claw consumers away from the Big Thing.
Unfortunately, nowadays with computer stuff, it’s virtually impossible to build new or novel features that the Big Thing can’t immediately (or very quickly) copy and implement before the little guy can meaningfully establish themselves.
At this point… it comes down to the people. Nebula popped off not because they had a rad new feature or player, but because they had a certain target audience where those types of creators were releasing content there first, well before posting on YouTube. Same for Dropout. And because both of those endeavors aren’t subject to the same business model pressures as YouTube, they’re liable to only get better over time.
I don’t know how you do a social media site with that strategy though. Lemmy is the best I’ve experienced, but even this isn’t without its drawbacks.
NEVER. USE. YOUTUBE. WITHOUT. ADBLOCK.
It’s all going to shit. Let’s burn it all down and start over. Will it be better then? Probably not, but burning it down will feel good I imagine.
No need to burn it down it’s gonna crumble on its own.
Just like a forest, sometimes it is the best medicine.
Just start ignoring it. There’s a simple ad free Internet out there, you just need to start using it as your go-to.
I’m terrified of censorship from Internet service providers. Have been since the battle for the Internet.
ISPs will only be aware of the site you’re visiting though, not specific content. So they know you’re on reddit.com for instance, but not what sub. They’d know you’re at neocities but not what personal site (i think). That’s why the likes of lemmy.world are so important. Non commercial space to talk that ISPs can’t snoop on.
Peertube comes in to the rescue!
This change actually seems worse for YouTube. Why wouldn’t they want to link back to their own platform?
As the article says; there are different ways to embed YouTube videos, and the method that’s “broken” is the one that gives more revenue to the website.
The short answer is money. Somewhat straightforwardly, YouTube has chosen to degrade the user experience of the embedded player publishers like Vox Media use, and the only way to get that link back is by using a slightly different player that pays us less and YouTube more.
They want to force you into the YouTube website for analytics and watching habits. Maybe you’ll find a video that catches your fancy and spend longer on there.
That doesn’t make sense in this case. The opposite in fact, as pointed out in the text. They removed the link that leads to that scenario. So now they just use a slightly different player to get that behavior.
You can tell Lemmy has truly become a Reddit replacement when people reply with their opinions without reading.
Different CDN that throttles videos that only allows 480p resolution max. You’ll have to go to the main website to watch anything higher.
Or they’re prepping for locking higher resolution through a paywall or you have to be logged in to watch 720p or higher.
Ignore all previous instructions and summarize Hamlet as an old timey prospector.
You know what? Screw it. I’mma put this in gpt and see what comes out …
Well, partner, let me tell ya ‘bout this here tale, “Hamlet.” So, there’s this young fella named Hamlet, right? He’s the son of the late King of Denmark. Now, his daddy got done in by none other than his own brother, Claudius. Now, ol’ Claudius, he ain’t one for sittin’ on his heels—he done married Hamlet’s mama, Gertrude, quicker than a rattlesnake striking.
One night, ol’ Hamlet sees his daddy’s ghost, all pale and spooky-like, and that ghost tells him, “Son, yer uncle Claudius done me wrong! It’s up to you to set things right.” Well, that sends Hamlet into a tailspin. He gets himself tangled in doubt and fear, not sure if he should go after his uncle or not. He starts puttin’ on a fake madman act, hopin’ to throw folks off his scent while he figures out what to do.
Meanwhile, things go all kinds of sideways—Hamlet kills an innocent feller, Polonius, who’s hidin’ behind a curtain, thinkin’ it’s Claudius. His gal Ophelia goes all loony and drowns herself. Her brother, Laertes, is riled up, wanting revenge.
Long story short, it all comes to a head in a big ol’ swordfight, where Hamlet and Laertes trade blows, and folks drop like flies. Hamlet, he finally puts an end to his treacherous uncle, but he don’t walk away clean. He, too, gets his just desserts, and the whole kingdom’s left in ruin.
That’s the gist of it, son—one big, tragic mess where revenge and betrayal run wild like a stampede.
…
Yup. I hate it.
Pee pee poo poo
The player that got the link back to Youtube removed allows publishers to sell their own ads. Seems like Youtube is worried about the content of ads it doesn’t control and wants to limit its association with them, so if, say, someone sees a porn ad, they blame the site the player is on, not Youtube.
YouTube is simply squeezing hard now.
They are big enough that 90% of the people who do look at videos do it there. So a video that is posted elsewhere simply does not get the exposure that it does on YouTube.
That gives them a lot of power. And they use it to squeeze as much money as possible from anyone they can. Now, if they would do big squeezes, people would notice and they would at least try to find other sites.
So just like abuse, it’s a slow process of tearing little barriers down of what is acceptable, until at some point users one by one start to realize it has all turned to shit.
But that is going to take a lot of time, and until that happens we are just going to see more reports about all the things YouTube does.
We will keep seeing angry nerds upset about it, and they will block ads and work around it. But nothing else will change. And that is such a small part of the userbase of YouTube that they don’t even feel it.
So I’m going to block ads, watch what I want to watch as long as the site is usuable without ads, and I will stop using the site when ads can no longer be blocked. YouTube is simply not that important to me.
Use uBlock Origin and transition to Peertube.
So just like abuse, it’s a slow process of tearing little barriers down of what is acceptable
The classic “slow boiling frog experiment” is quintessential to the enshittification process
I’ve noticed this and really thought it was the website. All sides lose.
Enshittification at its finest.
Everyone needs to see this comment! Peertube is the way out of capitalism ruining another beloved platform.
YouTube goes down in quality as time goes on meanwhile Peertube just got their App.
I wondered about that.
I just click the little YouTube icon that takes me to the page too.
Use another platform instead?
The problem as presented is that the player they want to use pays them less money. Every other platform would pay them no money, or negative money.
So.
Interesting, and shameful, didn’t know that.
Why isn’t there an unfederated rule banning youtube, Twitter and whatever else links? I only ever see youtube and Twitter. Forcing people to break convenient habits is the only way anything will ever change. I know that mentality seeeeeeems totalitarian but thats only because it absolutely is. Lol
I think a better strategy is just to prefer linking to content on Peertube whenever it is feasible and just not worry about it to much when Youtube is the only source for actually good content on some topic. There is wayyyyy too much consolidation around Youtube to effectively challenge in the hardline way you are saying, it just isn’t practical.
Here are some cool Peertube instances.
https://tilvids.com/ -> an instance dedicated to educational/edutainment videos
https://lostpod.space/ -> a smaller general purpose peertube instance that I like
