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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Enshittification
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What is enshittification?
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
The lifecycle of Big Internet
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
Embrace, extend and extinguish
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
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Honestly, I am surprised it took them this long. This technology has existed for a while, there is even a standard for it (see: SCTE-35).
The harsh truth of the matter is that YouTube is a victim of its own success. The sheer scale of what is needed to keep the platform running at its current level of activity is something that I think most people don't give a second thought to. It requires a truly astonishing amount of technical expertise, infrastructure, monitoring, throughput capacity, not to mention sheer compute and storage, to keep it running. And that is considering the technical side alone, never mind the business that has evolved around it
All of the above costs money. A lot of money. So much money that only a shitty mega corporation with no moral scruples would ever be able to afford to run the platform, let alone turn a profit. And so here we are.
There are niche alternatives like PeerTube, but in practice it is currently in no state to be a drop in replacement. If the fediverse had to deal with the amount of traffic and content from YouTube in its current state, it would collapse immediately. This won't change until the user base begins to increase, but to do so requires an incentive for people to jump over. And sadly, far too many people just don't care enough about avoiding ads to do so.
I think in the long term there will be a reckoning; no matter the size of your platform you are not invulnerable to change. Nobody back in the early 2010s could foresee Twitter falling from grace, and look how that turned out. YouTube will eventually die, the only question is who will be footing the bill for what replaces it.
In the meantime, if you're unable or unwilling to deal with YouTube's ads, or pay to skip them, then just don't engage with the platform at all. Read a book. Touch some grass. They haven't found a way to monetize that (yet).
Or that’s what we’re led to believe. Someone could say the same for an OS, but we have many open source alternatives. We need an open source alternative to YouTube, and perhaps with some innovation that may be possible. You don’t need storage, for example, if content is just streamed in a p2p manner, even with a time delay so people can watch something whenever
Edit: some context https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2PTV
For the idiots downvoting explain why, or I’ll just believe you’re YouTube shills
Not downvoting, but I just think you're way too optimistic. It's like believing we, humans, could stop fighting wars. Sure, theoretically. But the difference between theory and the practical is that in theory there's no difference.
Hmm not being optimistic, just going based on past experience. Look at where you’re posting right now, did anyone think the fediverse could be a possibility when we have twitter, fb or reddit? There’s nothing out of the norm about what I am saying anyways, people do stuff like this for sport or based on ideology. That’s why anyone should support a foss project they use or admire, or pay artists, writers, niche magazines etc
It's just YouTube shills. Content creators who want to make money on the platform, and content viewers who don't want to have to check multiple places for the things they watch.
No one should feel bad for Google though, as they chose YouTube to be open to anyone uploading anything.
You mean "get paid for labour"? How fucking dare they ask money for their time and providing people with information / entertainment / whatever.
you can make money off-platform from your content. you don't need to be paid by youtube.
Idealistic view based on a miniscule amount of very talented/devoted people.
if you can't find someone willing to pay you to make content, maybe your content isn't worth getting paid for.
But youtube pays you even if the content isn't worth getting paid for, so I don't think your reasoning works.
"Go somewhere where there's no viewers and you don't get paid".
Nice advice, I'll pass.
Listen, I don’t think we would lose anything of value if YouTube suddenly stopped paying creators because of either end of the platform or change in business strategy.
People who made valuable videos would still make them and the rest was always just cheap lowest grade entertainment, fun but like no one will notice if it is gone and forget in 2 days it ever existed.
Even Netflix would not be a huge loss let alone YouTube clips. Truth is Netflix tv series are nowhere near artistic and cultural value of movies like Peter Jackson lotr etc.. it’s just another form of cognitive McDonald.
If whole McDonald went bankrupt overnight we would be ‘oh well shame let’s go to McBurger’ and forget it ever existed in few days. If an extremely good and cozy local restaurant closed down we would mourn it for months. I even mourn loss of quality in such restaurants a year after opening which is unfortunately common… it’s so sad to order your favourite state of the art food and realize it is a far cry from the perfection of the original dish. It’s lost, forever possibly. It’s like suddenly someone erased Beethoven from existence.
Just do your thing and forget about them. They are like Neanderthals and destined to go extinct.
We should strive to be the Übermensch. do not mistake this for nazis propaganda. I am talking about the original goat Nietzsche not the Hitler’s gross take and misunderstandings of his philosophy.
Those who educate themselves and keep their mental and physical ability in proper shape will ultimately prevail, while the ignorant will be left to repeat past mistakes in a never-ending cycle.
God is dead and mindless scrolling isn’t an answer. It is just a drug to not let you see the dark truths walled off and hidden in your mind. Until you face them you merely live an illusion. Be brave and take life raw with all it’s pain and while it won’t be pleasurable, it will be real.
I disagree with your opinion.
Well enjoy your shitty lowest yt entertainment then that does nothing to advance you as a person. Only TikTok is lower.
Lemmy isn’t like very higher up but at least it is an independent pirate community. Also I fully expect some interesting people with interesting ideas will and do come up here once in a blue moon besides all the news angry comments and memes.
I am not also saying that yt is ‘bad’ thing to enjoy but that TikTokers and YouTubers are easily replaceable and represent no intristic value besides few niche ones that do it mostly for free or on alternative platforms anyway.
Of course there is also a matter of participation in contemporary ‘culture’ to fit better and not sound like total nerd and for social leverage. Being seen as one of the herd same as others is very, very important in society. Likeability stat needs to be high to thrive. Ability of others to relate to you easily.
So some TikTok, YouTube is unavoidable from pragmatic viewpoint and we can learn to enjoy it if we have to be familiar with it anyway.
It can be a part of balanced diet but cannot make up the majority of your total consumption time or you will deteriorate to some regressive digital monkey. We need to consume higher, more nutritious forms of entertainment from time to time so our brains can stave off dementia.
My grandma used to read a lot but her eyesight worsened and she started to only watch tv. It went pretty fast afterwards. It’s unhygienic to your brain to consume TikTok in big quantities.
The most nutritious and highest form of entertainment is creation. Coding, music, images, handicraft. As nourishing for brain as it is for the soul.
The lowest well probably jerking off pure chemical supply or maybe even lower drugs like meth that wouldn’t be even inherently bad if not the unavoidable addiction. YouTube and TikTok are still somewhere higher but honestly they are also habit and addiction forming which sucks the time out of your life for something that is pure dopamine nourishment and does not enrich you as a person.
Lmao, are you fucking high... Is this a copypasta or are you just a basement-dwelling weirdo?
if alphabet's shareholders heard this, they would take them to court. it can't be true. and if they're willing to pay, someone else will be, too.
You're saying this as a matter of fact. But it's not how it works in real life, otherwise people would have already migrated.
they pay you because they get paid by advertisers. cut them out of the middle and go directly to the companies running ads on your vids.
Yawn. This was not my point, or even what I was trying to to say.
But I wonder how much you'll defend YouTube and Google in 2 years.
Of course it wasn't...
No defending here. Just making fun of all the entitled delusional crybabies here.