so we already know that youtube doesn’t like people freeloading their bandwidth using something like invidious, piped, newpipe etc. why don’t they just close the public web api and require a login or something. by requiring login they can keep track of what users are watching and if a user is watching thousands of videos daily they can rate limit that user.

are they afraid of losing their user if they do so? I personally don’t think it can affect their business or profit. It will cut down their cost of bandwidth and computation costs. so why don’t just cut off users that don’t bring any revenue??

  • whoareu@lemmy.caOP
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    5 months ago

    I really don’t think requiring login will kill YouTube. only the privacy conscious people will leave but majority of people won’t even notice.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      5 months ago

      It might.

      YouTube’s business case is that it is the easiest to access video platform and pays out the most to content creators. Adding a login wall may be enough to allow a competitor to come in and compete against that, especially given how YouTube videos are embedded on other websites.

      • Paragone@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        monopoly & lockin mitigate risk of migration.

        That is the whole point of monopoly & lockin.

        which is why it is the primary strategy being used against humankind, now.

        By all factions, not just gov’t, business, or NGO’s, or churches, but ALL of them.

        _ /\ _

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Well sure, I was being overly dramatic. But once you require a login, then you’re no better than tiktok or Instagram. At that point, what’s the draw? They’ll lose a lot of traffic.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Yeah, youtube is pretty much unusable without login in due to all the shitty videos recommended by default.

      • cmhe@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Depends on how you use it.

        I use youtube without login to see videos of specific creators or to search for specific videos.

        I have no use for the recommending system.