Some thoughts on #Youtube
#Censorship adds to the list of abuses which have been plenty, but I’ve disliked Youtube even before recent developments and I've been seeking a better way.
For one, I don’t like how the monetization model encourages click baiting, which for me and many others means misleading videos clogging up the search engine and disrespecting users by wasting their time. I also don’t appreciate the psychological tricks that the company has implemented to keep users vegging out and watching as many ads as possible (essentially, building a profile for each user and exploiting it with Google’s distraction-for-profit scheme).
If you want to see how effective these psychological methods can be, just give a toddler a tablet and a youtube app, and watch how they use it and what the algorithms lead them to.
By comparison, the #google #advertising practices I mentioned above make television advertising practices look like little girls running a lemonade stand, and are motivation enough for me to abandon the platform in search for greener pastures
Best Practices
The fact is that most #video creators only publish on Youtube. Google used the momentum of Youtube’s popularity to make the platform attractive for income seekers and those seeking the largest audiences possible, all without needing to deal with the overhead of hosting their own media. The ease of monetization & the massive userbase means that most channels are exclusively on youtube, and that means that if we wish to watch these channels we must use youtube in some capacity. What’s the healthiest way to do that?
- At the very least, I would recommend using adblock software to neuter Youtube’s ads. I’m not even sure if this still works, however, because I haven’t needed to use Youtube’s web interface to view videos for a couple years now.
- #youtube-dl (http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/about.html) is a fantastic program that you simply feed youtube links, and it downloads the corresponding video onto your hard drive in a specified format and resolution. With this, you will actually own the videos you watch, and you wont be subjected to Google’s distraction algorithm. For #Linux and #Windows.
- Find other ways to support the channels & video creators you appreciate. Creatively encourage them to accept bitcoin donations or other forms of financial support, and provide suggestions for alternative ideas such as releasing their videos as torrents as well as youtube or other media hosting websites, and explaining the benefit of them doing this.
Alternatives
This is my personal list and is by no means comprehensive, and I’m hoping that others will add to it. Competition fuels innovation and it prevents anyone in the lead from getting too comfortable. Let’s list some youtube competitors and services that respect the end user.
- Goblin Refuge (https://goblinrefuge.com/) is one of the most popular implementations of the #GNU #MediaGoblin (https://mediagoblin.org/) platform. This platform allows users to upload audio, video, pictures, text, and other formats. Anyone can create a Media Goblin instance and start working toward being the next great content host, or you can sign up for an existing instance and start uploading.
- LiveLeak.com began as the infamous “Ogrish” hardcore gore website but eventually rebranded into the more palatable LiveLeak a few years ago. The site is still peppered with extremely graphic content but fear not, images of graphic nature are hidden from view by default. For better or worse, LiveLeak is somewhat of a bastion of free-speech as well as bizarre, raw, and interesting video footage from around the world that you won’t see on Youtube.
- Image Boards. I’ll leave you to research & discover these on your own, but image boards will usually have dedicated /gif/ sections dedicated to gif and webm format video clips of a topical nature. The video clips are generally less than 1 minute in length, but image boards can be a good resource for finding several relevant clips on niche topics.
- Please share your own suggestions!
Coming soon?
What I hope to see is a true decentralized censorship-resistant video network similar to Media Goblin but mixed with Diaspora’s model of Pod interconnectivity. A platform where video hosts could all weave into eachother and search/display content from other video pods. This could provide network resilience and disperse the cost of hosting endless amounts of video content. Channel operators could sign up under a public video pod host, or host their own video pod. Does anyone know if such a project currently exists, even in its infancy?
I would love to hear your suggestions for existing alternative video hosts, best practices and methods of how you manage/download/view videos, or any other ideas or comments. Thanks for reading.
(Painting by Lawrence H. Sin, "Arts Of The Cinema" 1933)
