There are a minority of users who care about being able to host videos that violate YouTube/TikTok/Instagram policies. Unfortunately, a significant part of that minority is working with infringing or illegal content, which both prevents ad networks from working with you and attracts attention from law enforcement.
BitTorrent is certainly built around the idea that upload can be slow. Even if user have upload 100x worse than download, 100 seeders can saturate a leacher, and then the leacher becomes a seeder.
The problem is just that he doesn't stay a seeder forever, because of the other problems.
If a typical user uses preertube 30 mins a day, that still gives a 16 to 1 ratio between seeding and leeching, and a 1024 to 1 data storage to data viewed ratio, meaning there is a good opportunity for a big back catalogue.
Almost everyone I've ever known has problems with running out of phone storage, so I disagree with this.
The seeding while charging and on wifi idea is cool though.
IF I had a penny for every time I heard "unalive", I'd build my own hosting platform.
(Because some laws are stupid. Please support right to repair and DMCA reform.)
When i was 20, i was reflexively cynical, because it let me pose as intellectual without the burden of having to learn or think. As an adult, i find that pose very fucking obvious.
My interest was piqued by the concept of natting ip6, and why an isp might do so, and why cgnat might be disabled if you ask the isp to disable ip6.
...bb-but I thought cynicism was the same thing as experience![1]
No but seriously, I agree it is primarily "we can't be arsed to change our methods".
"Primarily" is not everything; the other 10-20% is the long tail of everything else. Europe is getting much harder on filesharing[3][4] because of business interests, and - despite the much better regulation - there's probably some "you shouldn't be hosting things on a residential connection anyways, pay us for a business connection peasants" like in the US[2].
Of course, all these ready-made restrictions are then easily adaptable for abuse (when's the next Chat Control proposal anyways?), so there's not much pushback from above...
Cynicism is easily a thought-terminating cliche, but it is unfortunately earned nowadays, especially as a coping mechanism for a feeling of helplessness against the usually stupid, sometimes malicious forces at play (Hanlon's Razor doesn't account for weaponization of stupidity).
[1]https://youtu.be/v0VA6u8cTxE?t=540
[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18238827
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...
Smarttube on Android TV just pulls its own APK so you just need to click Install after it downloads and opens it.
That's fine and there are tools to get that scheduled break back - even the official YouTube app has options to remind you to take a break every X min of watchtime and there are some very advanced general screentime limiting apps out there.
As you say YouTube ads aren't scheduled well and they're too short and unpredictable to even go to the bathroom during. Integrated ad reads are even worse in that regard.
I did without a TV set since I moved in a larger home. Previously I could listen to the TV anywhere in my home, now I can't so instead of pinning me in a place I moved my TV into my phone and tablets. Everything is in an app anyway and for free to air TV I got a couple of RPi 3 with a TV hat and the TVHeadend app.
And when I have guests everybody is watching something different on their phones most of the times.
F-droid enters the chat.
if someone is seeding that video cause they recently watched it and it remains on their local cache, you could get the bits from there vs hitting youtube servers
The client can pick the optimal encoding and quality which makes that quite a bit more difficult. A user on a modern device that can hardware decode HDR av1 will have a file cached completely useless to a browser that can only do SDR h264.
I think there is a sort of network effect needed to make it become reasonable.
Netflix reported in 2025 something like 30% of traffic was av1. I think smartphone and PC support are fairly robust but under the impression streaming devices are still quite terrible unless it's a Chromecast.
AVC/h.264 is the only thing I know of that's pretty much universally supported at this point. I found a Facebook/Meta report citing some consultant provided data that VP9 was a close second. Limiting to devices from the last few years, HEVC might work.
Nobody uses PeerTube much. I put technical videos on Hardlimit because it doesn't insert ads. I don't care about "discovery"; they're for a tiny audience that comes in from postings elsewhere. Works fine for that. The client side is all Javascript in user's browsers.
P2P is great on desktop computers (and, in the modern age, Smart TV boxes), where your network connection has no data cap, there are no battery concerns, you're unlikely to be behind CGNAT (common for cellular data connections), and the app can surreptitiously minimize itself to tray instead of closing itself outright, making you an unwitting seed.
Found one in the end when I didn't have a choice anymore and put renewed effort into it (Google's algorithm won't let me into my account anymore, saying they don't have enough information to verify it's me (username, password, recovery email.. not enough apparently, but there is nothing else), so I'm a Peertube exclusive now) but iirc I can't use it for everything, like if I wanted to upload something in Dutch I'd have to find a new server that allows my language
Even forgetting that issue, the last thing I want is to use some unknown, unpredictably changing residential connection for my videos. Google has invested in a powerful edge network so they can server my videos lightning quick.
> the last thing I want is to use some unknown, unpredictably changing residential connection for my videos
YouTube only buffers a handful of seconds. Let's say other users would only be used to buffer 30-60 seconds in the future and if it drops below 15 a fast server is used. Does that solve your worries?
As for upside, is fewer ads enough to tempt you? That's the easiest one to do if the fast servers need much less bandwidth.
This is deeply unsubstantiated and does not help contribute to a constructive debate. Please consider thinking more carefully.
If the system is truly distributed it means you might not be able to participate without hosting or transmitting CSAM.
It’s also been used as a deliberate attack, which is known as “pissing in the pool.” Flood the system with CSAM and copyright infringement.
Depends on the P2P architecture. With something like bittorrent / webtorrent you will be distributing CSAM only if you download it yourself first. Otherwise there is no way for any CSAM content to appear on your device. The fear that an algorithm may spread CSAM on the network by making you view one accidentally is a legitimate concern though.
I understand the worry, and it is a difficult problem worth thought but the alarmist virtue signalling helps absolutely no one, victims included.
I listen to the Butthole Surfers and Amboog-a-Lard - I'm willing to bet a good portion of their material has less seeders than much illegal content do.
A product doesn't need to serve EVERY human on earths needs, just enough of them that it can become large enough that established legacy solutions need to adapt.
I get why you might think this wouldn't be a fit for YOU but rather than argue against it from a niche viewpoint instead maybe look at how if it did exist it could be good for many.
Peertube has moderation.
Not sure it is a reason for making hammers illegal?
In any case, there needs to be a huge problem to justify installing an android app. I prefer to keep them to a minimum and focus solely on the browser. Browsers are the only OS-vendor-safe option which I can use to bail entirely on Google's Android or iOS and go some place else.
NewPipe also lets you export your subscriptions (which is just a bunch of links to RSS feeds), so you aren't shackled to Android/RSS.
YouTube does make some kind of changes significantly harder to build than simple scripting will handle though. I do definitely see some reasons for specialized apps, and video is a fairly prime example of where they're often more capable or more (power/time/whatever) efficient.
When I switched over to using an app, there was also a good chance that an algorithmically suggested video from an unfamiliar creator would capture my imagination. When I have looked at recommendations recently, I doubt that would be a problem today. Too much AI and human generated slop. Too many click-bait titles that barely give a hint on what the video is about, never mind why I should care about their take on it.
Then there are the days when I am both bored and exhausted. While I don't tend to watch much on those days, I have known myself to scroll through the recommendations to see if there is anything to occupy the time.
This has worked flawlessly for me on every phone I've used.
The block in degooglifying is usually region not lack of willingness. Some places are locked to Google by no fault of the consumer.
but for some reason google knows better and there is no efficient way to run local containerized web services.
If this is the case you need to understand that all this is happening because YouTube is a monopoly. They lock-in creators and their userbase by requiring daily updates without which the algorithm won't promote the creator. This is surely to increase video volume, thus views and ad revenue, but a side effect is that effectively the content creator has no time to try to move the user base to another platform.
YouTube is a monopoly and one that's already abusing its position. These alternative apps and adblockers/sponsorblock hurts Google and it's good, a monopoly needs to hurt in order to break.
But the most important thing to remember is that this is self inflicted. Google could have played fair and opened up competition and instead of building a fortress they could have just... invested in making a better product to compete as it's how capitalism works. Monopolies destroy capitalism so it's morally justified for us citizens to club monopolies into smithereens by resisting corporation mandates.
Your comment made me try Firefox for the Nth time right now.
And the rendering is still bad like I remembered it. Download the image locally and open it in an image viewer so you actually view the pixels 1:1, then see if you can tell which one is Firefox (I can): https://imgur.com/a/FsXuoa3
I'm staying with Chrome.
But hey, if there's one thing that's definitely going to convince people to do things they don't like, it's to diminish their grievances and guilt-trip them.
When I do it it's because it is likely to make a difference in the ultimate outcome I want to achieve. I also criticize things when I think that criticism may have an impact on the ultimate outcome. What I don't care for is futility. In this particular case, it is absolutely futile to try to fight against big tech through shaming people into inconveniencing themselves for the sake of the free internet. You need to address the root causes to even stand a chance. Part of that is politics and legislation, and part technology. Getting Mozilla and other OSS to give a damn about the basic flaws in the user experience so their users actually want to use Firefox is going to have far more of an effect on the outcome you want to reach than shaming users for not inconveniencing themselves.
Also, no one is out to get you. You complained about failing to use Firefox, and folks are trying to explain to you that you can use it if you want to. But you assert that you fail to do so, despite wanting to, but for unspecified reasons. It makes it hard to assist, which I think is all people want to do. You keep bringing up guilt and shame, but you're the one that said you wanted something you keep failing at getting, so folks naturally want to help.
If you don't want to use Firefox, just use Chrome and move on. That's what everyone else does.
There was a long era (years) when I loved Mozilla and used Firefox -- and then even Waterfox, IIRC because it was 64-bit -- exclusively. (As well as Thunderbird.) I did not like Chrome. IIRC at some point they started feeling like every update made them more bloated, broken, and unbearable in various ways. I forget all the exact issues but I distinctly remember rendering was a big one for all of them (I think it happened around the obsession with GPU rendering), my extensions constantly breaking or getting disabled because of "compatibility" issues forcing me to keep toggling flags in about:config being another, my toolbar styling/customizations getting constantly messed on every damn update up being another, the tab bar getting moved up like in Chrome when that was very much one of the reasons I liked Firefox being another, and slowness/bloat being another. I wasted too much of my time into finding workarounds, but eventually I couldn't take it anymore. Giving up everything including extensions like Greasemonkey and Stylebot and having the ability to customize everything just so I could have a better experience was painful, but I bit the bullet and switched to (I think Chromium first? and then) Chrome.
After that I basically stuck with them though I kept a Firefox around and updated it once in a while to see if maybe they would come to their senses and start improving the UX. They removed support for old-style extensions which immediately was like a punch in the gut. Regardless, a few years ago I figured maybe times have changed so I spent probably weeks on it (if not longer) and even sank quite a bit of time into manually porting porting my custom local Chrome extensions to it just to make sure I was giving it a fair shot. The snappiness was maybe better than before but overall I just felt like they didn't give a damn about longstanding UX issues people have been complaining about for years, and were too focused on other priorities. So I've stopped wasting more of my time on it until it passes a couple litmus tests, which it failed again today.
And don't get me wrong, Chrome has had its own issues and frustrated me too (MV3 being the most recent and frustrating), but at least it's not completely defeating the very reasons that drew me to it in the first place.
But the point being: I believe I've given it a fair shot enough times in the past, but I also have better things to do than fight with a browser vendor over the very things that drew me to their browser. For Chrome the speed was probably the biggest factor, and for Firefox it used to be UX/customizability. One of those companies understood that and never compromised on their core strengths, but the other never seemed to get the memo.
All the YouTube alternative frontends are so privacy focused that they do not even offer video history in your account.
Having video history is a must for me as I might start watching a video in my computer and then continue on my phone.
Also as it is just a web (and includes support for SponsorBlock) it works everywhere, no need to patch apps or install extensions.
I have had this issue few times on a specific wifi router (different router on same line doesn't) so don't know exactly.
If you don't find any of the above to be a problem, you don't have anything to worry about, of course.
PipePipe is so nice with the fast auto-updates. If I ever even catch it breaking, I just have to use Firefox for a few hours and then F-Droid ships the fix and PipePipe works again.
I don't mind the channels I like having sponsors, and if I do I just double tap forward a couple of times to skip the minute.
Every time I see a creator I like do a "smooth transition" from content to ad, it makes me feel betrayed. Not only are they about to read words someone else wrote for them and which they don't really believe, they spent an extra 15 seconds pretending it was part of the video in order to keep my full attention when they throw the sponsor name in my face. It's scummy behaviour.
Creators need sponsors to pay the bills, just as they do ads, I get it. I don't fault them for the industry basically forcing them into these kinds of "integrated ad reads", as well as the fact basically all the sponsors have huge ethical problems. But I will not subject myself or the people who watch videos with me or on my devices to this brain rot.
That's why I try to support them in other ways (YouTube Premium, Patreon, etc.) and run adblock and sponsorblock on everything. By my napkin math, they make more this way anyways.
Unless the goal of the spot is literally just "Our name exists!!" which tbf it probably is for all those VPN ads, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
Surely nobody watches the full ad segments?
A great example of this is Raid Shadow Legends. They were sponsoring what felt like every channel, to the point where it became a meme. But at some point, someone is going to go through the app store looking for an app to help with their boredom and is going to see Raid, at which point their subconscious says "I know that name. I should check it out."
How is that LESS annoying?
If I notice they are starting to again mention that VPN client or whatever I can just decide to skip (and the visuals often change as the "ad" is often prerecorded). But I remain in control.
For comparison: say you're getting a haircut. And halfway they stop cutting to promote their new book, for 5 minutes straight. Telling you they would not be able to provide you with the haircut if they cannot promote the book.
I'll move over to PipePipe now.
How have you just noticed that when Tubular reliably broke every single month when YouTube changes something and you had to wait for weeks for it to be fixed? It was barely maintained for a long time now
Default app for sure is an abomination and so are most Androids straight out of the box before debloat + clean rom + root.
Bad name though, first few results for "Morphe" is a well-known make-up brand.
About NewPipe, which I've tried it in the past, I have to say it was a better app than Youtube's official app, and I'm not talking about the fact it was blocking ads. For example, three weeks ago, the new Youtube app upgraded to a new GUI, and all those filters in the subscriptions list (not watched, continue watching etc) disappeared or at least I can't find them anymore. It's like this new version is trying to make you not see old stuff or wants you to lose time scrolling instead of watching videos. I use very little the Youtube app because TV screen + browser with extensions (there are no ads blocked on Youtube on my PC) + KDE Connect offer a much better viewing experience.
I don't think I missed anything, or in some cases where ads are unavoidable, ever decided to buy something because of ads. I do my own research for purchases.
In other words, the conversion rate is near zero for me.
I don't care what others do, but it's a waste of compute and network bandwidth to try to target me. Ad lords had better use that resource to target someone else.
It's like when a telemarketer calls, I tell them, there's zero chance of me buying anything, so save us both some time and don't call again.
Ref https://watchwithmira.com/blog/sponsorblock-categories-expla...
Cutting intro/outro/preview is nice if you're watching a bunch of videos on the same channel in a row.
> if everyone did this ... creators would be less incentivised to make content
Yeah, I guess they'd just have to stop making videos then.
> believe it or not, ads work, and sponsored bits even more
Is that... good? Most of the sponsors I have seen have been semi-shady snake oil like NordVPN and BetterHelp.
I keep listening to my old collection, though repeated songs and videos, but atleast i got peace offline.
I've been watching youtube without ads on all Apple hardware for years.
I use invidious as backend.
https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
Absolutely fabulous.
Super easy.
It’s probably a good thing, actually.
NewPipe was so buggy for me in the past, I've avoided it. Did it get better? Any reason to use it over Morphe?
> In summary, it can be said that sponsoring is a good approach. It is fair and non-discriminating to all users, preserves their privacy, lets creators select their partners themselves, and provides them with a larger share of the revenue. Even though there are some disadvantages, it is more or less beneficial for all sides. [...] Ethical advertising, for example through sponsorship, should therefore not be touched by us. This would turn our key selling proposition from being privacy-friendly to being a gatekeeper for advertising. And this is not what NewPipe ever has been or wants to be. We’ve always stressed that NewPipe’s main goal is to protect the users by maintaining their privacy, not to, e.g., provide features a user would otherwise have to pay for, for free. Regarding SponsorBlock: after a lot of discussion within the team, we decided not to support this system. As stated earlier, we don’t consider advertising in general problematic. It’s the unethical, privacy-invasive systems that are very common today which we consider evil. Sponsorship provides a mostly ethical way of advertising.
There's an obvious catch-22 here: either you are maintaining privacy, and the sponsor has no way to know whether their segment was viewed, so you are wasting your life watching an ad to make an inanimate object happy, or they are spying on you to learn whether you watch it.
Either way I fundamentally disagree with them on the idea that push advertising is ethical in the first place, but it's kind of absurd thinking about people feeling good about themselves for watching a recording. Like did you also not fast-forward your VCR through ads in those days and instead dutifully watch attentively lest God know you were naughty? You make sure to read all of the spam in your mail, or inserts in newspapers rather than chucking them in the bin?
The same way they did in the past, with broadcast radio and television: they base it on audience numbers rather than tracking whether people actually listened or viewed the ad. Besides, isn't one of the major motivators of tracking to avoid fraud? (Which I find ironic, given I don't view advertisers as very ethical in the first place.)
> Either way I fundamentally disagree with them on the idea that push advertising is ethical in the first place
The way I think of it: advertising doesn't have to be unethical, but it incentivizes unethical behaviour.
> Like did you also not fast-forward your VCR through ads in those days and instead dutifully watch attentively lest God know you were naughty?
I would typically walk away to do something else. Same outcome though. That said, I started to turn away from broadcast media in the early to mid-1990's. I forget whether it was due to advertising, but the end result was a lot less exposure to advertising. Which is a good thing IMHO.
As I see it, it's similar to the situation with FOSS passkey options. Currently the big projects are complying with all of the (increasingly silly, imo) demands of the standards org. If they did not, there would be significantly more pressure for attestation, in which ultimately only Google/Apple/Microsoft-controlled options would be permitted. Complying allows a fork to patch out the user-hostile behavior.
Passkey likewise is a retarded idea with no user empathy, and by going along with their demands, you still push people into monopolistic ecosystems because the only way to use it in practice is with a cloud sync service. There's likewise no need to carry water for it. Anyone advocating for it outside of scenarios where you have an IT department to maintain it is either a fool or a shill.
Also NewPipe is still niche and appeasement isn't going to do anything. They'll end you when they feel like it. c.f. the tightening of the Android software monopoly in general. At some point they're just going to block NewPipe entirely. It's not like Google is thinking "well it's okay if they block our ads as long as they allow in-video sponsors." Nor are they ever going to think "wow maybe we should have some morals; maybe our global surveillance system we've built was a bad idea. I can't believe we didn't realize that!"
Well, there are people that actually like work in the marketing space. As scary as it sounds.
Considering the fact that the vast majority of YouTube sponsors seem to be some kind of scam or are privacy-invasive themselves, the word “mostly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Not that I think youtube or other ad platforms make great decisions on ads one bit either, its all just a very abusable medium.
And in-video ads like these are even less defensible given that they still show up when people are paying YouTube (and creators by extension) to not display ads.
Killer feature!
Personally I use my own fork of FreeTube on desktops, though, falling back to Firefox with uBlock when there are outages.
So, it must be some extension or content blocker list causing that issue?
I'm not sure about transferring subscriptions between Pipe and Brave...?
Funnily what I found was to install 1.1.1.1 from cloudflare. Enable that. PipePipe works perfectly.
"This repo is discontinued.
I can no longer dedicate time to this project.
For alternatives, see:
PipePipe: https://github.com/InfinityLoop1308/PipePipe
Morphe: https://morphe.software/
"
Then it's just a matter of letting people add their own videos directly to the service and it can become fully independent of YouTube.