Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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How do we replace YouTube? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi, my post is focusing specifically on YouTube since I observed the following categories have less intrusive solutions or privacy focused solutions, even if they are paid:

Operating Systems (Linux, for example)
Instant Messaging (Element, for example)
Community Messaging (Revolt, for example)
E-Mail (Proton, for example)
Office (libreoffice, for example)
Password Managers (Bitwarden, for example)

However, how do we distribute videos and watch them without data collection? I am NOT asking how do I use a privacy-focused front-end for YouTube, by the way, I am aware they exist.

I am wondering how we obtain a FOSS solution to something super critical such as YouTube. It is critical since it contains a lot of educational content (I'd wager more than any other platform), and arguably the most informative platform, despite having to filter through a lot of trash. During COVID, we even saw lecturers from universities upload their content on YouTube and telling students to watch those lectures. (I have first-hand experience with this at a respectable university).

I refuse to accept that there is nothing we can do about it.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

While I do agree with you, I also see twitch, TikTok and Patreon presenting models that are quite competitive with YouTube.

From a privacy perspective, free junk content like TikTok, YouTube and twitch will always be hard coupled with targeted advertising.

But Patreon (and onlyfans for that matter) do offer a model that can work without ads.

In fact, if Patreon also introduced an ad-supported tier and allowed you to more broadly see other content aside from the direct person you sponsor, it could probably grow quite a lot.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Tiktok is a company comparable in scale to Google. 130Bn in revenue last year.
Patreon is nowhere near the scale of YouTube. But I also think it's the only viable solution to privacy and supporting creators.