this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.

Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.

There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.

So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?

#tech #technology #Google #enshittification #youtube #video @technology #capitalism #film #television #cinema #art #arts #SocialMedia #business #economics

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

The same thing that's happened with numerous print newspapers around the world. When they downsize, sack the backroom staff, and move to shopfronts they dump - literally - those priceless collections of photographs, negatives, and, yes, glass plate negatives, as though they were old office furniture.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

@Throsby @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology old microfilm will get vinegar syndrome if it isn’t stored properly and if it is older acetate microfilm. Eventually it will become unusable. It’s expensive to replace just one reel of microfilm. Old newspaper clippings will all eventually crumble. I believe librarians and archives are the best place to save our history and culture. Unfortunately they are often not well-funded.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Throsby @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology I wonder how much of this is captured by the local library? There was a time I could check old newspaper content on microfiche.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

@kneworldodor @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

We do have that. The libraries scrupulously keep copies, but not necessarily physical media.

[–] aredditimmigrant 5 points 10 months ago

Ask any Dr who fan. The BBC did this as well back in the day......

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

I have mentioned this over the last couple of years. The cost of maintaining all those server farms is getting prohibitively expensive. Just recently google has stopped archiving webpages
& cache searches are no longer available. We cannot trust for profit companies to be the repository of all the art, literature, history, music, research, writing, etc that we want preserved. They will only preserve what makes them money. And even if a nonprofit or govt wanted to be responsible, they can't. Climate collape, cyber attacks, wars, energy costs, etc make it impossible. The fanatical republicans want to make anything their cult doesn't like illegal & impose their beliefs on the public, on businesses, and on society. They want real history & other people's cultures erased. And they're fine with trampling on other people's rights to erase it. It was always a pipe dream that everyone would be able to just login & find anything. And now libraries are targeted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

@shekinahcancook @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology I have cancelled my family #YouTube premium membership and am migrating away from YouTube video, podcast and music. I want to echo the voices here mentioning #peertube. For #music, I'm trying to pay the creators and download #mp3 instead. I'm listening to #audiobooks in #mp3, paying a higher price and getting a narrower selection. I have #libretube on Android which circumvents the algorithm, the ads, and supports downloads of YouTube videos.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology As a professional video editor with an add’l interest in audiovisual archiving, I spend a lot of time discussing how it’s not in my clients’ best interest to put their media legacy into YouTube/Google’s hands. Not only is it a compressed version, which isn’t good for repurposing (editor hat), there’s absolutely no guarantee it’s going to be there for the long-term (archivist hat). If they want to use it as a delivery platform, fine. It’s not an archive

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Unless the public puts literally billions of dollars into funding and expanding public libraries to catalog all this video media into numerous publicly owned gigantic server farms that maintain the capacity to upgrade digital storage indefinitely, all video media is doomed to stay with privately owned capitalistic multinational corporations that are influenced by foreign governments to censoring various things at will, and all video media is destined to die forgotten and overwritten by future shitty memes and useless influencer garbage.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Should be govt supported online libraries. Not under regular copyright rules (but they aren't allowed to profit or redistribute it either) but for potentially culturally relevant content that is 5 or more years since publication.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

Then we will quickly learn which people were prudent enough to keep backups, and which were not.

#datahoard

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

@AlexanderKingsbury @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology
Agreed! It's an important point of redundancy. If it's worthy, should be stored and distrubuted even if the most popular way is unavailable (I say)

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Always mirror your content on a few PeerTube sites. When 1 goes down, its your responsibility to re mirror

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology @tsturm Unfortunately, we’re probably going to find out.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology Anyone who's put all their precious eggs in one basket controlled by someone/something else is a fool.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

The Internet Archive archives YT videos. I've downloaded removed videos from there before.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology This is why it's important to own one's own content and only post it to social media, etc., as a secondary copy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Archive.org is where a lot of these videos are getting archived.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

They don't have the space to archive it all. No one does. It's the reason it has grown so big without real competition.

No one can do it.. or at least make money doing it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology There's always @internetarchive . If you want a place to preserve your videos, and you don't require #monetization, upload them.
The #WaybackMachine might already capture your videos, but you don't need to take the chance, and their Video library is better curated.
https://archive.org/details/movies

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas

That's actually a problem.

There is no backup for this collective memory outside the servers of this company.

@pluralistic @technology

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (8 children)

@ajsadauskas
That's why #peertube is so important! Everyone should be migrating or at least mirroring there ASAP... It will happen.
@pluralistic @technology

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology Well, Google will tell you to download your material before a certain date, and then just clear their servers...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

Can I SHOUT LOUD ( to far too many people still covering their ears ! ) *TOLD YOU SO* ! ACTUALLY IS ALREADY HAPPENING ! .. "Oh it's always going to be on the internet to download when I need it" .. NO IT'S NOT !! How many times YT for whatever reason took down something or forbidden you to see in full or .. What's going to happen ? That when they'll really need money they'll start say PAY OR WE TAKE ALL DOWN .. and content will vanish from YT !

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology BTW, enough media will be lost in the future due to DRM versions that will no longer be supported at a certain moment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology Youtube is basically my entertainment. I do not have cable or TV of an kind. I am very selective in my viewing. If you appear to be a decent human ie: not racist, not misogynistic, not fascist or nazi I will probably watch anything you have to offer. If you are an asshole I will block you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] There are ways to download from it with tools like yt-dlp (no Premium account needed), at least for now. I am not sure what the legal position is with re-distribution (possibly depends on the video) but I would suggest this as a good way to archive a backup of content you value offline.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] It also fetches them without ads so it's a good way to watch on my TV where those aren't blocked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

@[email protected] Minor correction: "becomes unprofitable" should be "becomes insufficiently lucrative".

Furthermore, how much revenue Google needs to make from each of its properties including Youtube keeps going up quarter after quarter thanks to insatiable shareholder appetite.

It's like sending a citizen each day to the nearby dragon to get it to leave you alone, but over time the price keeps going up.

@[email protected] @[email protected]

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