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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[–] Debesch@postchat.io 15 points 1 year 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

[–] AlexanderKingsbury@mastodon.social 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

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

#datahoard

[–] eaplmx@mastodon.online 5 points 1 year 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)

[–] AngelaScholder@mastodon.energy 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@AlexanderKingsbury @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology With TransIP in NL there was once a free 1000GB of cloud storage on HDDs when they moved the paid accounts to SSDs.
The agreement was Best effort, but for lost data they were not responsible as there would be no backups, unlike the paid accounts.

Yes, there came a time when a disk crashed in the RAID, and then while rebuilding a 2nd disk crashed.....
Yes, bye data.
Apparently some people were upset that their data was lost....
So, >2

@AlexanderKingsbury @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology 2) as they also didn't have a good feeling at TransIP, they decided to cancel the free storage option.

I just thought "You knew there would be no backup, so lost, was lost... You accepted that. Tough luck!"

[–] ezwal@social.lol 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Judeet88@universeodon.com 7 points 1 year 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.

[–] LuckyNewtGames@dice.camp 1 points 1 year ago

@Judeet88 @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology I swear, most any writer or student pre-cloud will tell you this. Always find multiple ways to save the things most important to you.

[–] askDNA@urusai.social 7 points 1 year 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.

[–] lps@masto.1146.nohost.me 6 points 1 year 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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[–] Throsby@infosec.exchange 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

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

[–] bookninja@mstdn.social 3 points 1 year 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.

[–] kneworldodor@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year 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.

[–] Throsby@infosec.exchange 2 points 1 year ago

@kneworldodor @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

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

[–] SheamusPatt@mstdn.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

[–] gilesgoat@toot.wales 5 points 1 year 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 !

[–] mina@berlin.social 5 points 1 year ago

@ajsadauskas

That's actually a problem.

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

@pluralistic @technology

@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.

@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.

[–] jmcrookston@mastodon.social 3 points 1 year ago

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

[–] VoxofGod@mastodon.social 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

Curious if you are aware of anyway of downloading one's content off YouTube for this all but inevitable moment?

[–] nbhansen@hci.social 4 points 1 year ago

@VoxofGod @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology 4k videodownloader is great for downloading everyones content <3

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yt-dl.

Command line tool, works on all desktop OS's, can handle things in batch, download full playlists, etc.

I believe the current up to date/maintained fork of it is yt-dlp

I use Downie (on Mac) but there’s a video downloader app for every platform. It doesn’t download the ads either 😉

[–] bortzmeyer@mastodon.gougere.fr 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology Some of it is saved by public services (for content in french, by INA).

[–] mmu_man@m.g3l.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@bortzmeyer @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology we can't have one service archive everything, maybe even @internetarchive … But could we make a service/browser plugin to tell if a video is archived already somewhere and propose where to add it? If it's in French -> INA, and so on…

[–] mmu_man@m.g3l.org 4 points 1 year ago

@bortzmeyer @ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology @internetarchive Maybe there's some collaboration possible with SearxNG? (I recall writing the INA search addon)

[–] seindal@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why is everyone @-ing the same group of people in this post?

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was wondering the exact same thing. Nobody uses ats and hashtags on Lemmy, but on Mastodon, that’s the only way to tie the conversation fragments together. This is just ActivityPub doing its thing. Welcome to the Fediverse.

[–] SheeEttin@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

They should fix that, because it's certainly degrading the experience on Lemmy. A good number of these replies have the tags longer than their actual content.

[–] timrichards@aus.social 1 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology Needs to be nationalised; or more precisely, converted to a non-profit body.

[–] leeloo@techhub.social 1 points 1 year ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology
"So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?"

Things improve.

Youtube does not have a monopoly because it's the only video app installed on your computer, but because it's the one everyone uses.

Plenty of people have tried to compete, but Youtube was good enough. Others had good reasons to try but concluded that Youtube was good enough.

When Youtube is no longer good enough, they get to show they can do it better.

Google search is worse, because it hasn't been good enough for a long time, but somehow every competitor has decided to be worse. Altavista 25 years ago beat what Google search is today, I can't imagine Microsoft being unable to afford to bring Bing up to Altavista levels.

[–] bste@mstdn.social 1 points 1 year ago
[–] DigitalTaoist@ieji.de 1 points 1 year ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology
Hear hear! That Do No Harm motto seems to have become increasingly flexible...

[–] maiamaia@mastdn.social 1 points 1 year ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology and I have a vimeo account, and I keep "meaning to try" to use it....there's even good stuff on there! It's affordable if it's pay-to-view! But no....

[–] bmaxv@noc.social 1 points 10 months ago

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology

What, you don't have a personal archive of your youtube favorites?

Better start the backup now?

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl

[–] jeroen@secluded.ch 1 points 11 months ago (5 children)

@ajsadauskas @pluralistic @technology @fanf that is why @brewsterkahle created https://archive.org -- support them so we can keep an archive of important things, otherwise commercial companies will restrict and control the information in the future, and those who write the last are the real winners...

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