YouTube Has Thrown Free Software Users Into a Crisis
OVER the past few days in our IRC network (where we have an Invidious bot) we've pointed out, repeatedly in fact, the rapid explosion (or implosion, as seen from within) of Invidious instances, which ceased to work or went offline altogether (because they could not be made to work anymore).
Yesterday my wife noticed the same thing (totally independently) and pointed it out to me. Watch this:
That was a few minutes ago.
Only about 5 working (or known) instances of Invidious remain? Some of them don't even work anymore. Only about 5 work at this time. There used to be many dozens.
"YouTube Will Probably be Next to Die," we wrote 3 days ago. For many Free software users, who rely on Invidious, YouTube is nearly dead already. It's very difficult and time-consuming, trying repeatedly and very stubbornly to find the remaining functional instances. Some go offline due to overwhelming demand (or buffer a lot, or downscale - the lesser evil).
Hours ago we went with the headline "YouTube Getting Worse", citing this report which says: "The popular iOS music streaming app Musi may be fighting a losing battle against YouTube’s efforts to crackdown on API abuse [sic]. In 2023, YouTube began targeting apps that block ads on YouTube for its free users, with pop ups asking those users to disable their ad blockers."
So one can see the direction YouTube has taken. Please, people, stop uploading videos to YouTube or streaming things in YouTube. You may be doing a great disservice not only to audiences but also - in the long run - to yourself/ves. Google is NOT your friend and YouTube is NOT free hosting; you and your audience/s pay some other way - a covert way. You will come to regret it one day. Don't kick the can further down the road. Quit YouTube and quit uploading to YouTube to help others quit too. Break the chain of dependency or "network effect". █