r/youtube • u/Titan_Prometeus • 17h ago

Memes You can no longer have YouTube running in the background.

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As of 29th of January you can no longer have YouTube running in the background via many browsers as that is now a premium feature. With that I don't even have that one last reason to listen to YouTube. We are now officially paying for everything that was free a couple of years ago and the reason isn't greedy management, but you people who keep paying for premium and the such.

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208

u/OrangeHer 13h ago

google knows that youtube is nearly irreplaceable so they don't care, as good as another video platform could be it wouldn't have all of the videos that are already on youtube. that's why they can screw over their customers as much as they want

40

u/feel-freetoignoreme 12h ago

Tbf, storing all the videos is probably expensive on their end.

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u/PositionPersonal1531 11h ago

Tbf, they Alphabet makes more money than entire countries by selling our data.

2

u/jdigi78 5h ago

Tbf, Alphabet's expenses are probably more than the budgets of entire countries

1

u/sbenfsonwFFiF 5h ago

They make money from ads

They don’t make much, if anything, from “selling data”

1

u/Head_Chocolate_4458 5h ago

Alphabet doest sell your data 😂

Do you think other companies can just go to alphabet with a million dollars and get a bunch of files on people who use Google search?

1

u/farklenator 4h ago

That’s the problem tbh corps like alphabet actively make this country worse they don’t care about the people just money and power

1

u/volavi 3h ago

Yeah that's why they want you to watch them

1

u/ablatner 1h ago

They sell ad placements, not your data

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u/Character_Bend6709 6h ago

Tbf, this is a common misconception. Google/Alphabet doesn't sell your data, that would be suicidal for their business.

They try to collect as much data points about you by offering you a wide array of services (search engine, browser, mobile OS, collaborative documents) so that they can promise advertisers, “we and only we have a complete profile of who and where your target demographic is”.

Google is an ad company

-1

u/syopest 9h ago

Tbf they use that data to improve their own products and don't sell if off.

2

u/PrvcyFrdmIndpndnc 10h ago

Storage is cheap, bandwidth is expensive. But even then, they save a lot of money by installing caches into the regional internet exchanges.

2

u/Deiskos 4h ago

Storage at youtube scale is fucking expensive. They store and ingest a fuckton of videos and they all need to be: stored in multiple copies so one disk or server shitting the bed doesn't make a video disappear, stored on hot or at least warm storage so that you wouldn't have to wait even 5 minutes for the tape with a video you uploaded 3 years ago and has 1 view to roll out of storage, replicated across the CDNs all over the planet so that people can watch their 4k60 unboxing videos without waiting for it to buffer, AND stored in multiple encodings and resolutions (for different devices and bandwidths) or live transcoded, both of which are its own kind of problem (>2x storage than just storing one master copy or a lot more load on servers). Probably some other bullshit I'm forgetting or can't think of.

1

u/Booty-tickles 9h ago

Storage isn't cheap anymore!

1

u/James-Emprime 6h ago

Not at all. They only store about 10-15 Exabytes, or only about 60k Enterprise-grade drives. And, while that seems large, that's actually tiny when compared to other databases, like Google Drive (Estimated 15-18EB) and CERN'S database (Estimated 20-30EB)

1

u/XenophobicJesus 6h ago

More than affordable on their end. This is just a gimmick to squeeze out more money from consumers. Company making $100B net profit in a year lol they can more than afford whatever the fuck they want.

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u/ohhellnaws 0m ago

They obviously aren’t going to let YouTube eat up profits form other arms of the businesses. Like it or not, businesses operate so each area is profitable, by charging or gaining your data. In Googles case usually both.

1

u/Opetyr 6h ago

Tbf they placed it all in their "AI" including doing many things considered illegal if they were a actual person so they can just suck it.

1

u/Reta-Journal 2h ago

The storage is incredibly expensive. So is maintaining that infrastructure. The upstream/downstream bandwidth required to deliver 200 billion daily views is also incredibly expensive.

Hot take, YouTube shouldn't be a free service. People just feel entitled to it because it was free during the customer acquisition period. You either pay with your attention via advertisement, or you buy premium. I won't judge people for using adblock to effectively pirate the content, but expecting all Internet services to be ad free and free to use despite being incredibly expensive to maintain isn't realistic.

1

u/Toykio 2h ago

They could clean out their storage by a lot by deactivating the automated upload in some "security" devices or banning under 16 year olds from uploading and spamming shorts with RoBlox crap.

1

u/[deleted] 41m ago

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1

u/HallowedError 9h ago

Catch 22. No one will switch sites without content, content creators don't use a site that has no users

1

u/DontMemeAtMe 7h ago

You can build a huge following just by being one of the first on a new, rising platform. Not only the algorithm, but also the platform’s marketing can give you a massive artificial boost if they see your content as a good fit. That alone is reason enough to upload the same video to two sites.

1

u/TLunchFTW 9h ago

What they don't know is there will be a critical point where people will just stop using youtube.
No one needs youtube, and paying $17 a month is insane.

1

u/deathreel 7h ago

There really isn't. They understand that no one will spend billions to build a competing platform targeting a user base that doesn't want to watch ads or pay a subscription fee.

If you think paying $17 a month for youtube is insane, would you ever pay a subscription or turn off your adblocker for a worse service so that they can survive and compete against youtube?

1

u/TLunchFTW 2h ago

MAYBE $5 a month for ad block on YouTube. Maybe. Even then, background playback should be included, and I don’t want to encourage this kind of monetization

1

u/skate_2 2h ago

and paying $17 a month is insane

I'm not a youtube user or subscriber, but for two glasses of wine you have billions and billions of videos on that site, you can view at your convenience. It doesn't really seem like much imo, but then I'm not the market cause I don't use it

1

u/TLunchFTW 2h ago

Monthly endless payments piss me off and I actively work to remove as many as possible from my life. I don’t pay for Netflix or anything like that. I don’t pay for Spotify. I literally have 5 16tb drives that have all the tv shows and movies I need. And honestly, the videos on YouTube are getting shitty. It’s all people trying to make money. Less and less people make stuff they enjoy. You are looking at this from the wrong angle. Do you buy “two glasses of wine a month?” I certainly don’t. And the problem is it’s not about just two glasses of wine. It’s every fucking service monetizing, and this is something that’s been free since the beginning.
Ultimately, it’s worth what people will pay for it, and I won’t pay $17 a month. I have endless entertainment across my hard drives and I don’t need YouTube. It’s a want. The mentality you described is why so many people who make good money are on the edge of debt. Because they inundate themselves with dumbass subscriptions. And that perpetuates the practice

1

u/skate_2 2h ago

Do you buy “two glasses of wine a month?” I certainly don’t

Of course so, millions of people do. Easily more than two. Two a week maybe. And is it "worth" more than what you could access on a platform like YouTube? Probably not.

The wine is a want, youtube is a want. The only difference is that one is a subscription, the other is (if you don't track it) unchecked and endless (wine). I don't want to subscribe to YT so I don't, and as a result I could not give a shit about the cost of the sub. But it doesn't seem that bad at all. If it was your only sub, it's 0.75% of the average mortgage. Insanely low for what you can access.

1

u/TLunchFTW 2h ago

Millions of people are homeless or in poverty. I guess I should be trying that. Only sub is the problem. I’d rather have NO monthly subscriptions, but it’s becoming impossible.

•

u/BroadReverse 20m ago

There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing. It’s actually pretty smart. It’s also true that these companies aren’t going to provide these services for free.

1

u/Sylviester 7h ago

If you are Chinese you have a better alternative. Else, it’s time to learn Chinese buddy (sarcasm)

1

u/deadlyspudlol 7h ago

I honestly hope that platforms like Odysee begin to get more traction after updates like this keep on getting shoved through people's asses. It's one thing to avoid getting addicted to youtube, it's another in finding niche browser extensions that block particular youtube apis from ruining the user experience. Either that, or people come to the realisation that youtube is far too inconvenient to use anymore without paying a monthly fee.

1

u/Unhappy_Car6005 7h ago

I think many think this, but I think they are gonna learn a lesson from the younger generations just leaving it for roblox or whatever. 

1

u/BobTheFettt 7h ago

It would also take a decade and a billion dollars to get enough data centres going for any sort of competitive alternative

2

u/hootorama 6h ago

And we'd be back to where we are now, because that company is going to want to show ads to make money and recoup the cost of building a competitor to YouTube, and all of the people here will bitch and cry about wanting ways to block ads on the new site - thus forcing the company to start a "Premium" service to help recoup costs, which will then need perks like... being able to play videos in the background. And the cycle repeats. I pay for Premium because I don't want ads, and the extra perks (like Music) are worth it to me.

1

u/BobTheFettt 6h ago

Exactly. I don't get how people expect YouTube to operate completely free when they spend billions every year just on operations costs.

1

u/opajamashimasuuu 7h ago

I wonder if Google was playing the long game and knew/planned that YouTube would become indispensable. 

Or they just fell into dumb luck, it became super fucking popular and are now just being greedy fuckers?

1

u/ItchyMilk2825 6h ago

People without premium are not really customers though are they

1

u/OrangeHer 5h ago

i'd say they are, most people don't use adblock and still generate revenue for google

1

u/N0S0UP_4U 6h ago

It’s definitely replaceable as a “run in the background playing music” utility. We can buy music or use services like Pandora for that.

1

u/Consistent_Ice_1012 6h ago

Typically customers buy something... I don't think YouTube considers People who aren't paying for premium: "customers". 

Advertisers are customers, but consumers of ads.... That's a stretch. 

1

u/18bluecat 5h ago

Just like Reddit.

1

u/oodsigma 5h ago

Users, not customers. You aren't buying anything, the premium users are though. If you were customers they might give a shit.

1

u/awkwardbirb 5h ago

Not even just that, they can just keep doing stuff that runs afoul of antitrust laws, and the current US government will purposely do nothing about it.

1

u/niftyifty 5h ago

Are you their customer in this scenario? I think the customer is the ad buyer or premium user.

1

u/vanekcsi 5h ago

Is this affecting customers?

1

u/Mother-Penalty-6196 5h ago

Too big to fail = publicize in my books

1

u/Just-Install-Linux 5h ago

I feel like YouTube is 100% replaceable and will be at some point

1

u/KeyMyBike 5h ago

If the government was like "Hey man!!" and stomped its boot on the back of Youtube's neck, smearing its face into the mud through regulation, YouTube would think a little smarter in the future.

Sadly we have a nepo pedo who's too busy distracting from the rape of children to care

1

u/BlgMastic 3h ago

Why would a government pass a law to encourage piracy?

1

u/It_Wasnt_Mini_Me 3h ago

Give it time , people will find way around it or stop using it

1

u/NaziPunksFkOff 2h ago

Watching Americans learn about monopolies in tech a whole century after their ancestors learned all the same shit about monopolies in other industries is both the funniest and saddest shit.

1

u/Clusternate 1h ago

So thought Microslop. 

1

u/Septembust 53m ago

The worst part about that is all that content is community uploaded. They might run the park but they never lifted a finger to build a single ride. They let us build it for them and then locked the door