Today in a Privacy community a post about YouTube. No word about privacy but all about which software or settings are needed to watch videos and the money needed to host videos. It made me wonder whether some of you can lead a meaningful life without YouTube. Or will a cold turkey bring the worst out of you ?
Maybe yes, Maybe not.
Most of the youtubers I used to watch years ago have become full-time Twitch streamers and their channels now only serve for highlights. My currently watched content revolves mostly around memes of specific games (most of which may also be available in other platforms at the expense of subtitles).
At least for now I can say that I could live without Youtube as ~90% of my entertainment on the web currently comes from outside the platform.
I’ve, unfortunately, gotten in to the habit of having YouTube playing on my second screen when doing anything at my computer. Can’t fall asleep without some history documentary playing.
Bad habit on my short list for eradicating.
I barely use YouTube in the first place
Absolutely. Almost never use it anyway.
I used to watch a lot of YouTube stuff (like probably a good ten hours a week) for years. Since covid lock down (4 years ago!) I have barely watched anything on it. I still add videos to my watch later play list but I know I’ll never watch them all as I’ve got hundreds of videos there…
YouTube is my streaming app. They have me by the throat. I could give up every other video app before I gave up YouTube. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. YouTube just has the best content.
Yes? I’d miss it for about a week, then I’d fill the time I’d spend on Youtube with other things. My to-read shelf has a healthy number of books on it. I could subscribe to a science news website or two. I’d really miss the how-tos, but there are ways to get that information too.
Not if you’re into music or you work in the industry (venues, producing, etc…): everything is on YouTube and Spotify, light years ahead of places like SoundCloud, Beatport, etc
Of course anyone can live without YouTube, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of enjoyable content that I would miss without it.
YouTube has one use for me - the occasional video on how to do something technical
How people watch hour after hour of other people’s inane ramblings I will never know. You must have have an incredibly low bar for what you consider entertainment 😂
The people that say it’s their main form of entertainment must have to wade through so much crap to get to anything good, I just don’t see the point.
I mean, you can say the same about every form of entertainment. Music? Majority is crap. Movies? Crap. Sports? Crap. Books? Crap. Video games? Crap.
I’ve been using Youtube so long that it kind of isn’t a problem. I’ve got a bunch of creators I follow, most of whom have stable release schedules. The likes of RedLetterMedia, Astrum and SEA (two unrelated yet adjacent “European guy talks calmly about space” channels), Summoning Salt, TierZoo, etc. Recently the folks behind The New Yankee Workshop have been uploading the show to Youtube, and I’ve been enjoying that.
What do you do for entertainment?
Personally, YouTube isn’t other people’s inane rambling for me. It’s science education, it’s about how to identify and forage for food, it’s video essays about nuclear disasters… it’s constantly introducing me to new concepts— like why lawns are bad for the environment, how other countries tackle the problem of traffic and public transportation, why DIY air purifiers are more effective than nearly every commercial air purifier on the market, etc.
It’s a platform where the medium is video form content. Everything is available there. Both garbage and gold. It’s the way that you use it that determines which one you get. For me, it’s like Wikipedia in video form. With the occasional bit of entertainment on the side, as a treat.
Wikipedia in Video Form is a great line! I feel much the same way, but I think that’s not the entire picture. Wikipedia is a lot of declarative knowledge (i.e. what things are and Al’s maybe why they are), but YouTube is a lot of procedural knowledge for me. That is how to X. My GF and I finally found an apartment. I don’t know how to replace broken light switches, but in five minutes YouTube taught me how.
I didn’t know how to replace a faucet - now I do. I did not know how to insert a metal screw fitting into the furniture I was constructing - now I do. I wanted to measure our energy consumption, figuring there had to be a way to it it smart/connected and Open Source. YT content creators showed me how.
The list goes oooonnnnnn
I have been living without YouTube for years. That includes alternative front ends too.
Although I must admit, i have a Netflix subscription which I use very actively.
Honestly I think I would find that one difficult. It essentially replaced conventional TV for me in the last 10-15 years. I use a privacy-respecting front-end so I’m never at youtube.com itself but if they killed it off I would find it difficult to adapt.
Probably one of the harder things that I could do. It’s a replacement for TV so I could try and slot in TV but I think it would be frustrating to not have the copious amounts of content
TV is simply not there. Some YouTube channels are about a topic that’s so niche that there’s nothing similar on TV.
I watch it basically all of the time but if they made it paid-only I would drop it immediately.
I spend most of my free time watching YouTube. At times I wish it would go away. Even though they are a lot of valuable videos, there are also far more videos that I’m not interested in. I also don’t view YouTube with ads. I refuse. I’ll up YouTube before I watch ads.
