Can you live without YouTube ?
Can you live without YouTube ?
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 ?
Nope. Just this week YouTube helped me fix a squeaky dryer for $18. Repair guy wanted $100 to come out, estimated a $300 repair. The amount I saved there has paid for premium for a year and I use it for everything. Fixed my washer, ran 220v for my new stove, countless baking recipes, woodworking tips. It's not like Netflix where you only get entertainment from it, there is actual good info.
No, i'll die. What a question
Can I? Yes, I grew up before YouTube and got to see both the growth of the public internet and YouTube. So, I know how to get along without it.
Would I want to? Not really. YouTube is like many things which have come about in human history, it's got it's good parts and it's bad parts. But, on the balance, I think the good outweighs the bad. The important bit is finding that balance where you get more good out of it than bad.One of the great and terrible things about YouTube is the low barrier to entry. It's very easy for someone with a passion in a niche area to start posting videos. This means that we can get hundreds of hours of videos showing people removing hornet nests. Or, any other random thing I would have never seen in a world of serial TV. You can also get videos showing you how to do almost anything. Granted, those videos can be outright wrong, dangerous or just really bad. But, you may also be able to discover and start a hobby you would have never known about. YouTube has democratized video sharing in a way which didn't exist before it. And I suspect that, were YouTube to disappear tomorrow, something would pop up in it's place to replace it. People want easy video sharing. People want to be able to find copious amounts of weird and strange things. Sure, if you dig too far into the darker corners, you are going to find something you find objectionable. But, that's always a problem with large groups of people, there's always a few rotten apples which need removing.
So overall, I'm pretty positive on YouTube. Yup, it has problems and those need to be worked on. However, I'm far happier to have a place where video sharing is highly democratized, which has problems with that ease of sharing being abused; than I would be without it. The free flow of information necessarily means that objectionable things will be able to flow as well. That sucks, but it's much better than the alternative.
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.
At least 60% of my internet time is YouTube. I rely on it for entertainment, news, education, discovering music, technical help, ETC...
Could I live a meaningful life without it? Probably, people have been living meaningful lives before the invention of the computer in general... But I wouldn't give it up because there is an immense amount of incredible content there that genuinely makes my life better.
Yes/no.
I lived without YouTube / a Google account for years.
But I still use YouTube through a privacy respecting frontend:
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/frontends/#youtubeI usually go for:
- On desktop: Invidious or Piped
- On Android: Tubular or NewPipe
lack of content from other competitors
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.
I feel as though I missed the heyday of youtube, and only really started using it within the last few years, so perhaps my perspective is a bit skewed, but I don't really get the point of a lot of content on there. A lot of the content I consume could easily be replicated elsewhere, or in a different format. A good deal of tech content I consume would be improved, in my view, if it were just a website with an associated discussion forum for clarifying or expanding upon any points people don't fully get. Plenty of food channels would be better if they were just a cookbook, because they waste so much time on stuff nobody cares about in order to hit a magic length for the algorithm. Most of the long form stuff I come across could just be podcasts without losing anything of value for me.
I'm entirely willing to say this may well be my "old man yells at clouds" moment, but I just don't get the majority of youtube content. The appeal of things like Lets Plays (outside of seeing exactly how to beat a spot you're stuck on) and Vtubers is completely alien to me. I do enjoy travel content, but I find a lot of the stuff uploaded by independent youtube creators to be pretty exploitative and don't enjoy watching it. I don't think BBC or Arte or the like willl disappear with youtube. I doubt I'll miss it very much when it eventually gets killed and Google launches a worse video site one of these days.
As of today no. But I'm going by steps :
- I've stop using it without a front-end.
- I look for other source of content from my favorite youtubers (podcast host somewhere else, web site, social media, blog especially for cooks)
- I search for content on other plateform before it (but it is far for being systematic right now
My goal is not to go full private or open-source but just less dependent on YouTube. Onfortunately so many youtubers are solely there.
Anyway, I believe that the day big for-profit intrusive company will stop leading the video hosting business, the format will get noticeably less popular as it is extremely ressource intentive. It will mostly replace by podcast and illustrated articles.
Of course you can, billions of people do it allready, it'll be annoying at first, but then you'll adapt.
I watch hours of YT every day, but if it stopped working/existing my life wouldn't end, just as it didn't when I left Reddit, I'll find other things to do and services to use.
I used to use Reddit every day. I just replaced Reddit time with Lemmy and YouTube.
If YouTube goes down… I’ll live. It’s not a life support thing like income or housing so I’ll just find other things to fill the hole.
Will it suck? Sure. Will I live? Yep. I’d prefer they put out a reasonably affordable subscription instead of just nuking themselves with ads and more enshittification, but it’s not like life itself depends on YouTube.
Their current subscription is too pricey. At least last I looked.
They can get some of my money if they put out a sufficiently lower priced option. I paid for Reddit premium and used none of the features I just liked the site before Steve Huffman decided to be super extra shitty. I’d do the same for YouTube.
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.
I quit YouTube along with reddit last summer. I don't use alternate interfaces. I haven't found a replacement for most of the niche content I liked to watch there -- and yes, that sucks.
I've mostly been watching offline content (like DVDs and things I downloaded years ago) when I want video entertainment, and doing other stuff with my free time.
You might think that'd mean more time playing games given my interests, but I've found I'm a lot less enthusiastic about playing through games if I can't watch an LP or two of it afterwards. So, I'm actually playing (and also buying) less of those than I used to too.
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.
I used to watch A LOT of youtube. Since I started educating myself about google and corpo stuff I lost most interest I had. Now I only watch gameranx and gamers nexus from time to time.
I started watching (and hosting peertube) some time ago and slowly add new channels to my list. Its getting better. Linux and tech stuff kind of works on there imo. Everything else needs more love.
We‘re at a particularly rough time imo since peeps are trying to switch but many hurdles work against them. Federated social media in general is still WIP, funding is a huge issue, accessibility is an issue and a healthy testing workflow (asking users for consent of automated bug reports, making them actually useful, shielding devs from too much user critique, etc.)
As someone with both accessibility needs and experience in customer relations I often see wasted potential because too few peeps with a samdwich skillset (between user and dev) are actually in the foss scene, particularly in small projects.
I really hope foss will endure these growing-pains.
Yeah. It would suck, but I'll make it.
I guess I know where the good stuff is in the trash heap? I've been a user of Youtube since before Google bought it, and...I think the algorithm just has so much data on me that I don't see a lot of the swill newcomers will. I do believe the platform is enshittifying from several different directions though, particularly from Alphabet.
Blows my mind with the responses on here. I use YouTube maybe once a month, if something interesting pops up? Or for a music video or a science related subject. Reading is just so much more pleasant than trying to go through all the spam, trash, ads, and bad videos. I don't know how you all stand youtube personally.
I can. But I wouldn't.
I only really use Youtube to watch like a couple specific channels and sometimes to look up music. I could easily fill that space with something else.
I use YouTube for instructions on how to do things. I can listen to podcasts anywhere.
I'm all in if something like Peertube gets adopted more fully, but given the sheer amount of space YouTube takes up it seems unlikely to be at the stage it is currently with a provider like Google.
For my own usage: I could substitute background noise with music (either through another provider like Spotify or locally hosting the music and streaming it with Jellyfin), and then more long form content could be done with other providers (Netflix, Disney+, or renting from Google lol) or again using DVD's or locally hosted videos, but it would certainly be a challenge and I'd miss a lot of the content.
Why would you want to live without the biggest video platform? I learn so so so much there. Wish there was berry decentralized options as the current ones are all very thin on content.
Why would leaving YouTube bring out the worst in anyone? Is this what the OP fears of the self? I don’t get it. The entire Internet has many issues and one could hair avoid entirely and live just fine, but the trade offs are just not worth it even with the privacy concerns.
I did for years before it existed. Did for years after it came around.
It's a great thing to have the video guides and lessons that are available there, but the rest is just entertainment, and there's always entertainment somewhere that isn't full of shit.
And those useful things, well, humanity made do with written directions for decades before video became a realistic option back in the eighties with VHS. TV "lessons" before that amounted to being only cooking shows, and a handful of PBS awesomeness that wasn't really aimed at practical, modern things.
I will absolutely miss instructionals for specific devices being that easy to find, but as long as places like ifixit exist, I can do just fine.
I barely watch YouTube as it is. Sometimes I have to watch a tutorial or review that I can't find information on elsewhere, but literally every time I wish it was a blog post instead.
I don’t use YouTube at all.
So I think the answer for me is no, but I definitely think I use it very differently than most people who watch YouTube. I don’t watch new things on YT, I don’t follower any YouTubers, it’s basically a repository for MST3K for me, old music videos, and then I will pull movie clips/scans of old films from it for my academic work. I don’t know who the baby gronk rizz king is or whatever, but I’ve found a lot of stuff on YouTube that I probably would not have found elsewhere (other than sometimes Internet Archive)
Yes. I blocked it a year ago, and it's been such an improvement.
It would be a lot easier to not look things up with YouTube if search engine results weren't destroyed by quora and Reddit posts
When I inevitably move away from Google, YouTube will be the last thing that remains. I use it a lot, and there is absolutely no sufficient replacement.
Absolutely. Almost never use it anyway.
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.
I use it for everything and often background noise.I could survive without it but I would miss it. Not so much YouTube but a service like it.
I lived 30 years without it, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to do without it. It's fun, but not necessary.
The problem with YouTube is there isn't an alternative.
Anytime I think it's morphed to a state where people will leave for the next great thing, they don't.
The content is there, and alternatives don't have that backing them so it's too inconvenient to move on. Once people have that pain point, they go back.
I haven't personally used YouTube as often as before, since nowadays many creators just try to be clickbaity (and yes, I do use the DeArrow extension). I watch YouTube on the TV with my family, though
YouTube is perfect for me for music videos and educational stuff. Medium format stuff. Too long for TikTok, too short for TV.
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 sometimes take music from there to add to my offline collection, other than that I very rarely use it.
Everything I need can be found somewhere else
I guess yes. I use it from time to time via NewPipe to look up some bike repair stuff but I guess I could easily find that somewhere else in the web. But I think this could be a generation thing, I know many people only a few years younger who absolutely depend on random internet people explaining the news to them in video format or stuff like that.
I only go on YouTube about once a month and I use it exclusively with either Newpipe or heavily modified on my PC. I mostly use it to watch trailers of games I am interested in, so I think that I would not be really affected.
I barely use YouTube in the first place
Yeah it’s undeniable that YouTube is getting difficult to get rid of. There do exist some alternatives like Vimeo or peertube, but as others say, lack of content is their biggest problem. Using alternative frontend is relying on YouTube after all, so there’s no way we can live without it, unless they do something very horrible, like what Reddit did to us.
If YouTube died tomorrow I'd be sad to lose a lot of my regular content, especially edutainment like Steve Mould, Veritasium, and Tom Scott.
But I'd probably just replace that portion of my time with some other form of content consumption, like streaming more shows or more reading.
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...
It would be tough in the beginning but sure. I’ve watched everything interesting anyw… oh what’s that? Another rabbit hole!
Honestly it depends. A lot of my online time in the last ~5 years has strayed away from YouTube. Most of my time is just spent playing musicbee while browsing anidb/ MAL/ MFC, searching for rares / chatting on soulseek, or watching anime / movies. But YouTube does come undeniably handy for those times where you want something you can't find anywhere else online, like people going solo into hard-to-access countries to record their journeys, or tutorials that explain things in much more detail than text could due to visual demonstration, or more in-depth reviews of products where the video makes it a lot easier to feel the size / scale of the product I'm looking at.
Could I do it? Sure. But it would definitely be hard for a long time, as I track down various blogs / self hosted websites with what I liked to use YouTube for. But honestly that kind of internet might be better. Or if a smaller platform would gain more traction so YouTube wasn't the only option. I think that would be ideal.
I don't get the appeal of YouTube. I use it for maybe the odd music video or something, but often you'll just get someone's annoying commentary instead of the actual thing.
I live without it and it's great! Try it.
I watch it basically all of the time but if they made it paid-only I would drop it immediately.
With alternate interfaces? Absolutely.
If not though... I mean I would live, but I'd really rather be able to at least use it occasionally — at least for educational purposes. There just aren't any adequate alternatives.
I've been paying for Nebula account for a while now. It's got high quality stuff and it's owned by creators making the content.
There's also peertube and other fedi variants.
Works great for me, I don't feel like I need YouTube or I'm missing out on important stuff.
NewPipe/Piped to watch occasional video linked from an article.
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
I wouldn't really miss it all that much. I've always treated YouTube as a fun novelty where I can watch people's homemade videos, but it's almost all polished commercial grade content now, with some exceptions.
Those software and settings that make it tolerable, such as Tubular and using uBO/Sponsorblock/Firefox, are extremely easy to find and use. But I wouldn't miss it all that much if it became unusable.
Yes.
I never watch videos unless I have to so yeah
I probably could if i had to, that’s what i tell myself at least. For now though it’s my primary source of entertainment.
I haven’t been to YouTube in over a decade. Granted, many embedded videos have been hosted on YouTube. I see a need for video hosting, and I’m not sure how that could be sustainable without advertising.
Perhaps there could be something like a a torrent, where people volunteer a certain amount of free space, and files are downloaded in chunks from whomever is available at the time? There could be one central repository, with clones, that keeps track, and distributes these chunks in the most efficient way, and moves frequently accessed data to faster hosts.
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 only primarily watch two channels on YouTube and while I would miss them I could get the content from articles that they reference anyway so it wouldn't kill me but I wouldn't particularly like it either.
I dont feel YouTube has much to offer. I actually really dont like finding advice in video format. Id much rather have it as a post somewhere.
Entertainment wise i never use YouTube.
Yes, I can live without youtube I survived the 1980s and 1990s - I'm not saying my life is or was "meaningful" though - that'll be discernable if the maggots enjoy their dinner whenever the time comes.
I also think there were at least a few generations of humans before that, some of whom may think they led at least slightly meaningful lives.
I don't think youtube makes anyone's life more or less "meaningful", it's just a way to pass the time - but that's just my opinion on carbon-shuffling in general. If you accept peoples own objectives instead of mine, then youtube might help them learn stuff - but even then I'd look to measure the content of their consequent actions, much more than learning in abstract. They've still got to put their new knowledge together with skills , practice and the real world circumstances to before anyting "meaningful" happens - and that's due as much to their hard work as much as to their teacher.
But I do prefer to watch a few people's videos on there as entertainment, only a few of them post on that p2p thing "lbry" or whatever so i dont use that. I will continue to watch youtube videos given the choice, and not having somethign better to do, until those people move their videos to somewhere else.
I've recently been finding out that freetube client removes much of the front end unpleasantness.
There are a lot of great creators on YouTube, and I would definitely miss their videos. But if YT gets much worse (and it's getting worse by the day), I can live without it.
I only watch movie and game trailers on YouTube, so yes, it would not bother me if they would be bankrupt tomorrow.
The only thing I use it for is Dreaming Spanish, and it's months since I've watched any of that content, so I'll say yeah, I think I'll be ok in a world without Youtube
I could, but why would I? That makes no sense from a social perspective, if someone links me a video and we want to talk about it, I'll watch it. If a person whose content I want to see happens to release that on YouTube, I'll watch it.
Unless you meant it another way?
i dunno, especially the music is really vast availability of full albums etc. Youtube + ublock is kinda my go to music. Used to search and store gigabytes, but it's just not the same, not as easy. If youtube dies (ergo: it succeeds in blocking adblocking and third party such as newpipe), i'll have a hard time finding alternatives tbh, that are just as user friendly.
While I have revanced on my phone and smarttube on my chromecast, the last time I watched a youtube video for an extended amount of time was two month ago. I did open those apps a few weeks ago, but only to see if youtube finally blocks them. So yeah, I guess I can quit youtube cold turkey now.
Not really. Most of the content I watch is from there, from tech stuff to history and current news
No, not really
Yes hypothetically but only if the youtubers I actually care about have content elsewhere as well. Which is some but not many