Hi everyone, I’ve been following the de-google-ify internet campaign of framasoft for several years now and have replace a lot of GAFAM services doing so but the only service I’m truly struggling with replacing is youtube.

I could never find anything with enough interesting content and I always find myself going back to youtube.

What about you?

  • did you stop using youtube?
  • where do you go instead?
  • do you just spend less time watching videos?

I prefer decentralized solutions but any FLOSS alternative is a good start.

  • C​​​@lemmy.ml
    14·
    3 years ago

    Youtube still has pretty much everything unfortunately - there’s not yet a proper alternative for content (depending on what you want). I use Newpipe and Freetube to watch it (I would use RSS with mpv if I didn’t have so many subscriptions).

    PeerTube isn’t a replacement but it’s a fascinating alternative with some good channels/instances.
    https://joinpeertube.org/

    In addition to the other LBRY/Odysee comments, see this recent news: https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/lbryandodyseeevolving:7 (Odysee might not/probably won’t be open source in the future)

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    9·
    3 years ago

    Its really surprising to me that more channels don’t put their content on torrents… that’s what I do at least.

    Torrents don’t really handle content discovery, but they have pretty much solved the static data distribution problem. Something with even 2 or 3 available seeders can’t be shut down.

    Most torrent clients can even handle rss feeds, which would work perfectly for most youtube like channels. All that we’re really missing is these existing platforms like peertube using torrents directly (maybe through a native client or browser plugins ) instead of webtorrents, which haven’t gone anywhere for many years now.

    • tmpodA
      5·
      3 years ago

      Yeah, torrents are great. I’ve started using torrents to share files with other people are instead of using ffsend (which is great too), and it’s very nice.

      It would indeed be cool if you could seed videos you really liked through a conventional torrent client.

    • Thann@lemmy.ml
      1·
      3 years ago

      Whats wrong or even different with “webtorrents”? I thought it was just a torrent client written in JS?

      you’re saying transmission or deluge should have a firefox plugin to facilitate watching videos that have been downloaded with them?

      EDIT: I guess the problem is that you don’t get to control seeding? maybe peertube just needs some UI features for that 🤔

      • tmpodA
        5·
        3 years ago

        Whats wrong or even different with “webtorrents”? I thought it was just a torrent client written in JS?

        WebTorrent is a distinct protocol from BitTorrent, that uses WebRTC instead of UDP/TCP. It aims to be as compatible with BitTorrent as feasible.
        This has to exist because implementing the latter is impossible to implement on browsers, with JS.

        I highly recommend you take a look at the Wikipedia article.

    • testman@lemmy.ml
      1·
      3 years ago

      Isn’t PeerTube basically “torrents with at least one guaranteed seeder”?

      • tmpodA
        4·
        3 years ago

        Nop. It doesn’t even use BitTorrent (the usual torrent protocol), but rather WebTorrent.
        See my other comment.

  • sproid@lemmy.ml
    5·
    3 years ago

    Odysee/LBRY is a great alternative. But to be real YouTube is still king. It’s one of the few I haven’t stop using still. But a way to improve your privacy is to use alternative YouTube apps like NewPipe on Android and Freetube on desktop.

    • cthulhupunk0@lemmy.ml
      4·
      3 years ago

      I’ve started using the odysee redirect plugin on Brave and Firefox. It sends you to the right odysee page from youtube when you click on a video that’s mirrored.

  • sibachian@lemmy.ml
    5·
    3 years ago

    I rarely if ever use youtube. The only experience I have with youtube is content made for the sake of profit and not for the sake of actual content. i.e. tutorial videos are split into multiple parts for more ad-revenue and it’s difficult to find the information you need as you can’t just ctrl+f the keyword you’re looking for, so if you scroll through the video because it’s 5+ minutes long to try and find it, you’ll end up spending 10 minutes just trying to find the damn thing by trying to avoid all the meaningless fluff.

    If I want information or entertainment, I much prefer to get it from articles or forums. Sadly, youtube is massively profitable and more and more people are making fluff videos rather than writing a concise article. I really don’t know why anyone would need or want youtube/videos other than the aforementioned migration issue.

    • tmpodA
      5·
      3 years ago

      Even though there’s certainly a whole lot of “bad” or “junk” content, there’s also many really good creators, mostly in the essay/informative/science area. For me, there’s simply no better alternative from a content standpoint; YouTube is, unfortunately, unparalleled… If you want, I can list some channels I find worthwhile, for you to check out, in case you’re interested.

      PeerTube has potential but needs to work more on onboarding, content discovery and curation. LBRY/Odysee/D.Tube are way too centralized and tied to cryptocurrencies which makes me uncomfortable.

      • Lionel C-R@lemmy.coupou.frOP
        3·
        3 years ago

        Being a big fan of the fediverse PeerTube was my first choice but I could never find an instance with enough apealing content or any discovery service that could help me find good content scattered on all existing instances.

      • sibachian@lemmy.ml
        3·
        3 years ago

        people create content for youtube because they make money off youtube. from what pretty much everyone claims, their algorithms and content discovery/curation is unfair and mainly highlights content that will make both google and the user more click revenue (by giving space to already popular users). peertube etc. do not reward content creators and thus do not see as many willing to produce content, as well as having less viewers in general, creating a catch-22. the world today is sadly all about monetizing your hobbies and exposition to monetize yourself.

    • Lionel C-R@lemmy.coupou.frOP
      3·
      3 years ago

      Well there certainly is some junk (a lot?) on youtube but I find a lot of content I like watching there, some deeply technical and intelligent stuff and some pure enteraining silly stuff, I don’t mind as much as I enjoy it.

      • sibachian@lemmy.ml
        0·
        3 years ago

        which is fine, and if the creator didn’t care about monetizing their content, they could put it up on alternative services. sadly, they won’t.

  • bruhbeans@lemmy.ml
    5·
    3 years ago

    What do you like watching on YouTube? Personally, I find short-form video incredibly irritating, most of the videos on YouTube would be more useful and accessible as a blog post (actually most of them would be better not existing), but YouTube is much more effective at monetizing content than blogs ever were so that’s where people have gone.

    • sacredbirdman@lemmy.ml
      4·
      3 years ago

      I watch a lot of stuff that I guess isn’t really favored by the algorithm and would probably do well elsewhere but are there because Youtube is just so all-encompassing like… category theory for programmers, video manual for my synth, some very specific DIY-stuff (like how to scrape oboe reeds). But I’ve replaced most of my time on Youtube with listening to podcasts and reading…

    • Lionel C-R@lemmy.coupou.frOP
      1·
      3 years ago

      I watch a lot of different stuff:

      • Video games tests
      • Simracing
      • zap compilations
      • science
      • IT (indeed I find tutorials quite useless but I like watching some general overview of a tech on video)
      • 3D printing channels
      • …
  • murky@lemmy.ml
    5·
    3 years ago

    My video-watching behavior has changed a lot over the years. These days, I hardly watch any videos from start to end and almost never at their actual speed. Also, I skip around a lot, which is bad to do on YouTube due to all the advertisements. So I try to avoid the main site by using the NewPipe app or invidio.us instances in the browser. And I never log in, so as to avoid the algorithms (thus I never comment, like or subscribe either).

  • xarvos@lemmy.ml
    4·
    3 years ago

    I just download the music I listen to and listen locally, and stop watching content from YT since they’re getting boring and clickbaity. The only channels I subscribed to stopped updating for years.

    • Lionel C-R@lemmy.coupou.frOP
      1·
      3 years ago

      I never used youtube for music, well maybe for watching a video clip but all my music is downloaded and store on my nextcloud.

  • ragica@lemmy.ml
    2·
    3 years ago

    Nebula is a subscription service started by some significant youtubers to share revenue and get out from under youtube’s enormous thumb (if possible). Most of the content you can find also posted on youtube for “free”, but Nebula is ad-free and has some unique content, and tries to support creators more equitably.

    It’s not exactly a worker’s co-op, but maybe as close to it as we viably have for streaming video so far. See the FAQ. It’s not FLOSS, or even free, but it is an alternative to potentially consider.

    For free and FLOSS, TILVids node of peertube might be of interest.

  • LemmeHaveFun@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 years ago

    I am using Piped which is an YT frontend with LBRY integration. In my experience it is faster and more stable than Invidious instances.