We can only watch youtube because Google allows us to. They have already flexed their control over chrome browsers (70%+ market share) with manifest v3, not to mention a majority of viewership is via apps. Invidious and many other 3rd-party yt mirrors became useless somewhere in 2023.

Replies (1)

Yes, Google allows people to access the servers they own. I don't have an issue with that (in an ownership sense) and there's really no way to not have that without collectivizing everything involved in it. That's true even of Nostr, seeding, etc. Someone is paying to store and serve data and they can control the terms of access for their own hardware. I'd prefer the latter, but hardly anyone is doing that right now. At least not at a scale that would replace YT in my life.
โ†‘