I can’t really take Rossman seriously when it comes to this app.
He makes good points about how terrible Youtube as a platform is, but his “solution” is some kind it proprietary video player that just plays Youtube videos.
He’s setting himself up for a lawsuit he can’t win that’ll cost him and his supporters a huge amount of money. “We can pirate because we’re making a new Invidious app” won’t hold up in court and he knows.
Luckily for him, Youtube’s legal team tends to send empty threats for a while before they take actual legal action. I seriously doubt anyone looked I to his app for more than a minute before sending these letters. If their app does gain significant market share, it’ll be shut down quickly.
As for his “muh freedom” shtick: while I agree that we should have the freedom to download videos, I doubt he doesn’t know that attempts to popularise alternative downloads will only lead to Google taking actual action against these apps. It really wouldn’t that hard for Youtube to block his app, they just haven’t bothered telling some random Youtube dev to out effort into it.
This will only end in an arms race that will make Youtube worse for people who don’t pay for Youtube content. Expect more DRM, more log-in requirements, fewer resolutions available for free, more fingerprinting, strict remote attestation, you name it. Google hasn’t even scratched the surface of what they can do against third party clients on a technical level, probably because making some intern in Legal send out a template letter is effective enough and doesn’t cost as much as putting in effort.
Any good pirate knows that you need many people to pay for the stuff they pirate, or the stuff they pirate will stop being made. If everyone took this stuff for free, there would be no stuff to take. Directly undermining Youtube’s business model with an app of your own is the direct opposite of that, unless you know your app will never make a significant dent into the bottom line of the people you’re taking content from.
There’s only one thing that can make Youtube better, and it’s competition. Unfortunately, nobody wants to pay for online stuff, either with money or through ads, so it won’t happen. Youtube’s free model doesn’t make any business sense, which is why it’s the only platform that works like Youtube, except maybe for Billibilly because the CCP blocked Youtube. We, the internet consumers, have all played ourselves by demanding everything to always be free. We’re almost doing fucking around, and moving quickly into the “finding out” stage.
Either Rossman knows his app will never take off, he’s trying to get sued into the ground to prove a point, or he’s willing to accept Youtube becoming worse for everyone. I miss when he was mostly concerned about right to repair, at least his approach on that subject had some merit.
The old „but if we dont pay them all our money they might stahp!“
They wont.
Do you know how I know? Because youtube (google) is a predatory monopolist and they will always find ways to take as much as they can.
I‘m not rossmans biggest fan but he seems to have understood that its time to take off the kiddie gloves. I blocked everything and anything resembling youtube making money off me, I dont watch youtube content if I can help it and I dont upload anymore. I do upload and watch regularly in the fediverse and I‘m telling everyone to do the same.
I do my duty as a citizen of this planet so that we hopefully wont end up in some cyberpunk-like hellscape at some point. I encourage you to help.
his “solution” is some kind it proprietary video player that just plays Youtube videos.
It’s not proprietary, it’s source-available, and it plays a lot more than YouTube videos - in addition to YT, I use it to watch Nebula, Twitch, Odysee, and even Peertube on rare occasions. There are other plugins (that I don’t use) for BiliBili, Rumble, Patreon, Kick, and Soundcloud, and the way its plugin system works, there’s potential for many other paid subscription-based streaming services to be viewable through Grayjay. That is its real strength. If a creator uploads to a bunch of platforms, users can follow them on the platform they prefer, and get all their updates from one feed in one app, with added functionality that the official apps or sites simply might not have.
This is FUTO’s way of trying to make web video platforms more competitive, by creating an app that can interface with content from all of them and has all the popular features even if the sites themselves don’t. Grayjay has playlists, likes, dislikes, background playback, picture-in-picture, local history, the ability to block certain creators from the home feed, and the ability to hide individual videos from your feed. Furthermore, creators get a lot of ways they can monetize their content in Grayjay, like putting their merch store under the description of their videos, donation buttons, links to their Patreon or other subscription services, or general promotions, that would appear under all of their videos. Like… there are a lot of features here that really improve the experience with otherwise lackluster competitors. This tilts the market a tiny bit away from the established dominant players, and every new Grayjay user tilts it a little bit more.
Finally, it’s worth emphasizing that this is not Louis Rossmann’s personal pet project. His promotion of Grayjay, while it does align with his personal values, is paid work for a literal tech billionaire, Eron Wolf, who created and runs the FUTO organization. Neither of them need you to “take Louis Rossmann seriously.” They only want you to consider if the apps the company makes suit your needs and values.
The app will also link all platforms. If you subscribe to Louis for example you will also get his videos on Odysee, Rumble and whatever else he has. That’s what this string in his channel info does: 4Y1IC54hpe60aqaLCgjn7zlcSMH/IPxh5/cLnX6RKp0=
So if Youtube finally bans him, nothing will change for Grayjay users.
That’s the real point of Grayjay I think. It aggregates Youtube, Twitch and all the other stuff. Nice side effect is getting rid of all the ads and providing its own spam free, uncensored comment section.
This is a very strange take. Youtube is becoming shit all by itself, it doesn’t need help. And it’s amazing that you value Rossman so highly, one man who made Google do something
I can’t really take Rossman seriously when it comes to this app.
He makes good points about how terrible Youtube as a platform is, but his “solution” is some kind it proprietary video player that just plays Youtube videos.
He’s setting himself up for a lawsuit he can’t win that’ll cost him and his supporters a huge amount of money. “We can pirate because we’re making a new Invidious app” won’t hold up in court and he knows.
Luckily for him, Youtube’s legal team tends to send empty threats for a while before they take actual legal action. I seriously doubt anyone looked I to his app for more than a minute before sending these letters. If their app does gain significant market share, it’ll be shut down quickly.
As for his “muh freedom” shtick: while I agree that we should have the freedom to download videos, I doubt he doesn’t know that attempts to popularise alternative downloads will only lead to Google taking actual action against these apps. It really wouldn’t that hard for Youtube to block his app, they just haven’t bothered telling some random Youtube dev to out effort into it.
This will only end in an arms race that will make Youtube worse for people who don’t pay for Youtube content. Expect more DRM, more log-in requirements, fewer resolutions available for free, more fingerprinting, strict remote attestation, you name it. Google hasn’t even scratched the surface of what they can do against third party clients on a technical level, probably because making some intern in Legal send out a template letter is effective enough and doesn’t cost as much as putting in effort.
Any good pirate knows that you need many people to pay for the stuff they pirate, or the stuff they pirate will stop being made. If everyone took this stuff for free, there would be no stuff to take. Directly undermining Youtube’s business model with an app of your own is the direct opposite of that, unless you know your app will never make a significant dent into the bottom line of the people you’re taking content from.
There’s only one thing that can make Youtube better, and it’s competition. Unfortunately, nobody wants to pay for online stuff, either with money or through ads, so it won’t happen. Youtube’s free model doesn’t make any business sense, which is why it’s the only platform that works like Youtube, except maybe for Billibilly because the CCP blocked Youtube. We, the internet consumers, have all played ourselves by demanding everything to always be free. We’re almost doing fucking around, and moving quickly into the “finding out” stage.
Either Rossman knows his app will never take off, he’s trying to get sued into the ground to prove a point, or he’s willing to accept Youtube becoming worse for everyone. I miss when he was mostly concerned about right to repair, at least his approach on that subject had some merit.
The old „but if we dont pay them all our money they might stahp!“
They wont.
Do you know how I know? Because youtube (google) is a predatory monopolist and they will always find ways to take as much as they can.
I‘m not rossmans biggest fan but he seems to have understood that its time to take off the kiddie gloves. I blocked everything and anything resembling youtube making money off me, I dont watch youtube content if I can help it and I dont upload anymore. I do upload and watch regularly in the fediverse and I‘m telling everyone to do the same.
I do my duty as a citizen of this planet so that we hopefully wont end up in some cyberpunk-like hellscape at some point. I encourage you to help.
It’s not proprietary, it’s source-available, and it plays a lot more than YouTube videos - in addition to YT, I use it to watch Nebula, Twitch, Odysee, and even Peertube on rare occasions. There are other plugins (that I don’t use) for BiliBili, Rumble, Patreon, Kick, and Soundcloud, and the way its plugin system works, there’s potential for many other paid subscription-based streaming services to be viewable through Grayjay. That is its real strength. If a creator uploads to a bunch of platforms, users can follow them on the platform they prefer, and get all their updates from one feed in one app, with added functionality that the official apps or sites simply might not have.
This is FUTO’s way of trying to make web video platforms more competitive, by creating an app that can interface with content from all of them and has all the popular features even if the sites themselves don’t. Grayjay has playlists, likes, dislikes, background playback, picture-in-picture, local history, the ability to block certain creators from the home feed, and the ability to hide individual videos from your feed. Furthermore, creators get a lot of ways they can monetize their content in Grayjay, like putting their merch store under the description of their videos, donation buttons, links to their Patreon or other subscription services, or general promotions, that would appear under all of their videos. Like… there are a lot of features here that really improve the experience with otherwise lackluster competitors. This tilts the market a tiny bit away from the established dominant players, and every new Grayjay user tilts it a little bit more.
Finally, it’s worth emphasizing that this is not Louis Rossmann’s personal pet project. His promotion of Grayjay, while it does align with his personal values, is paid work for a literal tech billionaire, Eron Wolf, who created and runs the FUTO organization. Neither of them need you to “take Louis Rossmann seriously.” They only want you to consider if the apps the company makes suit your needs and values.
The app will also link all platforms. If you subscribe to Louis for example you will also get his videos on Odysee, Rumble and whatever else he has. That’s what this string in his channel info does: 4Y1IC54hpe60aqaLCgjn7zlcSMH/IPxh5/cLnX6RKp0=
So if Youtube finally bans him, nothing will change for Grayjay users.
That’s the real point of Grayjay I think. It aggregates Youtube, Twitch and all the other stuff. Nice side effect is getting rid of all the ads and providing its own spam free, uncensored comment section.
This is a very strange take. Youtube is becoming shit all by itself, it doesn’t need help. And it’s amazing that you value Rossman so highly, one man who made Google do something