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Comment by nalekberov | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft is just a video game company to me, I can live without its products and be happier. With Google though, things are bit different, they have Google Maps and YouTube, which I use nearly on daily basis. I can probably replace Google Maps with something else, even though that will probable be a downgrade in terms of user experience, however replacing YouTube is impossible, so many unique content in it.

(a big) But YouTube has grown to be such a monopoly, that they now dictate what we are going to be able to watch on the web.

This is sadly so hard to change, so many creators are now literally working "for" YouTube, and there are so many quality videos there.

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Replacing YouTube with a drop-in substitution is obviously impossible, but it's not that hard to replace with a different hobby. I've never used YouTube to any significant degree, and manage pretty well without it.

Same. It is quite difficult for me to understand the current YouTube addiction... I can go literally years without even opening it.

You can replace the frontent yt-dlp invidious mpv etc

I think it's only a matter of time before youtube starts injecting ads directly into the video stream, and only allow streaming it at the actual playback speed.

They might even put the ads in different places for different users to throw off things like Sponsorblock.

Its wild to me that you watch enough YouTube to care, but won't pay for it. Its a service, either pay or put up with the ads.

The problem for me is that "enough to care" is like a video every couple months. $8/video is poor value.

Fair enough. Thats why there is an ad supported version.

I consider my time to be valuable, and really hate ads though so removing even a few minutes of ads are worth the $8 to me.

Every single video platform that has ever existed has added ads after some number of users are paying.

Also you can block the ads so you have the third option.

And if YouTube do that then I will unsubscribe. Just like I did with Amazon.

Until that point I’ll continue to pay. Content creators tell me they get more income from premium subscribers too so win-win.

What is so much of value in YouTube that you cannot live without? The platform has turned into clickbait conspiracy board, exactly because creators are trying to adapt to the algorithm. Apart from fun gaming channels, there are very few channels where you can actually learn something. It’s mostly noise.

I’m having much more trouble imagining life without Google Maps that without YouTube.

Google Maps is garbage as well, full of inaccurate shit or meme stuff people added but the process of getting it fixed has been made worse and worse over the years.

The report system has been gimped massively,can't even type in reasons any more just have to select from some limited options and hope for the best. Took me over half a year of reporting a permanent street closure near me for them to actually change it and all the whole they were happy to direct people and cars down it . Other times they just outright reject reports without any reason.

Directions have got more sucky over the years.

More and more advertising has creeped into the maps as well, seeing the logos for stores and restaurants over other places and when zoomed out because they paid to be boosted.

I only use Google for street view and, on google earth, for historical aerial imagery these days, not for navigation. For that I use apps that use OSM like Organic Maps or now CoMaps.

Google Maps has a practical value. I know why I use it - I want to get to somewhere, I open the app, type my destination and I'm given a route. Most of the times it has worked very well, in numerous different countries that I visited.

I find it hard to extract the same practical value from YouTube. There have been cases where I would see how people repair stuff and to some degree it has been useful but it is hard to find that "useful" type of video you look for among all the noise. Product review videos are always kind of fishy, because reviewers are mostly sponsored. So I can't quite get to extract anything of great value from YouTube.

Btw, thank you for the Organic Maps tip. Looks really really cool!

I've had a pretty good experience with OpenStreetMap to replace Google Maps. For YouTube it depends on your needs. If it's just entertainment there's Nebula, Odysee, Nicovideo, Twitch, Dailymotion, et cetera. For more educational content the alternatives can be a bit hit-or-miss.

That said, YouTube has been auto-dubbing videos using an algorithm that overdubs English spoken by people with an accent, which I consider discriminatory (if not outright racist), so I'm trying the various alternatives now. In a few months I think I'll have more of an opinion about them.

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