Tommy430

YT2009 and WarpStream (Protoweb) prove the old YouTube can still work today. The new one is just a cat and mouse game of diminishing returns.

Now the YouTube layout is bloated and is in diminishing returns for a while.

The writing is on the wall.

Maybe we need to hire construction teams to break into peoples' houses and change them every 5 seconds.

In all fairness, we use proxies without realizing it.

Speaking of MITM proxy, which one do you use?

Currently doing some interesting experiments on a bunch of Legacy Windows VMs. ;-)

This doesn't get talked about enough.

Microsoft back then was just a software company, they didn't care about your real life. Unfortunately, companies today are a different story.

> How would it be worse?

well Google is constantly moving too fast and they're mainly an internet company, whereas Microsoft was just the software company.

derp

userbinator speaking out again, loving your posts on "modern" stuff.

Unfortunately, that's how it's like sadly. People just want the "constant CONSTANT CONSTANT UPDATES!!!" without thinking properly, even if they don't need the new features but it's just because the company said so.

Heck, physical books don't even need to get any updates and I can still enjoy picking them up and reading them, just like I can still enjoy launching the old software and using them.

IMHO the software is already feeling like 99% complete, companies just want to abuse the users, get them to use their abusive models, and milk the software in general just because they're lacking any ideas for new "features".

Anyways, feel free to throw pitchforks at me all you want ;)

> "obsolete" is meaningless.

Physical books are obsolete for not changing without your consent every 5 seconds. /s

I've been using YT2009 since the release and I loved it since. More responsive than regular YouTube and IMO the 2009 layout looks better than the "modern" one. The best thing about this frontend is that you can watch YouTube on old computers again, proving that you don't need the crap on the "modern" YouTube site.

Agreed. Sadly it's due to the constant churn of tech these days. Developers should just take notes from the books on the shelf: don't change without consent unless you explicitly some change.

Slightly off-topic: I've been viewing YouTube on a old YouTube frontend that works back to (at least iirc) IE6 and Win98 for some time now [1] [2] [3]. The frontend feels mad snappy as hell and it loads fast compared to YouTube today since the frontend is not heavily JavaScript reliant, it just uses it to enhance the site.

[1] https://i.ibb.co/YpmFP91/yt2009-34.png [2] https://i.ibb.co/THK0wk0/yt2009-35.png [3] https://i.ibb.co/nk7nxZQ/yt2009-36.png

> why should they care about a dead and insecure os.

Developing for old technologies in general (especially hardware) can help make your code and project lighter in general.

(see: alternative frontends for YouTube and Twitter, YouTube circa. 2005-2011, even 2012-2016)

"Now"?!?!? It's even more buggy than Windows search.

> We're at the point where mobile has been the dominant computing platform longer than desktop.

I do see your point. What I mean is that we have oversized UIs and hamburger menus on the desktop which makes me feel like for a while now, the desktop has been an afterthought when it comes to web design.

The internet died when the desktop became an afterthought.

:P

Honestly, the search has been broken for a while. Half of the search results aren't even related and another thing I hate is YouTube Shorts.

Anyways, for me, I just loathe how the whole site is designed in general. Opening YouTube today on a modern browser is slower than opening it on IE6 back then and the whole site relies on a JavaScript framework even though frontends like Invidious, Piped, and YT2009 (and possibly even more) show that you don't need JavaScript or have to make the entire site rely on it just to view content.

> There's some really good stuff on there that I miss

Tbh, same. I do miss getting some information about Windows betas pretty much, but other than that, I won't miss Twitter at all.

People need to publish more on more open and community driven solutions. Heck, even publishing information for a site that still works on older PCs is better than publishing information on Twitter.

Ah, can't wait for more login walls, oversized UIs, and more "Please Subscribe" crap. Thanks Twitter.

> I see no hope of fixing human drivers while maybe they can make cars work.

Sadly that won't be the case for some time to a while. Most people only care about the moment of the trend rather than what the future will look like.

I hope that more revolts happen. I'm sick of this "trends" BS that Big Tech pushes and makes others follow.

Unrelated but IMHO, web bloat will also kill the internet more than IE at this point.

Not only that, but even older website layouts were more responsive.

> That's an aesthetic judgement. A site doesn't have to "look" fun to be fun. It just has to present the content that the author, or audience, find engaging.

This right here. This here is why I visit this site, a bunch of other old sites, and use frontends for some modern social media sites.

The recent trend of redesigning almost everything is insane. "Modern redesigns" that uses widescreen screens less efficiently than the old design used a 1024x768 display.

No I don't care if it "looks old", if it functions good for me then I'll use it.

This pretty much, not to mention that some sites break just by disabling JavaScript even though frontends for popular social media sites like Twitter (Nitter) and YouTube (YT2009, Invidious) prove that you don't need JavaScript or at least make the entire site rely on it just to view content.

> But a counter argument is that uBlock origin, Pi-hole, and Reader mode in Firefox go a long way to blocking those things and creating a nice reading experience.

Yeah, true. What I mean is that I miss when the web sites were still lighter pretty much and the desktop was still one of the main platforms (heck, one of the reasons of increased PC sales from the late 90s-early 00s was internet access). An example for me is that I had a better time viewing YouTube on a old computer and old OSes on VMs than YouTube today since back then, the site was still light enough and easy to use. Heck, back then you could even run it on Windows 98 and 2000.

Apologies I had to reply again. Been a while I actually used this so I forgot that there was an edit button.

The internet can still be fun but I see what the author means.

At most I just use a few modern social media sites, some with frontends (Nitter, YT2009) and visit a few obscure sites.

> I've seen it evolve from java applets and flash to something better.

With the advances in technology I wish it had. However, we now have Material Design, oversized UIs, autoplaying videos when you are immediately on the site, anti-adblockers, "Please Subscribe" crap, the desktop being an afterthought (hamburger menus), etc.

> But Twitter doesn't address many of the downsides of social media that were listed, or many of the upsides of RSS that were listed.

Seriously. You even have to log in just to view or search stuff.

RSS is still pretty great indeed. It's just that the big tech and social media services want you to believe that it's "dead" just to keep you hooked and addicted into their system as possible.

Yawn. Call me back when the YT layout is no longer bloated instead of taking things down not within their vision.