this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025

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Privacy

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When is it time to switch away from youtube? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago by brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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We all hate google and youtube, but overall as a community we're all simultaneously lukewarm and non-committal about pushing towards using an alternative. I admittedly cling to invidious frontends for dear life.

It seems like whenever somebody asks for an alternative to youtube, they're offered Odysee and Peertube, but inevitably many others chime in about the shortcomings of both of those platforms.

Can we as a community come to a consensus as to which of these platforms should be pushed forward?

I don't even think it needs to be a binary choice. Obviously youtube cannot be immediately replaced for it's archival of educational and tutorial videos, but we can at least push newcomers towards using invidious frontends for those instances.

Maybe Odysee is better for some type of content over Peertube. Let's discuss which platform works best for what and try to be more active about sharing and promoting them not just to viewers but potential creators as well.

If you go to share a youtube link, try to see if that video exists on an alternate platform first and share that link instead. I think that's a good first step towards getting away from youtube in the privacy community.

But youtube alternatives are still very much on the fringe and I'm hoping this post will at least inspire some discussion about changing that.

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[–] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'm not coming at this from a privacy perspective but I have gone through the alternatives to see what (if any) I can practically use because I want to extricate American tech from my life.

There are three categories (ignoring a tonne for obvious reasons):

Region Specific:

Bilibili (China)
Niconico (Japan)
etc.

Alt-tech:

Odysee (US/Decentralized)
Peertube (France/Decentralized)
Rumble (Canada but close Trump affiliation)
Bit Chute (UK)

Standard:

Nebula (US)
Daily Motion (France)
TikTok (China)

I use Nebula, have briefly tried Tiktok, Peertube, Daily Motion, Niconico, and Bilibili. Perhaps I should consider the alt-tech platforms too but there's nobody on them and their reputations have been damaged by the far-right flocking to them when banned from YouTube for quite justifiable reasons. All platforms seem to have the issue that basically nobody of note uploads to more than one platform.

[–] recklessengagement@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

I am trying to - there's no direct replacement, but I've removed the YouTube app from my phone at least. Also signed up for both Nebula and Dropout, which both do some sort of direct profit sharing with creators.

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago

Well, would it work if we get a few 1$ a month VPS and run mediacms on them ? each one could probably house a couple hundred videos and they have about the capacity to serve, maybe 100 users on gigabit internet with 4TB a month traffic allowance. That's still a lot of serving video for not a lot of money.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago

Nebula is pretty great.

[–] krunklom@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 weeks ago

So. Some unfortunate news here. There was never a time to be on YouTube in the first place.

[–] Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago

Every day is the right time to switch away...

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 weeks ago

BET live streaming still has 3+ minute commercial breaks, so i'm waiting for youtube to do the equivalent.

[–] ertai@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

Peertube. Then, you can use a peertube search engine like Sepia search to search across many peertube instances, replicating the youtube user interface. Sepia search has a long way to go but if peertube grows it will get there. Searching technology is already a solved problem.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

What does a different front end do for you? Serious question.

[–] brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not sure whether you're asking why to use a frontend vs YouTube rawdog or conflating Odysee/Peertube with a YouTube frontend. I thought they were frontends as well for a long time.

If you're asking why to use a frontend proxy for YouTube, there could be a few reasons. The obvious being privacy concerns, but other people prefer the less cluttered interface, no ads, no YouTube premium or sign in with google popups, no manipulative algorithm.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

So my familiarity with front ends is extremely limited. I'm familiar with for instance someone writes a program that links to a database, but the database is still the database. So I figured the algorithm was still the algorithm since the videos reside on YouTube's servers. I thought all you would be changing was the appearance, but it sounds like a lot of the annoyances go away. Especially ads. I don't really watch the ads because for a long time I used ad blockers and when they failed, I succumbed to the extortion and paid for premium. Yes I know uBlock seems to have come out on top and when the subscription ends I'll probably go back to that. I don't really have a problem with the interface, but I don't really care for a lot of the other stuff so thanks for the intel.

Now if only I could get some of my favorite YouTubers to stop making their own commercials during the content.

I was thinking about trying Nebula, but it kind of looks like there's not that much content there. Thoughts?

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

YouTube with a custom app seems to be the best way to actually watch your own chosen subscriptions, rather than bent force fed by the Google algorithm.

I've heard folks talk about how to get this from regular YouTube, but it's wild to me that that put up with having to go to all the trouble with the official app.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

getting apps into appstores would make a big difference but if someone follows a particular person or if its free on youtube they are going to go there. I watch colbert on youtube.

[–] devdoggy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

VLM?

[–] shreyan@lemmy.cif.su 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

Probably over a decade ago.

Peertube is the future. It only needs more people, just like everything else federated.

Anyone trying to say a federated option is not the solution is a useful idiot and should be written off accordingly.

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