Am I a bad person for wanting to go back to YouTube?

[EdgyRabbit]

Alright.

so last week YouTube introduced the ai age system, so I left.

Thing is that now I think I really want to go back on YouTube. IT was the main way I would calm myself from anxiety and from overthinking.

Now I feel bad because I wanna go back to YouTube to calm my nerves. Yes I use the internet archive but its simply not the same.

For context I also use tumblr, and I think the website gave me the idea of; "IF YOU GO BACK TO YOUTUBE, YOURE A BAD PERSON!" and making me feel like I'm a bad actvist for not being able to hold the sensation.

But I think I might go back, but I'd like some opiptions. So do you guys think I should go back to YouTube?

[WK_0]

You're not a bad person for feeling pulled back to Youtube. Firstly, the current scenario's a bit of a weird issue a lot of folks are facing right now. It's not really a surprise that many have grown to become dependent on the platform, which just makes Youtube's current age-verifying implementation all the more insidious in my eyes as they know people will stay no matter what. I know there's folks who not only depend on it as an actual job, but also depend on the platform as a source of need, like in your case. Basically y'all are kinda being forced to really consider between cutting off a valuable resource or dealing with yet another system that's bound to screw you over in time. So again, no, having to make that decision doesn't make you a bad person.

Secondly, a big platform like Tumblr is unfortunately no different from Twitter in how folks tend to recklessly push around these topics. I have seen way too many times in my day how everyone over there posted about either being with or against a side, and how if you're against what they feel is the only good choice than you're as bad as the other side. It's a very narrow way of looking at things. I honestly wouldn't consider these particular viewpoints one bit. They're just being loud for the sake of being loud, in my experience, and if anything they hurt the cause and the people being affected moreso than help it.

Situations like this are always going to have complications to them, and sometimes folks just have to make hard decisions. For example, I'm someone who keeps as far away from Spotify as possible due to how literally evil it is towards musicians at this point, but I don't blame any of my friends who use it. It's a convenient service that has more benefits than costs to them, and for some it's literally the only way they can even listen to and make a living off of their music, though they're well aware of the negatives going on. I don't like making people feel bad that they have to make a bad decision like that. Though it might feel like it, it doesn't make them bad.

Folks like me who already have the means to occupy ourselves in other ways and flip Youtube the double-bird are actually kinda the lucky ones in this case, but anyone who's quick to judge those who aren't so lucky really do need to reconsider where they've set their viewpoints. It's really not easy to just quit a service you've heavily depended on cold turkey, believe me. I definitely commend you for giving it a try for a week, at least.

Now, if the principle of the whole thing still hits you as you go back, and making that change in your routine is something you still feel you wanna do, going forward I would suggest instead try only cutting down a little of your youtube-watching at a time. Instead of quitting cold turkey, every once in a while, on more manageable days, try sampling other means of diverting your attention from your episodes of overthinking and anxiety. From time to time pick a random other activity you feel can hijack some of your focus, like reading an article on a niche topic or a book or a webcomic, cleaning and organising a space in the place you currently occupy, picking up on a side hobby, starting and upkeeping a diary journal, whatever comes to mind that's either on a different website or off the computer. Not everything you try might work, but for now it's a matter of simply finding what does, and as you keep going you can always gradually, at your own pace, cut down more of your youtube useage over time and switch those videos for other things that do work to help manage your anxiety.

That's how I eventually cut down on my own use of Youtube. It's possible, it just takes a bit of time.

[munchlax]

Nothing wrong with using youtube, especially since there are no good alternatives. Also don't let tumblr users decide your self worth.

[majoris]

As the person above has said, YouTube knows that most people, despite how frustrated they might get, will stick with YT. And they're kind of counting on that.

YouTube like most big tech apps is designed to keep you coming back. And it can be kinda hard to fight that. So don't feel bad at all! You can take it a step at a time. Slowly reducing your usage works. Think of it like breaking a bad habit.

I'd say try to use it through FreeTube or Invidious. Both to stay away from the algorithm and AI, but also to help you use it less 

[candycanearter07]

I'd say try to use it through FreeTube or Invidious. Both to stay away from the algorithm and AI, but also to help you use it less 

I'd also add that using an RSS feed on Invidious to follow certain youtubers in a more managable fashion can help some. It's obviously not perfect, but it does help to have a "stack" of videos to watch, that you can take at your own pace. Forcing yourself to do something else once you've watched through some/all of it is tricky, though.

Also, Invidious does tend to go down sometimes, thanks to Youtube super hostility. You can replace the domain name with https://redirect.invidious.io in any invidious url to jump to another one, if needed.


edit: For the record, I also struggled pretty bad at the whole "Quit Youtube" thing, but at the very least, it's justified my hoarding of videos with yt-dlp while I still can.

[AY38910]

To be fair, I can perfectly live without it. I pretty much only used it to listen to music, either way. (Well, and tech videos, but not nearly as much.) I often went there to calm down because music often calms me down, and I can just use other platforms where the music I like is found and/or `yt-dlp` and/or Invidious. I liked it because it was an easy way to find similar artists to the ones I already liked, but from what I've heard Soundcloud and Bandcamp also have that.

I'll miss endermanch, though. I really liked his videos about Windows and malware and found them very interesting.

[MaiaVulpes]

Was the age verification world-wide? I live in Czechia and I haven't seen a single change.
I don't know if it is because I passed the age verification, it not being pushed globally, or the fact I use V3 for YouTube.

It would be wonderful if there was some kind of efficient alternative though

[thecatscanvas]

What kind of phone/mobile device do you have? My partner has a Samsung device and uses an app there called NewPipe. It's basically a YouTube clone that will show you pretty much any YouTube video that is not marked as 18+ media. I'm not sure if you can subscribe to things there, and you can't really comment or anything. But it definitely works for watching stuff.

[KiwiMeowo]

Like other people said, not being able to stay off Youtube doesn't make you a bad person. When most of us has a long time habit of watching Youtube, it is a bit unrealistic to completely remove it from our lives. My personal solution is to use adblock, and download the videos that I usually watch (I often find myself looping the same videos over and over again).

[Bede]

You are not a bad person. YouTube has a functional monolopy on long-form video-sharing online. That is exactly what they're banking on for this boycott to fail.

If you don't think that you would be able to go cold turkey with the site, then just do what you can. Something is always better than nothing! Here are some ideas!

• If you did not previously have an adblock installed, install an adblock. Do not watch YouTube on anything that does not have an adblock -- this means deleting the YouTube app on your phone, and watching it in-browser (where there can be adblocks).
• Similarly to the above: you can dedicate yourself to never watching YouTube anywhere except for NewPipe, FreeTube, etc. These don't have recommendation algorithms, so they're less addicting! They have adblock built in, and they make it so Google can't track you, making your traffic less valuable.
• Send letters to or fax YouTube about why you are boycotting, and why you are telling all your friends to. Contact them at Google LLC, D/B/A YouTube, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. Their fax number is +1 650-253-0001.
• Find out where else your favorite YouTubers are uploading, and support them there. A lot of podcasts that are hosted on YouTube are also on other podcast-hosting services, like Spotify. Many YouTubers have Patreons where they upload their content, and, if you're not paying for YouTube Premium anymore, you have a lot more cash to support the content creators you love! Some even upload their videos to be viewed there for free, so you don't need to pay a dime. (For example, Snapscube does this with the Midnight Snap series.) Animators are likely to cross-post their smaller videos to their social medias. If you mostly watch the VODs of Twitch streamers you enjoy, try popping in to a stream on Twitch!
• Check out archival projects that do not connect to YouTube. For myself, I've been almost to entirely quit YouTube by way of exclusively relying on archive.org. Preservetube is also fantastic for this!
• Since we're trying to down watch time, if you see a long video you want to watch, consider downloading it and then watching the download instead!
• Again, since we're trying to down watch time, it matters far less if you scroll around on your home page or subscription page... Take advantage of this! What I've been doing is scrolling my home page, subscription page, and my playlist of my favorite videos to get the links for videos I want to watch that aren't already on archive.org. I then download them, and upload them to archive.org. That way, I can watch it on any device, delete the video download so it's not clogging up space, and anyone else participating in the boycott can watch it on archive.org, too!
• Have watch parties with your friends for long-form videos you all want to watch! One person can stream the video, and everyone else can watch the stream. This makes it so that the watch time is only counted once.

[ialu]

Not in the slightest. I think what many people miss in the resulting fervor and anger when things like this crop up is the fact that you, the individual, are not the arbiter of whether or not YouTube (or any other predatory company) succeeds. YouTube is an almost incomprehensibly gigantic service which has dominated daily life for over a decade at this point. It will, to put it bluntly, never be taken down solely through individual consumers leaving it. Raising awareness, advocating for better regulations, and building alternatives is orders of magnitude more valuable than just avoiding the service. For some more perspective: TikTok is yet another awful tech company, but people often mistakenly blame its users for its effects. The consumer is never at fault for the dishonest, malicious practices of a company; the company itself and lawmakers who fail to address these issues are. TikTok users aren't at fault for falling victim to the app's terrifyingly captivating algorithm, it's the fault of TikTok for utilizing such an algorithm in the first place. YouTube users aren't at fault for having no alternatives or being drawn in by YouTube's own algorithm, it's the fault of YouTube's predatory business practices.

As other users have suggested, though, I would advise finding some kind of proxy service for YouTube if that is what you would like to do, mostly for your own ease of mind. As stated, you aren't a "bad activist" for using the service so long as you are taking other actions to speak against it. Remember: You are not Neal Mohan's handler

[EdgyRabbit]

What kind of phone/mobile device do you have? My partner has a Samsung device and uses an app there called NewPipe. It's basically a YouTube clone that will show you pretty much any YouTube video that is not marked as 18+ media. I'm not sure if you can subscribe to things there, and you can't really comment or anything. But it definitely works for watching stuff.

Im on IOS... so I don't really have any optipons,,

that said, thanks for the feedback everyone! its making feel a lot better about it.. my friend suggested brave! I only really wanted youtube to watch some asmr and download some videos I liked and put them on the IA! I also heard YouTube was being sued for this, so it might not be in place for much longer!

[Bede]

I also heard YouTube was being sued for this, so it might not be in place for much longer!

WOOOOOOO YEAHHHH BABYYYYYY! THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITIN' FOR THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT! WOOHOOOO

[MediocreMetastasis]

The problem is YouTube has no competition. Yes there are alternatives but they're extremely limited and more of a novelty. Additionally YouTube is embedded into so many things, my university uploads lectures to it so I can't not use Youtube. Youtube is a giant archive of media also. With Twitter there's not really any feel for looking back at old Twitter post (especially since they're screenshotted and posted on other social medias) you can just move on to bluesky or threads or another alternative. Youtube has 20 years of content and I usually like re-watching stuff and looking at old videos. You can't escape from Youtube. That's why they get away with everything they do.

[crazyroostereye]

No as many already stated returning to Service is not failing in Activism in the Slightest. There are many ways you can combat YouTube, using AdBlock or Proxy Services, as you can hurt their Data Collection and Ad Revenue. But also by just keeping the Conversation alive is already good Activism. In the current climate, News and all are at such a pace that these Topics get easily drowned out and disappear into the Background. So by just keeping the Conversation and Discussion alive, you are helping with the Movement.

Was the age verification world-wide? I live in Czechia and I haven't seen a single change.
I don't know if it is because I passed the age verification, it not being pushed globally, or the fact I use V3 for YouTube.

No Age Versification on youtube is not yet global, only in the US and UK as far as I remember. But it is coming to the EU, which has its own Project to implement Age Verification themselves. Which should be more Privacy Preserving.