../ blog / youtube-vs-invidious
Just Say
NOto LeNOvo
2024.09.16
Youtube, the property of Google, is at war with Invidious. It's because Youtube is a privacy-invasive nightmare that is so full of ads that it's a marketer's wet dream. That ad revenue is very important for the subpar video-hosting social media site. Invidious is about privacy, no ads, and a lack of that shoddy extremist-brewing algorithm. Youtube and Google are corporations, Invidious is a legal, open-source frontend built by everyday people. Corporations hate people and love money, so it's natural they'd be at war.
Youtube is the dying juggernaut on its way out. The competition: TikTok. Shortform videos are killing Youtube's bottom line, and the new CEO is not doing much good. As we hear over and over, if you don't adapt as an organization, you die. Youtube has practically become the free content-streaming platform of choice for many. It's in a unique niche of content that is in between corporate, mass-produced content and indie art films. The video sharing service has indeed provided an outlet for many to share whatever they wish, as long as it is a video.
There is a dark side to Youtube, and that's Google. Google bought it out and started to monetize it, turning it into what Google is known for best: ads. Youtube slowly devolved from a great video-sharing platform to a great advertising platform. Google monetized Youtube, leaving the ones that built the service behind. People changed, going from being known as Youtubers to the more sterile, corporate terminology of "content creators." Youtube became a business, and like any business it revolves around money. Google started pushing more ads. At first, it was only on channels that were monetized. Then, it became those that had over a certain-number of viewers. Then, it became all videos, regardless of creator status. Finally, Youtube tried to be Netflix by producing original content and technically is now more OG Netflix-esque than Netflix is today. Now, it is nothing but ads with a bit of actual content sprayed in between. It also doesn't help that corporate drones are selling out and having "sponsorships" on their videos. Youtube effectively went from being YOU-tube to EUthanized-tube.
However, ads were not a problem for many. After all, there were clever geeks that existed and decided to make browser extensions to block ads. Google caught wind of this and eventually started indirectly attacking ad-blockers from their browser, which holds a highly disproportionate share of the total web browser market](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share). It also seems that Google shows no signs of stopping when it comes to antagonizing ad blockers. A likely reason is that whole FLOC that Google rebranded as "Topics" deal. However, since most webrowsers today are based on Chromium (Chrome), many of these geeks didn't like the idea of ads by default. Enter Invidious, an alternative frontend to Youtube!
Why worry about the drama surrounding ad blockers when you can just make a frontend that calls the open API for Youtube videos, completely free from ads? Well, that's exactly what happened. For once, people didn't have to worry about random Youtube alternatives and if their favorite "creator" was on there. Simply pull up an invidious instance and get to watching! However, greed always wins, especially for the rich, so Youtube did something about that too. The passive-aggressive behavior is continuing, where even now most public instances of invidious are unable to load videos. It seems that Youtube is really trying to get that lost ad revenue.
The fact is that this battle of the frontends is more of a cold war between a greedy, megomaniacal corporation and a rag-tag group of broke freeloaders that are tired of being broke and free marketing data for said megomaniacal corporation to sell without consent. Invidious is a great option for privacy that Youtube is insidiously attacking. Not directly, as that would draw too much ire and attention. But, like with ad-blockers and the v2 vs v3 manifest changes, as well as the FLOC/Topics shift, Google is finding a way to indirectly war with freedom and digital privacy, which is contrary to its whole raison d'Γͺtre. While I have a healthy amount of content on Youtube, I have preferred Odysee for hosting practically all of my content moving forward. While Odysee is comprised of a highly-biased userbase at the moment, I'd prefer to be associated with what people think it is than with a megacorporation that's hell-bent on making us corporate puppets and slaves for their profit. Besides, as many have pointed out, you can block content you don't like on Odysee/LBRY. Plus, no ads on Odysee. However, Odysee is not the final home of my videos and other creative work, and I am waiting until I can find a suitable alternative.