YouTube. Im sure this has been a thing for a while... but this is getting out of hand.

15 days ago by Setiyeti93 to c/enshittification

It'll keep continuing until you get one FPS and no audio without paying for premium.

warm 81 points 15 days ago

Of all the problems with YouTube, this isn't one of them. It's reasonable for a free service to offer premium features such as this. If you upload in higher resolutions, people still get free access to those and even if your screen is 1080p, watching in 4K gives you higher bitrate.

Enshittification doesn't mean adding new features and charging for them. It means changing the existing service to make it worse, to encourage people to pay for subscriptions.

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DaGeek247 35 points 15 days ago

It's reasonable for a free service to offer premium features

Very true.

Enshittification means ... changing the existing service to make it worse, to encourage people to pay for subscriptions.

Also very true.

YouTube cut the default bitrate when they added this "feature". It was incredibly obvious to my eyes the instant it was pushed out, and remains obvious everytime I come across one of these videos. If they had just charged for better bitrate, I wouldn't have cared. However, they also cut the default bitrate down, making all the videos that have this look really bad.

This is textbook inshittification, complete with the gaslighting bullshit of saying "we were always like this! Its your fault it seems worse than it was!" in every design decision involved in the process.

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warm 3 points 15 days ago

If they did, then that would be enshittification, yeah. But I cannot find any evidence of it being true, only testimonies from people. Which could be the player buffering, showing lower resolution due to internet connection etc, etc.

My 1080p streams have looked the same as they always have. Testing it now, they are playing at around 80,000kbps, using AV1. If people upload at 1440p/4K, then it's just a non-issue anyway as they have much higher bitrates.

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Orygin 5 points 14 days ago

They did. When I encounter such videos, I immediately think "why is it stuck in 720p" only to discover it's 1080p non premium, that is way worse than any other standard 1080p video.

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DaGeek247 5 points 15 days ago

This feature is limited to videos that don't have a better resolution than 1080p. It's also even more limited to videos that the uploaders choose to enable it on, or at least, se subset of 1080p videos, since I've seen new 1080p videos both with and without it. Finally, it doesn't apply to old 1080p videos.

if people upload at 1440p/4K, then it's just a non-issue anyway as they have much higher bitrates.

Yup. Doesn't make it any less frustrating to see my favorite nature guy's videos turn to shit just because of it.

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warm 3 points 14 days ago

These two videos look identical to me and get the same bitrates. Why are they only uploading in 1080p now though? Their video could be poorly encoded in the first place which YouTube cannot magically save. It's going to look worse in these kind of videos anyway, because of all the foliage and particles from fires.

There is still no hard evidence YouTube made regular 1080p worse to sell "Enhanced Bitrate" and I don't think there is going to be. I think people got used to higher bitrates with 1440p/4K videos and now when they see a 1080p video they are surprised by the quality change, see the "Enhanced bitrate" option and make this assumption.

I have gone back to old videos and they are just the same as they were. They have been transcoded to AV1, but that codec is magic, they are probably using less bitrate now than they were when released.

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ericwdhs 9 points 15 days ago

Agreed. The service needs to justify the resources it uses somehow. Personally, I even think locking 4k playback completely behind subscriptions would have been justified by the much higher bandwidth required as long as that also meant subsidizing a better experience for everyone staying free on 1080p and below. That feels like a more reasonable balance to me than them frantically trying to get enough ad revenue to make up the difference, but what do I know?

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chisel 7 points 15 days ago

Adding new features and charging for them can absolutely be a component of enshitification.

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warm 3 points 15 days ago

Nah, because if them features didnt exist, they havent affected the original service/product by being introduced, thus hasnt enshittified it. If access to the original is affected, then that would enshittification.

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chisel 0 points 15 days ago

If your product stays current/modern with paid new features and the free portion is left to rot, it is enshitification. Enshitification is not a specific behavior or feature set. It is a product lifecycle of first tailoring your product to the customers to increase market share, then tailoring to advertisers to increase revenue and solidify market dominance, then tailoring to investors and squeezing your customers and advertisers for every last penny and cutting costs wherever possible as your product becomes worse and worse for the original customers. It's the shifting of target audience and abandonment of the previous that is a natural byproduct of infinite growth.

Enshitification is not simply "product becomes worse because x". Though, I'd argue that diverting resources to premium features while allowing the non-premium features to become obsolete is a tangable worsening of a product.

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Carrot 3 points 15 days ago

If your product stays current/modern with paid new features and the free portion is left to rot, it is enshitification.

I disagree. If your free version isn't changing, then it isn't enshitification. This is the freemium model. It gives basic functionality to everyone in hopes of converting them to (or using them to attract) paid users. That's not enshitification. That's giving someone a free sample.

Enshitification is not a specific behavior or feature set. It is a product lifecycle of first tailoring your product to the customers to increase market share, then tailoring to advertisers to increase revenue and solidify market dominance, then tailoring to investors and squeezing your customers and advertisers for every last penny and cutting costs wherever possible as your product becomes worse and worse for the original customers. It's the shifting of target audience and abandonment of the previous that is a natural byproduct of infinite growth.

This I agree with, I just don't think it is an accurate description of the situation above.

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Setiyeti93 3 points 15 days ago

Not that this is a hill I particularly want to die on... But YouTube isn't free. I understand absolutely of course there are operational costs that need to be covered. Even if it is operated by one of the six companies that control the world.

But if I sit through a torrent of ads. That's my payment. Never mind the brokering of all of the personal information it can glean from devices watched on and location etc...

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warm 11 points 15 days ago

Yes, but I am talking financially, as nothing is truly free as everything costs time. I thought that was pretty self-explanatory.

Them adding more ads is enshittification, not an optional higher bitrate stream. They didnt replace the existing 1080p stream.

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prole 5 points 15 days ago

But if I sit through a torrent of ads. That's my payment.

You do not need to live this way. I've never seen a YouTube ad.

Never mind the brokering of all of the personal information it can glean from devices watched on and location etc...

This doesn't need to be true either. I use FreeTube and never log in

The day Google once and for all successfully stops ad blocking, etc., is the day that I stop watching YouTube videos.

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chaotic_disorganizer 33 points 15 days ago

Premium bitrate has been a thing for years.

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Setiyeti93 2 points 15 days ago

I'm not saying that it hasent... But I fairly often miss about with the quality especially if I'm just using it as background noise... This is just the first time I've seen it.

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iamthetot 2 points 15 days ago

It's not available on every video. So if you're primarily using it for background noise, I'm assuming it's mostly like background music, which is less likely to be a video that qualifies for the improved bitrate.

As mentioned, it was introduced a few years ago. It really makes a noticeable improvement to video quality, too. Bit rate is kind of king when it comes to streaming.

For whatever it's worth to you iirc they didn't downgrade the original bitrate, they just introduced better bitrate and locked that behind the subscription.

I don't personally pay for YouTube Premium anymore, but I did for a while. I consider it an incredible value, tbh, but stopped because I wanted to stop supporting Google.

However, I also just don't use YT anymore as a result. I'm curious how you think YT should exist if not by charging for features? Because I'll be honest, of all the enshittification YT has experienced, this one in particular is way, way down on the list for me.

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DaGeek247 1 point 15 days ago

For whatever it's worth to you iirc they didn't downgrade the original bitrate, they just introduced better bitrate and locked that behind the subscription.

They absolutely did. It's a very obvious difference I noticed when they first released this "feature" and has been bugging the shit out of me ever since it came out.

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Muffi 26 points 15 days ago

Ooooh, learning Godot? Best of luck, it is an absolutely fantastic engine.

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Setiyeti93 14 points 15 days ago

I was waiting for something like this 😂

I cut my teeth on Unity so Godot is both familiar and confusing..

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Muffi 15 points 15 days ago

Fight through and it will be worth it!

I quit Unity after their price changes about 2 years ago, and have made 15 small games in Godot since then. It is like the Blender of Game Dev. A little rough at first, and then when it clicks it is a perfect little piece of software that is so much fun to use.

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ExperimentalGuy 1 point 14 days ago

How do you cut your teeth?

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ParadoxSeahorse 11 points 15 days ago

720p is the best fight me

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Bobbysaurus 9 points 15 days ago

On YouTube it’s most definitely not. The quality is shit thanks to their compression.

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ParadoxSeahorse 5 points 15 days ago

Yeah it’s not the best. But it never stutters, I can change cell towers on a train, WiFi in the garden, whatever, it’s done

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Bobbysaurus 2 points 15 days ago

Yes, that’s true, the service itself is rather reliable and stable, but that doesn’t really necessitate the low bitrate on 1080p and lower. The resolution itself has often less of an impact on the perceived quality than the bitrate. Especially on mobile

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ParadoxSeahorse 2 points 15 days ago

That’s very interesting! I have just come to this opinion through trial and error o~0

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altkey 2 points 15 days ago

Clever.

Since I almost always on VPN, I sometimes go even lower, most long vids and podcasts I play through NewPipe without video at all. The only thing where 1:1 resolution match with the uploader matters for me is tutorials on software usage and coding, where I need to see interface and text clearly. 720p sits neatly between these two, but I am a man of extremes.

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freeman 2 points 15 days ago

Too low of a bitrate mostly. But they adjust it depending on the content, so it can be different per video

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Setiyeti93 6 points 15 days ago

It's fine for most things... I'm trying to remember now what standard DVD definition was.

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Zachariah 11 points 15 days ago

480p or 480i

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Hond 8 points 15 days ago

Nah, 720p is horrible in practice because of the employed bitrate in most cases. But i dont argue against a well encoded 720p file. It can be alright in theory depending on the content.

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DaGeek247 0 points 15 days ago

DVDs did ~10mbps at 480p using the mpeg2 codec. YouTube doesn't recommend 10mbps until 1080p using x264 (mpeg2's successor).

DVDs 480p is better quality than YouTube's 720p, and YouTube only gets ahead of DVDs after you switch to 1080p or above.

Modern online streaming at 4k usually doesn't usually do any better than 20mbps (personal experience). Compressions helps, especially with av1, but for the most part, physical media is worlds better than streaming media is, because unlike physical media, the media companies have to pay for every mbps they deliver.

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Gutek8134 4 points 15 days ago

Meanwhile my internet that can only handle 480p

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FatVegan 1 point 15 days ago

You are untouchable

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diaphragmwp 7 points 14 days ago

Downloading with yt-dlp results in full bitrate if the "AV1" format is selected. Well, last I tried.

MPV has a yt-dlp plugin (historically still referenced "ytdl") if you want to watch once and burn the download: mpv -- ytdl://video_id_here. Note that if the video is 4K or 8K, it will play that and not auto switch.

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jay 7 points 15 days ago

It's been there for like 3 years or something already.

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PotatoesFall 4 points 14 days ago

what game are you building? :D

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altphoto 3 points 14 days ago

Remember TV at 320x200? Or if you wanted 780p you could touch the Bunny ear antenna and then do yoga.

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melsaskca 3 points 14 days ago

I watch free youtube on my tv. I get ads but in the big scheme of things the variety of content I get from youtube dwarfs any advertisement interruptions I receive...so far. As far as video quality goes, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, depending on the source. I watched the old "Crime Story" series on youtube and it was pretty bad and blurry and I enjoyed the hell out of that series. Your brain can quickly autofill a lot of visual blanks. The nickel and dime bullshit is getting annoying though. One day they'll price themselves out of customers or switch to only serving the elite (in this case the 'elite' mean those with employment).

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bold_atlas 3 points 13 days ago

Yeah, only pay piggies get to enjoy youtube's greasy AI filter in all it's high-res sloppy enshittified splendor.

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SpikedIguana 3 points 15 days ago

For some reason playing at 3x speed is also a premium feature, IDK who's using that, think it only used to go to 2.

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ericwdhs 2 points 15 days ago

My default playback speed is 2.5x, so I'm close to 3x...

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discomatic 2 points 15 days ago

What drives me out of my mind is the QR codes that keep popping up over the video I'm trying to watch. If I want to buy something, I'll find it, I promise. Ugh.

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curiousaur 2 points 14 days ago

You can stop using it.

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SubArcticTundra 2 points 15 days ago

We should be happy, there's still quite far that the enshittification can go

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iuseasahibtw 1 point 14 days ago

Can't you put it the other hand?

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buzz86us 1 point 13 days ago

I'm waiting for the 200fps with UHD

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Pratai -6 points 15 days ago

People still use YouTube?

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Setiyeti93 4 points 15 days ago

They do. I know I know. I'm a basic bitch

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Honytawk 2 points 14 days ago

The biggest video platform on the internet?

Are you seriously asking that?

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Pratai 1 point 13 days ago

Yes.

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Gladaed -14 points 15 days ago

This is why you cannot take cries about enshittyfication seriously.

Anytime any company does something (sensible) you hear that. It almost never fits. And when it does the word has lost its efficacy

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lIlIlIlIlIlIl 10 points 15 days ago

What a completely wrong comment. Wow. It’s so perfect in its wrongness. It’s almost breathtaking.

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Gladaed 8 points 15 days ago

YouTube adding a higher quality feed does not degrade the service. I don't know how to put this in planer language.

Serving video is expensive. Serving high Bitrate video is extremely expensive. Storage costs have stopped scaling. Do you want them to provide a sustainable service or run at a loss to hike prices later when competition died? That's not how YT operates. They are profitability and creator revenue first.

They made bad choices with shorts, sure.

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lIlIlIlIlIlIl 1 point 15 days ago

But in this example they didn’t add a higher quality.

They added a new lower quality and took away what you already had/were paying for. Hence, you as a consumer are paying for the same level of service, but are receiving less

That’s the textbook definition - what am I missing?

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Gladaed 6 points 15 days ago

That's false. They didn't touch old content on high Bitrate introduction. E.g. https://www.reddit.com/... discusses this.

You can check by looking up old but rates and using a downloader tool and checking file sizes. Apparently there is about 15% more data. Please note that compression may have changed/improved and objectively comparing products of lossy compression is non-trivial.

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SolSerkonos 0 points 15 days ago

Huh? Where did you find out that they took anything away? Are you just assuming? I thought they added 1080p with a bitrate that's higher than standard, because people were just watching 4k on 1080p screens because the higher bitrate made it look better.

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group_hug 1 point 14 days ago

Google makes $130 a month from their free users I think they are doing okay.

https://proton.me/...

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Gladaed 1 point 14 days ago

Thats not true. The assumptions in this article about me are wrong. And I see other ads than just YouTube's.

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Bobbysaurus 0 points 15 days ago

As you say, it’s all about profitability. Making it worse for non-paying viewers is one of the most commonly used tactics, so I’d say the complaint is valid.

Streaming in 4K or even higher is free for everyone, that’s also more expensive for them. The fact that 1080 looks so bad to begin with on their platform is just ridiculous and unnecessary.

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Gladaed 5 points 15 days ago

Forgot to touch on the video bad point: I don't have points of comparison between YT bitrates and 3rd party platforms. I find 2K to be plenty sharp and serviceable. And I don't know a 3rd Party serving said content anyway.

1080p isn't a quality standard so I would expect quality to vary anyway.

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Gladaed 2 points 15 days ago

There are no non-paying viewers. You pay in ads or you pay in dollarinios.

The high Bitrate was an add on for premium people. Streaming in 4k was discontinued due to low adoption and enormous cost. It is available for premium users today. You could argue for enshittyfication there, but are on shaky grounds for low adoption rate. A short experiment does not entitle you, in my mind.

Edit: appeartly outrage won and 4k is free once more

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FatVegan 2 points 15 days ago

Gladaed, defender of billion dollar companies, protector of the pedophile class.

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enshittification

enshittification

@lemmy.world

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What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

go to feed...

enshittification

enshittification

@lemmy.world

login for more options

What is enshittification?

The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source

The lifecycle of Big Internet

We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.

Embrace, extend and extinguish

We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.

go to feed...