[Announcement] Upcoming new requirements for YouTube downloads · Issue #14404 · yt-dlp/yt-dlp
github.com
Beginning very soon, you'll need to have Deno (or another supported JavaScript runtime) installed to keep YouTube downloads working as normal. Why? Up until now, yt-dlp has been able to use its bui...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.org/post/1872634

So, starting now, Google started mandating full JS for YT, effectively breaking all third-party clients and locking the site to their official client.

This reeks of DRM.

UPDATE: Installing Deno and installing yt-dlp through PyPi fixes yt-dlp but the very idea that Google is mandating JS to lock down YT in an attempt at pseudo-DRM is still crappy.

UPDATE #2: inv.nadeko.net is working again for now.

  • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Do we know this?

    I suspect they usually compress videos at most a couple times (for each resolution) and then keep the results cached somewhere. At least for popular videos that combined take up 99% of bandwidth. For 0 views videos I’d imagine they only store the highest resolution and compress it further down on demand.

    I’d argue DRMing all those popular videos would take up so much computing power it cannot be offset by ads.