I suspect it has in most households -- even boomer ones.

The problem is that nobody wants YouTube to be just like broadcast and cableTV was. The thing that made YouTube so compelling and so popular was its authenticity and variety -- but the management at YouTube are carefully killing the very thing that made it great.

Ever-growing levels of ever-more intrusive advertising. Ads that are (at times) 90 percent scams. Ads and content that are low-value AI-slop which, once the novelty value wears off, will drive people off the platform rather than onto it. Endless spambot comments on videos. -- all these things are slowly souring the formula that made YT what it is today.

Creators are complaining, viewers are complaining and pretty soon, advertisers will be complaining because viewer numbers will decline.

Many creators (such as myself) are now switching to self-hosting via a federated network of servers that we host ourselves (PeerTube or similar). Doing this frees us from the tyranny that is YouTube's arbitrary and unchallengable AI content moderation and it's unwillingness to deal with bogus copyright claims and strikes.

We have reached "peak Youtube" and just like so many companies that have become a huge part of our ever-day lives, it will now begin an ever-steepening decline.

If YouTube doesn't deliver what viewers and creators want they will find an alternative and the self-hosted federation of servers overcomes the single largest hurdle to creating a YouTube competitor -- the problem of matching the company's vast storage, processing and bandwidth capacity.

Watch this space... things are about to get exciting again!

Or laundering.

I'm not American, but I know there already is an asteroid defence programme. I was listening to people involved in it on a podcast, Science Friday, the other week. Interesting stuff.

On the 2.5Bn years bit - yes, but don't start don't finish. We have no idea how long it will take to develop the techniques required for this, and there will always be a good reason to put it off until tomorrow. Needs to start and just become so embedded over time that future generations don't even question why we're doing it - it's just patently obvious to them. Won't happen in my lifetime, but then a lot of things won't happen in my lifetime that are getting worked on today and that's fine.

There's often a "we should fix problems on earth before looking to space" theme. We can be as equal, progressive and fair as we like and an asteroid still wouldn't give a damn and wipe us out anyway. Should we survive asteroid attacks, the sun will expand and burn the planet dry anyway.

We have to do both. Defence of the Earth (dramatic phrase, but see subject above...) has to be studied, funded and run. Along side that a long, probably multigenerationally long, programme of "how do we survive when the Earth is uninhabitable" including the ability to leave Earth and live elsewhere. These programmes are fundamental to long term survival of the human race.

I think one of the problems is that it all sounds very dramatic, big and sci-fi. But it isn't - we have direct evidence that the risk already materialised once and wiped out most life. We also have evidence of the expansion of the sun. All these things are certain, so we have to look at them as reality and not fiction.

That's right... you don't *really* think YT is giving you a choice do you?

I do not make shorts, I do not want shorts but without using plugins I can not avoid shorts. Successful companies are generally built on tailoring their offerings to match the needs/wants of their customers so YT once again proves that WE are not the customers, we are the product!

Right, but as I just said obeying a disallow directive isn't legally mandatory, so it doesn't mean much.

Just as with their AI deepfake detection system, YouTube has once again created a problem (Shorts addiction) so that it can deliver a solution (this auto-turn-off function).

I'd actually prefer that it didn't create the problems in the first place.

YouTube is a trainwreck right now and mid-tier creators are not valued at all. Just look at what they have to put up with

The difference depends on context, of course.

Generally speaking there are several cases to consider:

(1) Site requires agreeing on terms of service before browser can access content. In this case, scraping is a clear violation.

(2) Site terms of service forbid scraping content, but human visitors can view content and ...
(2a) site takes technical measures to exclude bots. In this case scraping is a no-no, but for a different reason: it violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
(2b) site takes no technical measures to exclude bots. In this case, the answer is unclear, and may depend on the specific jurisdiction (e.g. circuit court).

(3) Site has a robots.txt file and ...
(3a) robots.txt allows scraping. In this case, even if the terms of service forbid scraping, the permission given here helps the scraper's defense.
(3b) robots.txt forbids scraping. In this case obeying robots.txt isn't in itself legally mandatory, but it may affect your case if the site takes other anti-scraping measures.

Not *explicitly*. Offering such a database would be an invitation for people to look at the whole data broker industry. So what you, as a databroker who tracks and piegeonholes every human being who uses the Internet to a fare-the-well, do to tap into the market for lists of gullible yokels? You offer your customer, literally anyone with money, the ability to zero in on the gullible by choosing appropriate proxies.

For example, you can get a list of everyone who has searched for "purchasing real estate with no money down". Sad people who buy colloidal silver and herbal male enhancement products. People who buy terrible crypto assets like NFTs and memecoins. Nutters who spend a lot of time on conspiracy theory sites.

It's kind of like doxxing someone. You might not be able to find out directly that John Doe lives on Maple St and works for ACME services, but you can piece it together by the traces he leaves online. Only you do it to populations wholesale.

YouTube creates a problem (by integrating VEO3 into its platform) and then offers a solution -- but only if you surrender your government ID to them.

This is dystopian.

If you're stupid enough to buy a bed that goes berserk when the Net goes down then you deserve to wake up vertical and sweating!

Why on earth would such a contraption require cloud-based support for its core functionality?

This subscription-based model has gone way too far when, if the internet goes down or you don't pay your subscription, you can't even get a good night's sleep.

Interestingly, I would regard never learning how to write PHP over 21 years as one of my greatest successes.

wait a week or two and the details will change completely.

Trump is nothing if not mercurial. His fans will tell you he's playing 11 dimensional chess... I have my doubts, but let's say that's true. The problem is that when it comes to the economy it's not chess. It's more like basketball, and the President is the point guard calling plays, except the play being called keeps changing before the players can execute the last call. It's a tough time to be running a business, you can't plan out more than a couple of weeks.

Yes, that's exactly what I did,

Then you would be wrong. Probably best to recuse yourself from weighing in on this dicsussion.