This piece is so short, and the content so similar to what's being discussed in the original thread[0], that I'm not sure what about it warranted an entirely separate post. Wouldn't this have been better as a comment on the original thread?
No idea, didn't see the original thread. I'm just trying to get more wind behind this, so more people protest against it. It's not really fair on these guys.
This should really just be a comment on the top post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24872911 (IMHO)—I thought since there was another front page story, maybe this was one of the authors/maintainers of youtube-dl, but it's just a summary of a few top-level points from the other thread.
Why the argument of educational source code repository? It was clear that youtube-dl has always been used for its utility. And the deeper problem here is why aren’t we allowed to do whatever want to whatever is streamed onto our screens? TV shows could be vhs taped without issue as long as not redistributed. For sure we cannot take this fight against google with the American laws, but I think the software was morally correct and should be legally permitted.
Yep, I actually subscribe to YouTube Premium but have used youtube-dl in the past when I had spotty WiFi to watch lectures. While streaming technology has come a long way, YouTube in the browser is still sometimes optimistic about how stable a network connection actually is and in my case was resulting in a lot of buffering whereas downloading the whole thing only took a few minutes since throughput on my network was good, it just sometimes would get huge spikes in ping.
However, in principal I do think users should either pay for the content they watch or watch the ads and wish that it were possible for youtube-dl to include these ads in the resulting video so it were more akin to the vhs example. That would also have the advantage of reducing target advertising since you only know who downloaded a video, not who is actually watching it. Much easier to just run youtube-dl from inside a VPN and make youtube-dl relatively anonymous than trying to make your entire browser anonymous while watching YouTUbe.
Yes, users can skip ads with the above system, but apparently skippable ads work on traditional TV with DVRs and VHS and also work for content creators who take sponsorships on YouTube.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24872911