Hmm to be fair with YouTube you don’t think this is now a repository of incredibly valuable resources? If YouTube went down and we lost all videos, we would be losing many important resources, from historical documentaries no longer easily found in media, to guides on woodworking.
It’s a bit scary. Once you remove the crap, it’s an incredibly valuable library resource and time capsule.
Absolutely. There’s nothing special about YouTube’s frontend - it can be replicated by someone with no coding experience, in an afternoon, for free, via a Softaculous module. On the inside, it’s the Library of Alexandria. And unfortunately, it’s owned by a company that understands that reality only as a means to a nefarious end, which is to develop a detailed psychological profile on its users that can be sold to advertisers.
My hope is that the cost of server storage and delivery will become inexpensive enough that YouTube can be forked and maintained by a nonprofit like the Wikimedia Foundation, who sees user generated content as a means to the enrichment of human experience. I’m not optimistic though, the history of the Library of Alexandria is instructive.
There is already something like this via the Wayback Machine (who indeed do copies of video media but more typically VHS and other things) and things like the Russian Library genesis, which is kept in torrent format.
The problem really is that storage for video media is insane compared to storage of document or even photo data.
If people here haven’t read into it, it’s incredibly interesting to look into the way the Internet Archive works. In particular you have to begin to concern yourselves with how long it takes for HDs, SSDs, and other media to degrade in time.
The problem really is that storage for video media is insane compared to storage of document or even photo data.
Yep, and add to that, 500 hours of video is uploaded to youtube every minute & they serve over 2.5 billion monthly users. The scale really is unfathomable.
If people here haven’t read into it, it’s incredibly interesting to look into the way the Internet Archive works. In particular you have to begin to concern yourselves with how long it takes for HDs, SSDs, and other media to degrade in time.
Where can I read more about this? It sounds interesting.
Another super interesting story is about Marion Stokes, who recorded around 71000 cassettes worth of television media from 1975 to 2000s. She houses them in 9 apartments. I need to watch the documentary about her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes
I remember I started reading about about this when I wondered what kind of media is “safe” for storage. It sounds like a simple question but it’s not. Digital media, unlike print media, is so easy to lose.
Sorry, I think you misunderstand that I’m talking about a large scale problem rather than a personal problem. Of course people can individually download videos to preserve.
Imagine losing YouTube’s videos next week. You would have effectively lost nearly two decades worth of media chronicling human and technological development (more if you take into account that YouTube has repositories of older media).
Someone described it like the Library Alexandria. In terms of density of information, I think the comparison is apt.
A good comparison that might be too old for some readers. Back in the 80s and 90s, the early internet was populated via usenet discussions. Google eventually bought this data and merged it into Google Groups. However Google Groups was disbanded. This meant that some archives can no longer be accessed because to do so requires some active component no longer in service. We have effectively lost gigantic chunks of early 90s internet history. A lot of this history was quite important in many facets of life.
I’m totally with you on that. That’s why I support the Internet Archive. But it’s important for people to realize that not everything on the Web is forever, so you should make backups. It is a large scale problem, but individuals can mitigate it. If there’s a copy of the file somewhere, then it can be preserved and archived.
Hmm to be fair with YouTube you don’t think this is now a repository of incredibly valuable resources? If YouTube went down and we lost all videos, we would be losing many important resources, from historical documentaries no longer easily found in media, to guides on woodworking.
It’s a bit scary. Once you remove the crap, it’s an incredibly valuable library resource and time capsule.
Absolutely. There’s nothing special about YouTube’s frontend - it can be replicated by someone with no coding experience, in an afternoon, for free, via a Softaculous module. On the inside, it’s the Library of Alexandria. And unfortunately, it’s owned by a company that understands that reality only as a means to a nefarious end, which is to develop a detailed psychological profile on its users that can be sold to advertisers.
My hope is that the cost of server storage and delivery will become inexpensive enough that YouTube can be forked and maintained by a nonprofit like the Wikimedia Foundation, who sees user generated content as a means to the enrichment of human experience. I’m not optimistic though, the history of the Library of Alexandria is instructive.
There is already something like this via the Wayback Machine (who indeed do copies of video media but more typically VHS and other things) and things like the Russian Library genesis, which is kept in torrent format.
The problem really is that storage for video media is insane compared to storage of document or even photo data.
If people here haven’t read into it, it’s incredibly interesting to look into the way the Internet Archive works. In particular you have to begin to concern yourselves with how long it takes for HDs, SSDs, and other media to degrade in time.
Yep, and add to that, 500 hours of video is uploaded to youtube every minute & they serve over 2.5 billion monthly users. The scale really is unfathomable.
Where can I read more about this? It sounds interesting.
This wasn’t what I read but this looks excellent.
https://archive.org/details/jonah-edwards-presentation
Another super interesting story is about Marion Stokes, who recorded around 71000 cassettes worth of television media from 1975 to 2000s. She houses them in 9 apartments. I need to watch the documentary about her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes
I remember I started reading about about this when I wondered what kind of media is “safe” for storage. It sounds like a simple question but it’s not. Digital media, unlike print media, is so easy to lose.
Thanks for the links, I’ll check them out. Persistence of data seems like an interesting issue.
🤔 We all should build a nonprofit to foot the bill for new hardware to run a public Youtube fork, or PeerTube instance.
Video rippers are a thing. If there’s a video that you’d miss if it were gone, download it.
Sorry, I think you misunderstand that I’m talking about a large scale problem rather than a personal problem. Of course people can individually download videos to preserve.
Imagine losing YouTube’s videos next week. You would have effectively lost nearly two decades worth of media chronicling human and technological development (more if you take into account that YouTube has repositories of older media).
Someone described it like the Library Alexandria. In terms of density of information, I think the comparison is apt.
A good comparison that might be too old for some readers. Back in the 80s and 90s, the early internet was populated via usenet discussions. Google eventually bought this data and merged it into Google Groups. However Google Groups was disbanded. This meant that some archives can no longer be accessed because to do so requires some active component no longer in service. We have effectively lost gigantic chunks of early 90s internet history. A lot of this history was quite important in many facets of life.
I’m totally with you on that. That’s why I support the Internet Archive. But it’s important for people to realize that not everything on the Web is forever, so you should make backups. It is a large scale problem, but individuals can mitigate it. If there’s a copy of the file somewhere, then it can be preserved and archived.