Re: Youtube - newbie guidance
Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> writes:
> I've never used youtube before.
One thing to note explicitly: YouTube is deliberately designed to thwart
downloading videos.
YouTube's owner (Google, Alphabet, whatever they call themselves next
year) have chosen a business model [0] that benefits when more people
keep watching videos *via the site* [1]. So downloading videos from the
site works directly against the business model they have chosen.
I say this by way of explaining that, while there are many tools that
can download videos from the site for offline viewing, the YouTube
operators do not support this and will change the site without notice,
in ways that cause such tools to stop working.
> I did not have time to watch the whole video.
> How can I download and save it?
I am a happy user of ‘youtube-dl’ as suggested in this thread. There are
others that can work well too.
Just be prepared for the site owner's indifference, even hostility, to
any such tool. None of them will keep working when YouTube is
arbitrarily changed, which happens a number of times each year.
> Is there some way to pause a video if I'm interrupted?
This, too, works against the business model the site owners have chosen.
I expect they will never implement such a feature.
So yes, downloading the video for offline viewing – i.e. thwarting that
business model – is IMO the sensible choice.
[0] The site owners explicitly shifted from trying to maximise how many
times you view their videos, to *how much time on site* you spend.
<URL:https://www.businessinsider.com.au/youtube-watch-time-vs-views-2015-7>
[1] YouTube has many ways to watch their videos on other sites. All of
them entail staying online and communicating continually with the
YouTube site about what you're doing.
--
\ “The best in us does not require the worst in us: Our love of |
`\ other human beings does not need to be nurtured by delusion.” |
_o__) —Sam Harris, at _Beyond Belief 2006_ |
Ben Finney
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