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Comment by zajd | Hacker News Reader

He doesn't really address the most difficult Google service to give up, YouTube. There's literally no replacement, especially from a content perspective. There are alternative search/email/map providers, there just isn't one for YouTube.

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I've started using youtube-dl to download videos and watch them locally. It isn't perfect but at least I don't have to see what terrible videos Google thinks I want to watch (or which terrible videos are "trending") or accidentally read a comment.

Another one is Photos. Sometimes it is creepy what they do with your photo stream, but sometimes the AI hits the nail straight on the head by producing entertaining mashups, and I have to admit I started to love it. I know it's the bait and I am a dummy to bit on it.

As a consumer, you don't need an account to use it. I have a Google account for Android and Gmail but my YouTube account is deleted. I "subscribe" to channels with RSS. If producers make their content feed available elsewhere (and they should, even if it happens to only link to YouTube for now) I use that feed instead. If producers only publish to YouTube, that's really their dependency problem. You can download an store anything you find worthy of archiving. Use an ad blocker to avoid supporting the platform. Producers should be selling their own native ads if they need to make a living off the videos, like pod casters do.

I do notice a lot more youtubers having their own advertiser segments (usually for the same 3 or 4 services, though that's probably due to similarity of channels I watch), and of course Patreon is very popular.

I "subscribe" to youtube channels with browser bookmarks. </old man yells at cloud>

I highly suggest RSS my fellow elder. We haven't much time left. Rechecking bookmarks for new content and trying to remember if we've already watch something is a time-leech we cannot afford to feed.

Bing video shows youtube and other sources without showing ads. Literally costs youtube money on one hand, but still legitimizes them as a content repository on another. I have complex emotions about using it.

Yeah, this is the only Google service I still use - and my Chromecast I guess. I'd be more than happy to jump ship once all the channels I like to watch are available somewhere else...

I will use Google services while blocking ads. That way I am actually costing them money.

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