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Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

My cousin lives in a place with shitty internet, and regularly creates a list of YT URLs for later downloading when they go in-town. This is going to devastate them. Especially when they need to repair something or do maintenance where a rando’s video is 100x better than the manufacturer’s instructions and they download all the videos.

I do the same thing before a flight or train ride (Canada has $5-$10/gb wireless pricing) so I can catch up with my favourite subs on-the-move.

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Newpipe on the F-Droid repo allows for video/audio downloads if they are an android user.

I would have assumed NewPipe used youtube-dl somehwere along the line, and therefore be affected by this new assault on the youtube-dl library.

There Github[0] page is still active so I'm assuming they may have dodged the take downs. I believe they integrated youtube-dl into the application, but because they don't outright mention it on the page they may have dodged attention from the RIAA. This is just a wild guess from me.

[0]https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

The Youtube app has a download feature for watching videos offline.

Only available if you signed up for a premium account.

Does it permit it 100% of the time, or do you pay to discover that there’s a bunch of exceptions?

And I guess once you stop paying, it’s all gone?

>discover that there’s a bunch of exceptions?

Periodically the downloaded videos become unavailable offline if you don't have an internet connection to refresh them. Maybe once a month or something. Which means you can't hold on to a video through their service indefinitely.

Wait, how does that even work?

The downloaded videos likely have time constraint applied to them that can be updated when the app connects to the Internet. I don't think the downloaded videos can be played outside of the app.

Oh, it’s app only? That would already be a pain. I think they got into a good groove of saving URLs for later downloading. Needing to load each one on a tablet is ruining the automation of them visiting a friend or sitting in a cafe, socializing and downing a few dozen gb via youtube-dl just hitting a list of URLs in the bg.

There are no exceptions except for things like paid TV shows (not clips, actual TV shows and movies you can pay for[0]) - you can download any video and, as said in the sibling comment, it only expires after 30 days of being offline.

0: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9679194?hl=en

I don't understand the concept of "expiration" for an actual file that you have downloaded. How does it work, technically?

The download expires in the app. You don’t get a download button on YouTube.com with premium.

So the app deletes the file after expiration. But what if you copy the file elsewhere?

The "normal" app yes, but there is another one called Youtube Go, which you can download and save the video on your phone, IDK if it´s avaliable worldwide.

It's available to everyone with a Google account, but not for all videos.

Premium also generously allows you to turn off the screen while listening.

Yeah, seeing that recently was a good reminder that my phone is not under my control.

The war on general purpose computing is strong. The RIAA has been at the forefront of restricting & preventing user freedoms since time immemorial.

Only this time, unlike with Betamax[1], they are winning. Backed by anti-circumvention laws like the DMCA section 1201, which makes any lock, no matter how poorly built, a criminal violation to break or even to build or discuss ways of breaking.

[1] https://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/on-this-day-in-1984-the-s...

> The war on general purpose computing is strong.

Hint: if on Android, Firefox will allow you to do that anyway, even allowing you to do other things on your phone with YT playing in the background. And with uBlock, you won't even get ads.

> Premium also generously allows you to turn off the screen while listening.

As does telling your browser to display the desktop site instead.

While I do appreciate that feature, it's also very spotty. More than once I downloaded something only to later find that it won't play when I'm offline on a plane. Also, whenever Youtube decides to ban or suspend a video, it automatically disappears from the downloads area as well. Plus, this requires a mobile device, which is not necessarily where you may want to watch these things.

>Canada has $5-$10/gb wireless pricing

Well, if you are counting overage charges I guess.

My (national) provider has an all-in, bring-your-own-device plan with 9GB of data (recently with a 2GB bonus, for a total of 11GB) for under $60/month. I'm sure the competitors are similar. So, while not perfect, it's not as onerous as you describe.

Here in .it I have 30gb/month in LTE for 5.99€/month (fixed price).

Yeah, Canada is definitely behind the times. Some of that can be attributed to our vast land area making infrastructure buildout expensive, but some of it is also due to our telecoms having a government supported monopoly. It's getting better though, at least in my opinion. I'm paying less today than I was just a few years ago, for far more data.

Even ignoring the fact that your plan as described falls within the specified range ($60/month/11 GB = $5.45/month/GB), I have never heard of plans or overage charges this cheap from any of the three major Canadian wireless providers. Last year, the three major providers simultaneously increased the price of the well-publicized $60/10 GB offer by at least $5/month. I'm not aware of any standard plans offering more for less, although you may be able to bargain for less. You may also be able to find slightly cheaper rates with a smaller provider, but despite offering nominally nation-wide coverage, the practical coverage usually ends up being substantially poorer.

Regarding overage charges, I would be genuinely shocked if anybody, including a minor provider, has overage under $10/GB, seeing as by your own admission, even your standard rate exceeds $5/GB. Rogers overages are $70/GB, Bell is $110-120/GB, Telus is a whopping $130/GB. If overage charges are under the normal rate, then that's not an overage, that's pay-as-you-go.

>Even ignoring the fact that your plan as described falls within the specified range ($60/month/11 GB = $5.45/month/GB)

Are you talking about data only, or full phone service? Perhaps our calculations look different.

These plans includes: unlimited voice calling, texting, long distance, voicemail, call display, 5 hours of unlimited data per month (great for using a hotspot) and that amount of data.

The basic phone plan is about $30, so you're actually paying about $3 per GB. Overage is an admittedly ridiculous $15/GB.

This is Fido, owned by Rogers, obviously a major carrier. The standard plans aren't quite as good ($75 for 10GB), but there's always some kind of promotion going on. It's not wonderful when you see what some other countries are paying, but we're in a far better place than even a few years ago.

> The basic phone plan is about $30

Yeah, in France a basic SIM phone plan with 50mb data is something thrown in for free as a part of their internet/cable/DVRs which is $30/mo (incl tax) for the first year and then $65, but it’s so competitive that you just need to call in or switch.

Text/calls are increasingly over data. You’re getting terrible value for $30 for what is 100mb.

https://www.free.fr/freebox/offres-freebox-mobile/

I mean, $60/11gb = $5.45/gb, and you’re already on a higher priced plan where prices are lower.

I know providers like to think that SMS or voice calls are a big extra, but 95%+ of mine these days are over data.

Maybe Starlink one day?

Starlink might solve the issue of providing internet to far-flung places, which is great. But I'm skeptical they'll be able to massively undercut all of the telecom providers. Building, launching and maintaining a satellite constellation isn't cheap; it's still a question as to whether the economics will work at all.

Presumably the costs amortize pretty well, though.

The announced pricing for the current "beta" is $99/month plus $500 upfront for the hardware.

If it can offer anything near the speeds advertised without the BS of incumbents, I could see a massive amount of demand.

I figure 5% of consumers « served » by both cable and xDSL can’t get good service, and then they have virtually every rural customer that’s anything more than a low-data user. And I’d expect them to capture that one day with a « light » plan. It’s a massive market.

>The announced pricing for the current "beta" is $99/month plus $500 upfront for the hardware.

Yes, that's the price they charge. What are the costs of providing the service?

When you said undercut their competitors I assumed you meant undercutting the price consumers pay so I told you the price they are currently offering. I do not know that their costs are and since SpaceX is a private company I don't think we know how much it is costing them to provide it.

They should work for rural areas breadband but theoretically they can't replace cities fiber/LTE due to its massive capacity.

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