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Comment by janosdebugs | Hacker News Reader

How so?

There are many content creators on YouTube who have gone silent or died, two years from now all those videos will be lost like tears in rain.

In this article[0], it says that YouTube accounts with videos won't be deleted:

> At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos. (That would be tricky as some old abandoned clips might have historical relevance.)

[0]: https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/

For now.

It feels like a small leap to go from deleting a person's photos, documents, and emails to deleting their videos.

No it doesn't because public videos are designed for public usage. They have comments, are part of recommendations, playlists, and so forth.

Deleting private content and deleting public content are two entirely different things. There's zero reason why the former would imply the latter, and many reasons why it wouldn't.

Which is contradicted by this blog, so who knows what they'll do (answer: the worst possible option at the worst possible time).

Archive everything.

> if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we *may* delete the account and its contents

This is what this policy announcement says.

PSA: If you haven't engaged ArchiveTeam to back these up, feel free to. They have the tooling necessary to rapidly rip entire channels (and define a collection for them) for upload to the Internet Archive. Can't count on Youtube to persist or provide open-ish access forever.

Many (most?) classic viral videos from abandoned accounts will be deleted, if this policy comes into effect.

What benefit would Google get from removing popular videos?

Sociopath executives/upper management will get bonuses for "saving money".

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