Youtube specifically has a plethora of useful information made by normal people. You can find hundreds of thousands of videos, in most languages, about doing most basic and complex repairs for almost any model of car made in the last few decades, for example. It is essentially a giant public library.
Sometimes this is a publicly tradable for profit endeavor, sometimes it is private or perhaps non-profit(all profits have to be distributed back into the corporation), or even an actual public corporation(often called a town or a city,
What, precisely, is the “threat” that Google presents that does not rely on a government to be the muscle. Are they going to cancel your Gmail account? Cut you off from YouTube?
Surely if they actually are as powerful and dangerous as you think they are you wouldn’t use their stuff at all. But then I guess they wouldn’t be all that powerful if you could just stop using them…
Try that with Google, PayPal, Amazon, Apple, or any number of other companies when an error they've made but refuse to even explain, much less fix, threatens to wreck your livelihood.
To redress grievances with my government, I don't need to make the front page of HN or go viral on Twitter. We don't go a week around here without another front-page lamentation to appeal for noblesse oblige from one of these intentionally-faceless megacorps. That's not how you should have to deal with a company you're doing business with... but it is how you deal with a dictator who leaves you no other choice.
"Does entity X have a monopoly on violence?" If yes, they are a government. If no, they are not.
Whether X is nice or mean, important or unimportant, is irrelevant.
Oh and I'll be downloading my videos for offline viewing and listening to ad free unrestricted music as well.
ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
233 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
234 mp4 audio only │ m3u8 │ audio only unknown Default
599 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.05MiB 31k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 31k 22k ultralow, m4a_dash
600 webm audio only 2 │ 1.27MiB 37k https │ audio only opus 37k 48k ultralow, webm_dash
139 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.67MiB 49k https │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash
249 webm audio only 2 │ 1.86MiB 55k https │ audio only opus 55k 48k low, webm_dash
250 webm audio only 2 │ 2.44MiB 71k https │ audio only opus 71k 48k low, webm_dash
140 m4a audio only 2 │ 4.42MiB 130k https │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash
251 webm audio only 2 │ 4.71MiB 138k https │ audio only opus 138k 48k medium, webm_dash
Both AAC and Opus fix some of MP3's inherent design problems (like imperfect handling of short sharp transients no matter how much bitrate you throw at it), so the only reason to continue using MP3 is for compatibility with old devices.
Since downloads aren't an official part of Youtube's offering, they don't have to care about old offline-only hardware players only supporting MP3, either and anything that's modern enough to still support either a Youtube app or the website will also support either AAC or Opus.
> the bit rate is not very high
There's also a high bitrate available, but only for subscribers.
Sorry, was that supposed to be a gotcha?
Paying for things you use is how you signal you like the product. The insane contortions people resort to in order to justify piracy boggles my mind. You either pay by watching ads or you pay the premium price. No one is entitled to YouTube. YouTube has to be paid for in order for it to exist and the creators to make stuff. That is the reason to pay for premium.