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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

> YouTube is not a public response

> providing access to mostly private content in exchange for payment under certain terms.

Confused frown. That doesn't match any description I've previously come across about what YouTube is.

I thought YouTube content was pretty much entirely 'public'.

If they removed their website and access to the content was limited only to those who paid a monthly subscription via an app then that'd be slightly different.

But then they'd lose all the foot traffic.

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It's not public in that you must enter a legal agreement before you can access any of its data. That's what the terms of service are when you first load up the website. The TOS will specify terms under which they are free to withdraw your access.

See https://www.venable.com/insights/publications/2022/08/are-yo...

I believe that they ruled you must be forced to click a Consent notice to be bound by those terms, and even then it is not enough. Read for details.

You absolutely are not entering a legal agreement, without commitment by some means.

TOS is not a contract. It's them saying why they may choose to stop serving you.

I guess you're right in that it's not a contract because nothing is being offered in exchange on your part as a user. But it certainly reads like a "legal agreement" to me. I'm not sure what difference that actually makes:

https://www.youtube.com/t/terms

> But it certainly reads like a "legal agreement" to me > I'm not sure what difference that actually makes

Funny that. Almost as if by including a lot of "legal sounding words", normal people instinctively defer and back away because they don't understand it. Which is entirely intentional to make you think the rules go one way, when they in fact do not.

Another example is "Not responsible for broken windshields"

It usually comes down to enforcement: they can’t expect to get money from you without proving that you knowingly agreed to the deal but this kind of thing will probably prevent a lawsuit if you see something you don’t like or they block your access – if you weren’t paying anything, a court probably won’t accept an argument that you deserve any compensation for loss of a free service.

There's a TOS?

Since when? Do I need to click OK to agree to it before I can watch any videos? Do I need to do this each time I load up the website?

I don't think I've ever seen a TOS for YT (although I must admit I'm very good at not actively being and to remember actions that have become habitual).

Here's the YouTube TOS. I believe they ask you to agree to it along with the cookie policy banner that shows up when you don't have cookies stored:

https://www.youtube.com/t/terms

Edit: actually you're right they don't explicitly ask you to agree to the TOS, but the TOS contains this paragraph.

> If you do not understand the Agreement, or do not accept any part of it, then you may not use the Service

So I guess the agreement is implicit rather than explicit.

Something that I'm not even asked to read, just shown a link to alongside the link to the privacy policy, doesn't seem like any kind of "agreement" If it's necessary for me to read something as part of an agreement then I need to be told of this, i.e. for any "meeting of the minds" to have happened.

Private doesn’t have to mean “locked down to subscribers” - only that the owner has no obligation to give you access except on the terms they picked. In this case, it means “available with ads”. They’ve made the decision that more people watch ads than buy video, which has clearly worked well for them but also means that they don’t have other content available when the creators don’t like that (for example, movies generally aren’t available without an additional payment).

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