Stop making strawman arguments around billionaires and trillion $$ companies. The only company which can take on Apple is another large company with passionate user following. Small developers like you and me just come here on Hacker News and argue. But it leads to nothing as Apple simply ignores us.
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines egregiously.
Personal attacks are not ok. Smears like this are particularly not ok. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The truth is that the HN community is diverse and divided, with plenty of people on all sides of this issue. Attacking people personally (let alone nationally, ethnically, or racially) simply because they disagree with you is the epitome of what we don't want here. This is not a China issue, it's a Hacker News issue, an internet issue, and frankly a human issue.
Whoever the author is, I hope that he doesn't have a Uighur relative in Xinjiang in jail trying to get reformed and a friend in Hong Kong trying to free the country.
If you were in China, you couldn't even write an article criticizing Tiktok like here the author here is writing an article criticizing SV. Have some perspective.
You are talking as if somehow non-Americans have access to more liberties across non-government entities in their lives. If anything, Americans treasure and enjoy the most freedoms across the widest gamut of institutions vs. non Americans.
I don't think that's true. Coming from Germany I feel that in the average US citizen living as an employee has less rights and freedoms than the average German citizen. In principle you can live a very free lifestyle in the US but you either have to have lots of money or check out from the lifestyle most people live.
That's true. If you want freedoms and rights in America, you're either not a part of the 'normal' American way of working and likely not making much money, or you're wealthy. Workplaces are authoritarian and remove a lot of rights when you walk in the door or sign into your computer, even doing surveillance on work devices that are further than simply asset tracking & data protection.
Home owner associations or your average American Beauty style dystopia is much rarer outside the US because people haven't voluntarily locked themselves into suburbia.
In Europe the middle class generally moves into cities and not out of them where you're for the most part left to your own devices rather than being bullied around by activist neighbours or your church parish or what have you.
I mean just take a look at fiction, from Steven King's small town horror, to the Truman Show, or PK Dick, this sort of provincial clampdown on people is quite uniquely American. Between boyscouts and girlscouts and the cheerleading team there's not that much freedom left.
I noticed this most in my encounters with American college students abroad. They're like oversized children. It's quite striking how managed American life is. From school until the evening to clubs and on-campus living, into the nuclear family and then retirement in Florida.
> from Steven King's small town horror, to the Truman Show, or PK Dick
And then there is The Addams Family. The 2019 film addresses their conflict with American suburbia quite well. In the end, the neighborhood accepts them. Sometimes art does not imitate life.
Germans for example have an expectation of privacy at the workplace. It's not allowed to monitor a German employee's web browsing on a work computer. In the US the employer can monitor them all they want.
Property rights are more "first class" than privacy rights; in the US, the idea that a company is not allowed to monitor the use of company equipment by employees is absurd- to the extent that many institutions are regulated to require it (i.e. monitoring for data exfiltration, etc).
Of course, most companies' monitoring is pretty shallow and reasonable, but there are exceptions, and I certainly wouldn't choose to work for one of the exceptions.
That makes sense. Property ownership seems to be one of the most important values in the US. Which leads to property owners having the freedom to restrict the freedoms of other people. You can see that in companies where employees are assumed to basically have no rights while working. Same in the west here where property owners fence off large areas of land and nobody can pass through. In Germany there usually is some kind of path where people can pass through. This can make hiking in CA quite difficult because you often run into a fence.
Though there are historical reasons for allowing land owners to restrict unauthorized access, realize too that property extends to anything that can be owned, not just land.
If a company has a commercial kitchen, it seems reasonable to be to prohibit employees from running their own food delivery startup out of the kitchen... If you get access to a company car (I.e. travelling salesman), the company should reasonably expect to be able to take action against you if you use ot to go drag racing, or for a personal vacation.
Likewise, the notion that an employee should expect to have free reign over a company computer and company internet access is just strange to me.
The use and access of those logs is strictly regulated, and yes, it is enforced.
Given that Germany has a much healthier employee representation than the US, it's much more difficult for management to slide in surveillance under the radar. (It's also rather painful if they get caught)
I wonder if those German workplace freedoms stem from a different legal system of culpability.
In some US states, for example, an employee who commits a crime using his employer’s computer has opened up his employer to civil liability. If the employer can show that the employee actively sidestepped the employer’s controls, the employer can make a good case against liability.
I wonder if anything like that can happen in Germany. If not, then employee privacy on employer-owned devices makes sense.
Usually, the locale employee organization ("Betriebsrat") will negotiate a contract with the employer ("Betriebsvereinbarung") where the usage of company equipment for private use is regulated. Haven't read one in years, but would assume, that this case is handled there, and gives the employer the right to check logs etc in case of criminal/legal inquiries.
“In some US states, for example, an employee who commits a crime using his employer’s computer has opened up his employer to civil liability. “
I always find this reasoning strange and inconsistent . Companies give company cars to employees which could injure people. Or I could stab somebody with an employer provided knife.
It's likely an effect of data privacy being established as one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the German constitution and further strengthened by specific laws like the German data privacy law, which is a lot older than GDPR.
Interestingly data privacy (more precisely the "Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung") is not named explicitly in the constitution, but has been "created" by the German constitutional court in 1983 in the context of a law suite against the German census of 1983 [1].
Historically I would argue all of this is the result of the experience 1933-1945 and also the (what was known at that time) experience in East Germany, the communist German Democratic Republic.
It's enforced to the point where the access control system to the building, even if it tracks entry and exit timestamps, cannot be used for e.g. time keeping or to monitor employee attendance. German companies will have to have a separate time keeping system, even if the access control system uses the exact same (RFID) cards for identification.
People in other countries are sometimes less burdened by interference from non-governmental organizations. Countries with strong unions offer workers freedom from the worst of workplace strictures - think the right to assemble or to speak out against your employer or blow a whistle without being fired. Most countries don't have HOAs and far fewer rules around how you can build and maintain your own house. You can paint your house bright pink in most places in India and no one will stop you.
The American body politic's focus on rights as the defining feature of the social contract isn't shared everywhere else. For example, in many countries, the focus is on the material benefits the government can provide for you ("development"). And because of that, there's less reflexive distrust in government as an institution able to benefit your life, in principle. Parts of the American citizenry absolve themselves of the expectation that government can, even in principle, improve your life.
America is living in the long 18th century - Enlightenment liberalism worked out over three centuries.
This is just a matter of time. Almost all countries actually want US citizens to come there, for tourism purposes, due to their high spend potential (relative to other countries).
Agree. Those don't think so haven't travelled to luxury destinations overseas. It's majority Americans and Chinese. There are whole industries depending on those two cohorts.
If this were the only criteria, then Chinese passports would be accepted visa-free in a lot more countries than they currently are. Not saying that travel bans will remain in place once the current pandemic ends (which might take a while still), but "high spend potential" is not the sole determinant for this kind of polices when outside of a worldwide health emergency.
I wonder if it is a tit for tat type thing for other folks going to China?
It's hard to know. It's extra hard to know on outgoing as what I heard a while ago from someone from China (hard to know if they were really authoritative) was even if you qualified to go someplace else from inside China... your odds of approval was somewhat random / would ebb and flow.
> Almost all countries actually want US citizens to come there, for tourism purposes
Please do provide evidence of this. Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.
Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.
Edit: lot's of people replying, which is great. But none of providing evidence, which is explicitly requested in this comment. Would love to see some hard facts rather than people's anecdotes.
> Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.
Citizens might complain due to the personal habits and practices of individual tourists, but bureaucrats that oversee the tourism industry (in relation to border entry) will have views based on which tourist qualities most positively impact the industry's income.
Obviously most business owners just want tourists to come and spend money, regardless of where they come from. I believe what the above commenter is saying is that American tourists tend to spend the most, either because America has the most people that can afford to travel, or because they spend the most per person. I don't find that unreasonable.
>Americans, along with the British and the French, seems to be the groups that most people complained about when it comes to groups vacationing in Europe.
What's « Europe » ? Different places have very different tourist demographics. The perception of the British in my part of France (we tend to get wealthy, French-speaking types) is very different to that in Amsterdam or Mallorca for example (where the « lads » got touring).
And I can guaranty you that the most universally hated place of origin for tourists across Europe as a whole is China.
> seems to be the groups that most people complained about
Absolutely not - the group I hear the most complaints about are chinese tourists. Americans mostly have a reputation for being overly friendly to strangers here.
> Please do provide evidence of this. Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.
There are a lot of Americans, they have a lot of money to spend and they like to spend money on travel. Isn't this sort of a self-refuting point?
I suspect people complain about the most common tourists, since they'll be the most visible.
> Most people I've seen being surveyed in Europe around tourists don't care where they come from, as long as they spend money and don't ruin stuff.
Right, but American tourists make up a significant portion of tourist spending. Ergo, if you want tourist money, you want American tourists. Not necessarily more or less than other types of tourists, but that's not important.
Americans are well known for tipping astronomical amounts in relation to most European countries. No doubt due to their crazy social construct of paying for a service and paying the person providing a service separately, which is pretty foreign in most European nations.
If you are ignorant it is not on everyone else to bring you upto speed. There have been several articles on this already. Here is something you should try. Next time, goto a tourist hotspot such as Iceland or Venice and ask the locals there - which country citizens do they like the most. And they will tell you straight.
That might be a Europe specific thing. A lot of the parts of the world I've seen like US tourists because they have a culture of tipping generously, which is not always the case for Europeans.
They don’t care where the tourists come from but they still want a healthy number of tourists to keep the industry going. Americans form a sizeable block of that.
And yes, plenty of people complain about American tourists. Frankly with good reason. But it all comes down to money.
The cost of restarting a full blow epidemic in Europe is much higher than the lost tourism money. I doubt we'll see americans anywhere before they get their situation under control.
As a user I am totally happy with Amazon's service. They shouldn't change their entire setup and make things a lot more expensive for everyone based on these infrequent use cases.
And Amazon customer support is awesome. Your bullet 2 is false.
Where is the Europe's alternate to US's or Chinese companies? Please give examples to support your cases vs. just calling out your biases. It is so unfortunate that Europe has just allowed itself to be so dominated by US' and Chinese (in the case of Huawei) companies.
Wow - such great companies. I am flattered. Please be real. US has FB, Google, MSFT, Apple. China has Tencent, Alibaba, Bytedance. And look at the list you have come up for Europe.
I hope you realize that in your definition of "us" it is just you and a small grp of your European friends. Rest of Europe are busy searching on Google and sharing photos on Instagram.
What a joke of a company. They literally have done nothing in terms of building innovative products in the past 7 yrs since IPO and their monthly active users is static. And then, to distract away from their poor product roadmap, they take controversial political stands - but which don't result in any major impact given mostly bots and celebrities use that platform. And now this.
Keep in mind, some 4k employees work in this jungle. Don't know what they do apart from just tweeting #lovewhereyouwork
I hope you realize that apps like these kill the ecosystem for content creators who are paid based on ads. If you don't like YT ads, pay for the premium version. But suggesting that this app is great is not right. Anyways, I trust if this becomes big, YT will kill them anyways.
YT API requires keys and they know exactly what is going on here and can shut it down in a heartbeat if they want to. This is exactly what happened to apps built on top of Twitter APIs back in the day.
If I want to support a content creator, I do so by donating to them directly, not by allowing a massive and (in my personal opinion) evil company to profit both of my and their backs. Not to mention that both seeing ads and using the official YouTube app is quite unpleasant.
I am very grateful to the developers of NewPipe for providing me with a painless way to experience the content produced by creators that I like, and which also respects my freedoms and my privacy. It is unfortunate that YouTube has an effective monopoly on its market, and that a lot of the content is not available elsewhere -- I'd much rather watch content served by a platform which respects its users, but unfortunately that is not really possible today. So in the meanwhile, I am happy that I don't have to support a nasty company with a nasty business model.
Honest and serious question, if Youtube were to shut down tomorrow, do people think that whatever alternative (or even better, competing alternatives) would have a different model?
I'm curious to know what exactly would you do differently if you were to make a replacement for Youtube.
I believe, based on conversations I've had, that the target audience of NewPipe overlaps with the target audience of solutions such as PeerTube, Mastodon, and other FOSS, privacy-centric alternatives.
PeerTube is not a company, it's an open source implementation of a peer-to-peer video sharing platform. Any person or company that wants to can pick it up and build a commercial platform on top of it. Whether that includes advertising or not is up to them.
Sure, but my point is that this doesn't answer my question. I wasn't asking which technology would the next company use. If Youtube used P2P, it still wouldn't solve many of the issue people have with Youtube.
The assumption is: yes, the content creators who host their videos via P2P solutions like PeerTube would have to rely on external sources such as Patreon, or in-video sponsorships, or as another user pointed, use the built-in donations feature.
> If Youtube used P2P, it still wouldn't solve many of the issue people have with Youtube.
What issues in particular are you talking about and how would P2P fail to resolve them?
You dodged my question, but I could try to answer yours.
Firstly, no one in this comment thread has claimed that PeerTube can solve all of the issues of YouTube. Privacy-oriented folk, and some FOSS advocates see it as a potential solution. Further, I do not personally use PeerTube, but I do use Mastodon and have read about PeerTube in passing.
Another major component of PeerTube aside from the P2P video is the decentralization aspect powered by ActivityPub, which is also used by Mastodon. So not only are the videos decentralized themselves, but so is the service; you can joined one PeerTube instance, and view videos that other instances can also view. If you grow unhappy with the administration of your current instance (maybe they added ads to the page, or maybe they are privacy-invading), you can simply move to another but still have access to the same videos.
In addition, since the videos are P2P, this reduces the server loads on each respective instance and thus lowers the baseline cost of having to host every video uploaded. This could reduce the need for ad revenue to keep the servers running.
It would solve all of them, because people would control their own video. Unless you're defining the "problem" Youtube solves as "Google gets revenue and then shares it back to some degree."
If Pewdiepie switched to Peertube, that would be a problem for Google. But probably not for Felix.
You don't have to look very far. This very thread is about an "ad-free, open-source Android YouTube client". How would P2P change anything about ads being shown?
Yes. Before youtube we just sent each other video files directly, posted them on our own websites, or found them with p2p software, all of which worked fine. Web services are traps promising ease of use, while actually aiming for lock in based on network effects. That so many people think the centralized third party hosting and bundled viewing software are critical to the general functionality just goes to show how insidious they've become.
So much of what you write is true, yet ignores a vital value that the centralised websites do provide: discoverability. Not only does YouTube provide (sub-mediocre) search over all the [mb]illions of videos it hosts, it also is a hub: if I'm looking for a particular video/clip ("Leyla's Beans Advert from Futurama") the hub is the first place I'm going to search. These are really hard problems in usability that we need to solve to make a p2p/fediweb viable and attractive to use.
For sure, and discoverability/aggregation is critical if Free solutions are to gain mindshare while competing with proprietary ones. I was just responding to what would replace Youtube if it went away due to lack of surveillance revenue, pointing out that we've had workable video sharing long before Youtube.
Not who you asked and I’m not up to date when it comes to the world of video streaming but personally I’d prefer a web where content creators would have to pay to distribute their content. Pay as in have some server, domain, bandwidth and whatnot. It’s then up to the creator to decide how/if to monetize their content. Just like the old days.
In addition to vimeo as a sibling commenter mentioned, there are probably at least a dozen services offering video hosting catering to all sizes of customers.
> It’s then up to the creator to decide how/if to monetize their content.
And this is why the creators gravitate to youtube. The real tangible service google provides is an automated ad sales rep. That's not an easy job, roughly 0% of creators would succeed at this on their own.
> Just like the old days.
My guess is that this still exists and never even stopped growing. It's just that youtube grew so much faster that it's easy to miss. Again, because youtube is most creators' only good chance at monetization (not that its their only option for hosting).
We would not have any of the creators we had today. You're gatekeeping not only in the developed world but also in the developing world. A slew of people would be discouraged to even start given that they don't have money for bandwidth, servers, domains. Such a parochial, insulated view.
> If I want to support a content creator, I do so by donating to them directly, not by allowing a massive and (in my personal opinion) evil company to profit both of my and their backs. Not to mention that both seeing ads and using the official YouTube app is quite unpleasant.
There is a big problem in your model. But before that let me address the reason why the current model is better. You are right that the intermediary company is profiting out of your and content creator's backs. That is true. But that is not the complete picture. The company is also paying for hosting the content. In essence, the money that advertisers pay is split in the following way:
1. Content Creator
2. Content hosting
3. Company gets the remaining chunk
Now here is why the current model is better: you can watch all videos on Youtube for free. Discovery is an essential part of how Content Creators are discovered. Now if you put all these Content Creators behind a paywall how are you going to decide if the Creator is worth supporting or not? And even if the Content is good, is s/he going to stick around for long? How many can you support? 10? 100? 1000? There is a limit isn't it? And what happens if the Content Creator stops releasing more content? Eventually subscribers will unsubscribe (stop payments). Then what happens to the Content? Will it remain hosted? Who is going to pay for the cost of hosting content that no one is watching? You won't be able to pay more than X$ amount because you feel that is what the Content Creator is worth to you. An advertiser is different. An advertiser is driven by motive of making profits. If s/he finds that advertising with a particular Content Creator is lucrative s/he spends way more than X$ that you contribute. In essence, the advertiser values the Content Creator more than you will ever be able to. Because you are consuming content from the creator - that is where your link with the creator ends. The ad agencies are making profits from the creator. That is the big difference! You are not motivated to pay more and more to the creator right? Advertisers are! And that will only continue to increase the more quality content the Creator puts out. And even if the Creator decides to take a break, advertisers will still continue to pay for a spot in his/her content as long as people are watching it (which they have discovered because Youtube is free). Would you pay for a Creator if s/he takes a break for 6 months to a year?
Advertising right now monetizes even 10 year old videos. However irrelevant that video might be for today's scenario you still have people watching extremely old videos and advertisements running on it with the Creator getting passive income. So even though a Content Creator might get a lesser chunk of the overall payment in the short term s/he would recover everything and a lot more over the longer term. But if s/he starts taking payment for Content then it will only continue until s/he is posting content. Once that is stopped people will leave the creator in droves. Then that content becomes a deadweight! The platform will never allow content to just sit around stale with no one paying for it. The platform will have no choice but to remove it.
All this is a reasoned argument - but advertising really sucks, it’s either overtly irritating you or covertly brainwashing you with visuals and voices you would never naturally care to see.
Plus, the democratised ad platforms have led to random scummy people running their disgusting scams on forex trading or get rich quick schemes, or tech products that don’t work etc. being able to get in my face while I’m at home relaxing. I’d want to see that problem fixed.
Example: I love Apple products, I’ve watched dozens of hours of Apple product reviews - and I often like what I see, and end up buying. But I still “Skip ad” on Apple ads - because ad content really sucks!
So as a modern civilisation we must find a way to sell products better than the current state of the art in the ad industry.
I agree with all your points. I would prefer more control over what ads are shown rather than blanket ad ban. There is no alternative way for companies to reach customers. Supporting Content Creators is not the same though. It just benefits two people in the equation: Content Creator and Consumer. This is not viable longer term as it depends on the Consumer being able to pay for the content offered by the Creator! And how does the Consumer make money? Through either a job or having his/her own enterprise.
I am assuming you work at a company or have startup of your own. Either ways your company would never get orders without some form of advertising. I know it sucks but that is the only way to reach potential clients. Banning advertising will end up having a major cascading effect where companies that rely on advertising (nearly every company does) would get shut down leading to huge unemployment. I rather ads be regulated than banned completely!
Companies dont have a God given right to exist, nor to intrude upon me with ads, targeted or not, nor are they entitled to my attention. I could not possibly care less what the company wants.
The only effect banning advertising will have is that businesses will have to find another way to attract customers.
As for companies not existing without advertising are you serious? Billboards or some other passive advertising could still be possible,or how about we all opt in to services we want to hear about.
Companies have existed before modern advertising and will exist after.
> Companies dont have a God given right to exist, nor to intrude upon me with ads, targeted or not, nor are they entitled to my attention. I could not possibly care less what the company wants.
Good for you. Use an ad blocker.
> The only effect banning advertising will have is that businesses will have to find another way to attract customers.
There is no better way in the 21st century than online advertising. Nothing even comes close. You want to remove online advertising, you will have to remove 80% of the companies that exist today as well causing huge unemployment.
> As for companies not existing without advertising are you serious? Billboards or some other passive advertising could still be possible,or how about we all opt in to services we want to hear about.
You possibly can't be serious. Do you know how much it costs to run an ad on a billboard? It is the second most expensive form of advertisement after TV ads! Technology has enabled us to reach people in better ways. If you want to revert back to ancient ways of advertising why not go all the way back to stone age where there was no form of advertising and everything was done through barter system?
> Companies have existed before modern advertising and will exist after.
Yes they have. But there were no trillion dollar valued companies pre-modern advertising. That is also a fact! You want to go back to printing ads in newspapers, using billboards and TV/radio ads? Not all companies can afford it. Majority of the advertisers (in terms of numbers and not revenue) are small mom and pop shops and startups. They do not have the capital to invest in these avenues. What you are suggesting is regression not progress!
If we all did, there won't be any small companies or startups. The only ones that will survive will be the big guys who will scoop up small players as much as possible. You will be rendered jobless along with many of your colleagues. Whether you like it or hate it, every single company today depends completely on online advertising for reaching customers/clients. I am not saying it is perfect. But there is no alternative which is as ubiquitous as online advertising! Every other form of advertising shuts out the smaller player from ever being able to compete. You can start online advertising with as little as 10$. Which other medium gives you that ability? For a cash-strapped startup this is a lifeline!
Except, newpipe doesn't use the YouTube API. Similar to youtube-dl, it scrapes the YouTube webpage for all its functionality. The only way I can imagine YouTube can shut this down is by introducing DRM, at which point I hope people will boycott them anyway.
If YouTube's own app wasn't so bad, I wouldn't have searched for an alternative.
Plus like 90% of YouTube channels I'm following mirror their content to their own subscription service (https://watchnebula.com/), and I'm happily paying for that instead of paying for YouTube Premium.
People already use ad blockers on YouTube which have a similar effect, so this isn't a unique "problem" to NewPipe. I also directly financially support creators whose content I enjoy and most large creators these days have advertisements embedded in their videos, as well as asking for support through means other than AdSense.
But more importantly, the main reason I use NewPipe is because it has basic features that the official YouTube app doesn't provide -- playing videos in an overlay and in the background (so you can lock your screen and continue playing the video). You can get this incredibly basic feature if you pay for YouTube Red, which seems to indicate the only reason this feature isn't provided for the free version is spite. And that is the benefit of free software.
> You can get this incredibly basic feature if you pay for YouTube Red, which seems to indicate the only reason this feature isn't provided for the free version is spite.
It's because YouTube's music agreements prohibit it on mobile platforms to prevent it competing with Spotify et al.
Can you cite any content creator who actually stated that they are making significant money from Youtube ads (AdSense)? It seems that all the content creators that I follow keep repeating that they make money trough sponsored videos, organic/direct ads, brand partnerships and even affiliate links, while on the other hand YouTube ads are basically a negligible share of their income. Here’s one example, I can find more if needed https://youtu.be/v8F4jrtZtNE
Quite a passive aggressive reply. I'll donate to creators and support them directly if I wish. Not running ads on my system is my personal decision and suggesting otherwise is not a great argument. Whoever wrote this comment also mentions YT APIs coming into play here, which further takes away any air of authenticity the author had to begin with.
It's not the job of end users to support and maintain the ecosystem. If YouTube wanted to protect their services with authentication, they are very capable of doing so. It's not the end users fault, even a tiny bit.
YouTube is a corporate for-profit walled garden platform. Corporate entities put massive effort into designing complex and subtle policies for these platforms in order to drive first and second order effects that sustain them and extract value from them. It is absolutely not the job of random user to spend any effort figuring out whether their actions are in support of the particular platform policies. In fact I'd go so far as to say that YouTube is monopolistic and unethical and users should do everything they can to subvert it.
I'll grant you the second point but RE: ads, it's my understanding that ad rates are so low on YT that content creators have to resort to product placements in addition to pre-roll ads.
(For the record, I pay for YouTune Premium which directly contributes to content creators on YT).
Virtually every content creator who depends on the content for their livelyhood has figured out some other way to monetize it (Patreon, Floatplane, Twitch, merch, etc). I use NewPipe and a PiHole so I practically never see YouTube ads, but I always make sure I'm paying the creators I watch regularly somehow.
Of course, I don't even use NewPipe for its lack of ads. If Google improved their own app, maybe I'd go back to it.
Bad analogy. WINE doesn't use Microsoft's services to run, and it doesn't cause the application to run in a different manner than intended; NewPipe connects to Google's servers to fetch video, and unlike the way Google intends, it doesn't show the other content in the page (ads, etc).
NewPipe uses Google resources; WINE itself only uses resources on your personal computer.
I would hope we can find a way for apps like this to exist while still paying youtube and content creators. Something like and API subscription for a third party algorithm tool like this that pay youtube part of the subscription.
Yes you can do that in iOS 13 but very few people are tech savvy to know that. With iOS 14, the dialog would be in front of you as you the app. High chance everyone would opt out
