←back to thread

YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

(www.cnbc.com)
209 points pseudolus | 3 comments | 13 Dec 25 12:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
mikeodds ◴[13 Dec 25 13:19 UTC] No.46254325[source]▶
I don’t think this idea is that controversial? Most (?) people would agree watching YouTube 16 hrs a day is bad, but agree there is also a benefit to some of the content available.
replies(1): >>46254626 #
1. dredmorbius ◴[13 Dec 25 14:12 UTC] No.46254626[source]▶
It's almost as if ... being able to download specific content for offline viewing ... might be a far preferable option in terms of selection, control, and not getting sucked into an algorithmic wormhole.
replies(1): >>46264216 #
2. Nasrudith ◴[14 Dec 25 16:28 UTC] No.46264216[source]▶
Or perhaps that algorithms are just a scapegoat for the ignorant and superstitious and yet another example of the oh so trendy serf mentality that takes no responsibility for their own life and its progreession.
replies(1): >>46302569 #
3. dredmorbius ◴[17 Dec 25 17:27 UTC] No.46302569[source]▶
1. Being able to specifically curate and manage content, by downloading it, is precisely the user-centric self-sovereignty which counters that serf mentality. And Google (and numerous other algorithmically-driven services) explicitly target and disable such tools where and when they can. See the ongoing war against yt-dlp, extensively discussed on HN: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=yt%2Ddlp>. Not to mention the earlier youtube-dl: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.

Another was mps-youtube, a CLI client which was hands-down the best interface YouTube ever had. Search (videos, channels), list-creation, download, and playback preferences (audio-only, which I largely prefer, full video, specified video resolution and/or audio quality, etc.), all locally managed without any obligation for a YouTube account. Of course Google killed it by way of its API key. See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36149183> and generally <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.

2. Just how much autonomy, wisdom, and ability to counter teams of highly-paid and highly-qualified attention engineers do you expect children and infants to possess? Or even their harried and distracted parents?

Arguments for self-restraint against commercial addiction merchants have played poorly for well over 150 years, going back to the unregulated hawking of morphine- and cocaine-laced products, amongst others.