Ask HN: Why does YouTube not offer a download button?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042005

by zeptomu • 9 years ago

9 18 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Obviously there are many ways to do it (third party web services, plugins, etc.), but I guess the outcome is a bigger attack vector for users that download questionable stuff to do it anyway.

thewavelength• 9 years ago

Ads, most probably.

Yaa101• 9 years ago

And licenses, and lawsuits, and headaches and...

krapp2• 9 years ago

Youtube is constantly on the knife-edge of being sued en masse by large media owners, as they were by Viacom. It's why their copyright strike system seems "broken," when it's really operating as intended, giving copyright holders arbitrary power to remove content they feel is infringing (without regards to fair use) because anything less would probably lead to those companies to simply prefer to sue Youtube into oblivion.

Technically speaking, of course Youtube could have a download button, but if they did, as far as the Viacoms of the world are concerned, they're just enabling piracy, and taking control away from content owners.

bryanrasmussen• 9 years ago

YouTube might be owned by someone that could keep them from being sued to oblivion though.

krapp2• 9 years ago

But it worth the money for Google to alienate media companies and potentially lose revenue from licensed content to give non-paying[0] users a slightly more convenient way to do something they could already do?

[0] As mentioned elsewhere, Youtube Red subscribers get the option to download content for 30 days.

tantalor• 9 years ago

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en

Download videos and playlists to watch offline for up to 30 days when you aren’t connected to the internet.

DrScump• 9 years ago

... for Red (paying) members only.

ralmeida2• 9 years ago

Aside from what is already mentioned in other posts, there would be logistic concerns to enable downloading in a large scale.

By assuming the content will be watched by a human, they can throttle buffering to transfer only what's needed for human consumption, thus spreading out the network load.

stouset• 9 years ago

That's much more easily done client-side. And having downloaded videos from them at full speed, this appears to be how it's implemented as well.

ralmeida2• 9 years ago

The throttling is done client-side, yes. But it's a numbers game - if you enable "official" direct unthrottled downloading, this would bypass the client throttling, effectively increasing network requirements.

Of course, this is just a side point - the strongest reason is likely to be either that YT has a strong incentive to keep users in the site/apps for ad display and engagement (related videos, etc), or that they are unable to do so due to some sort of business deal.

My opinion is that - even if they're not bound by any deal that would forbid them to do so - they would not officially support (much less encourage at any level) direct downloading, because the ads/engagement reason alone is strong enough.

jeabo• 9 years ago

If someone downloads a video, they won't go back to YouTube to re watch it, thus not seeing more ads.

quickthrower2• 9 years ago

Because you wouldn't need to visit the site, view ads, etc.

michalpt• 9 years ago

As others said, there would be no need to go back to Youtube.

wingerlang• 9 years ago

They allow download of videos in their apps in selected countries. I don't think you can share the actual files though. But the feature is great.

grover_hartmann• 9 years ago

Just use youtube-dl, mpv even integrates with it nicely.

hsuresh• 9 years ago

It does, in countries that have poor internet connections.I did have the option to download videos, when in India.

borplk• 9 years ago

They want to monetise your eye balls.

Digory• 9 years ago

Because musicians still get paid by the sale or play (like radio).

It was far cheaper to treat streaming like radio, so YouTube scans uploads for music and pays money to musicians for each play.

If youtube encouraged downloading, there would be no easy way to count the number of plays of music or pay musicians, which would lead to lawsuits galore.

Ask HN: Why does YouTube not offer a download button?

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