I saw a person post a really good comment in regards to this a few days ago. They said they don’t want their kids going on YouTube. But there are videos they want to watch on YouTube. So they download the videos and put them on their media server. So the kids have their own playlist of videos to watch.

YT videos get taken down for any reason these days - fake copyright claims, hacking or just the creator getting fed up with YT’s policies. Entire channels vanish with no warning. Valuable videos that generate income suddenly become private only. It is not an open platform, it’s a monetised platform first and foremost.

If you have these videos under your control, then if they’re no longer watchable online, you still have them. That’s exactly what TA is for and does a superb job of. Basically every YT video I watch that I think is useful, I hit the Save button. Some of them are indeed no longer available. I have entire channels downloading so if the creator does close up shop, at least I’ve got their latest.

Obviously you need a lot of storage space - mine is over 5TB and growing. But it’s worth it.

Also, it avoids the YT before, mid and after ads.

Niche reason: I’m in China and YouTube is blocked. My server has VPN access, but my Kodi system on my TVs doesn’t.

That said, I hadn’t heard of this project, but I’ll probably install it now instead of manually using yt-dlp.

Why self host? So you can have an independent instance that can’t be paywalled, deleted, or modified by a third party company like Google…

Google knows exactly what you’re watching and when you’re watching it. Not so much if you just archive everything.

Hi, i use tubearchivist a lot. My usecases:

- I follow several video essasist types whose content has been removed for various reasons- reviews of media Claimed, hit with ‘inappropriate content’ (spuriously, usually). In two cases, there are creators who removed a lot of their older content for reasons that I completely understand, but also want to be able to reference because they made good points.

-Another creator i follow had their channel hacked, all content replaced with bitcoinshilling. The older videos were eventually restored, but there were a couple days where the content was completely unavailible, and the restoration was not exactly guarenteed.

-i use youtube for background noise a lot. This might be one of the reasons i rewatch a lot of essays and reviews or music videos. While yes, i can use regular youtube for this, tracking, ads, etc are an issue (yes, adblockers exist, but youtube is escalating the war with them). It’s easier to just pull up and watch on my own server instead.

Didbt set it up rn, but will tomorrow. I think its perfect if u got childs. So you can define what they can see.

Hmmm. My docker container for tubearchivist has suddenly stopped working. Sad.

Years ago there was this funny clip of Ben Affleck doing various different Boston accents on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Super funny and became one of those clips that I would seek out a few times a year to rewatch and have a laugh.

It got pulled for for copyright or something which was weird because its really like a 3 minute clip. In any event its gone, forever. Cant find it anywhere.

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Tubearchivist allows us to grab things we plan on rewatching over and over.

What if that content isn’t there tomorrow?

Imagine your favorite youtuber decide to just delete their channel… how would you re-watch their content or watch the content you never watched originally…

Essentially it’s the same use case as DVD’s and Blurays… they exist so you can watch the content when you want to regardless of whether they are still available on the original platform.

I just use it to be prepared in case youtube wins the ongoing adblocking war.

I wonder if this can be used to bypass Ads? I don’t mind 1 or 2 but it shows up like every 2 mins

Content disappearing is a big reason, but it’s also great for channels that post b-roll or green screen videos/effects/etc if you like video editing.

Sure, you can grab them manually, or you can just have your folders of source materials available at the speeds of your local network, already stacked up and ready to work with.

Also, as someone in the infosec industry, a lot of conference talks and guides and useful videos get blown away whenever YouTube goes on a “hacking tutorial purge”. This has already killed multiple channels full of useful guides.

Plus, YouTube has reencoded old videos and won’t let you access the originals pre automated upscaling. YT is not a backup or an archival site. So, if that’s something you want, you have to DIY it.

YouTube is absolute garbage at deciding if something was “watched” or not. Sure, you can watch a playlist, but if you want to watch content in order, or if a YouTuber has a bunch of content and you want to watch all of it, often the only option is to download it and track it yourself.

That, and I’m a big fan of archiving important data. If YouTube removes a channel, or it gets hacked, or the YouTuber deletes their own content, it’s just gone. I might not feel like archiving someone’s game stream or a Minecraft tutorial, but an entertaining video I can see myself watching again? Yep, that gets downloaded.

Finally, I’m a bit of a completionist. Many TV shows have special clips they only show on YouTube, or that eventually make it to YouTube, things that don’t make it to DVDs, that nonetheless are part of the TV show; by downloading those clips, I can add it to the media I already own.