Youtube is so "premium" now, you need a premium subscription...
...to download your OWN VIDEOS!
I mean wow. In 2025 Alphabet Inc still takes the cake for the most audacious FU in customer service conduct on the internet. And No, I donot want to know what the "competition" has been up to. It's all so dark age conduct man ahahaha.
I knew I should have started the "youtube's demise" blog series about 7 years ago when they changed the layout of all buttons, shrunk the upvote-to-downvote bars and started algorythmically messing with the comments. It's like they have engineers who scrupelously scheme how to make everything more shitty for everyone, and they succeed, gotta give 'em THAT!
They deserve no more than 6 minutes of my life, rendering the most shabby poor quality jpg I can in a software I haven't even opened before, without losing the message entirely!
But where was I?
Oh yes, the downloading your own stuff!
So, I want to back up my youtube channel to the promising blurt.media and notice I don't have my 7 year old uploads saved anywhere. BAD IDEA! I tried 4k video downloader - which I used to like a lot - but it fails. I did buy licenses from them but they have now discontinued THAT PROGRAM and instead have a new super duper NEW version, the "4K Video Downloader PLUS".
Give me a fucking break!
I try scrubbing my own videos off of youtube with shady online services, but only one worked and it deleted the entire audio track.
So, this morning I had the wonderful cosmic insight: "Remember when you could actually REDOWNLOAD what you once uploaded?" THAT'S RIGHT! That used to be a youtube feature. I distinctly remember!
Logged in after an hour of juggling google passwords and.... Nope. You CANNOT do that anymore. You need to PAY for a premium subscription to download your own stuff. You know, the stuff you originally UPLOADED to youtube.
Guess that's one way of monetizing free video file storage online.
But the real FU is: It doesn't even offer downloading in 1080p, but merely in 720p. What a joke ahahah.
Anything constructive to add??
Glad you asked! The final insight today led to success! On the 4k video downloader website they also offer an Android version, and THAT s somehow still being updated despite being free (for the time being, lol). And it worked. Need to transfer the vid from the phone to the computer, but at least I now have it in 1080p WITH sound before youtube headquarters and all its servers sink into a giant hell-hole with all my precious work!
so HERE is the semi-embarrassing part for the journalist in me! AFTER POSTING THIS, I find out I have to go into the CREATOR SECTION thingie... and THERE I can download my video.
So even though I am logged in on my own channel, downloading my video like it was someone else's is not recognized by youtube as me downloading my own video. So they succeeded again in making me jump through the hoop. But I have to be fair and now classify this post as involuntary clickbait with false badmouthing of one of the biggest companies on Earth... too bad! ;)
But now I also found out: The "download" is much smaller than it should be. Looks like it is capped at 720p, which is just an affront for a visual artwork video. I uploaded 1080p, where is it? They won't let me have it back. So the post remains half valid AT LEAST!