Comment by throwaway0a5e
4 years ago
>Is it really abuse if the videos are viewable / playable? Presumably the ToS either already forbids covert channel encoding or soon will.
If creators start encoding their source and material into their content Google would probably be fine with that because it gives them data but also gives them context for that data.
Edit: I meant like "director's commentary" and "notes about production" type stuff like you used to see added to DVDs back in the day. Not "using youtube as my personal file storage". Why is this such an unpopular opinion?
> If creators start encoding their source material into their files Google would probably be fine with that
it'd depends, as I don't think people using YT to store files would watch a lot of adds
If creators use it like the appendix in a book I can see people watching ads on their way to it.
> If creators start encoding their source material into their files Google would probably be fine with that
Not true at all, lol. Google has a paid file storage solution. YouTube is for streaming video and that's the activity they expect on that platform. I couldn't imagine any service designed for one format would "probably be fine" with users encoding other files inside of that format.
I think the parent comment is limiting themselves to the embedding of metadata specific to the containing file. It would be like adding a single frame, but would potentially give useful information to Google. In those limited circumstances I think the parent is correct.