It’s not like proof of work at all. It’s just a challenge and response; youtube includes a random number in the webpage for each video, and expects to see a request parameter with a particular value calculated from that random number when you request the video. If you don’t do the arithmetic it throttles you to 50kb/s.

Since the calculation of the response is done in JS, and they occasionally change the formula, some download programs are moving towards running the JS rather than trying to keep up with the changes.

It’s really just bullshit to make people’s lives harder.

Next step will probably be moving the calculation to webassembly or requiring the script to fetch the result via websocket or webrtc...

.. pirate determination is a thing to behold, as is crazed-repetitive digital grabs.. Its not a fair or accurate characterization to dismiss it as "making people's lives harder" .. it is remarkable that the Debian distros now include ytdl; lets do what is reasonable to make it continue

You can’t exactly pirate a youtube video, since they’re all publicly available.

That's not really how piracy works. I say this as an advocate of it.

YouTube PM: We need to stop youtube-dl.

Engineers: make half arsed attempt.