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Re:YouTube as Storage by flux3125 on Saturday February 14, 2026 @08:57AM (#47014569)
The problem is that some content creators have already passed away (and others will pass away by then), and their videos will likely be deleted forever.
Re:YouTube as Storage by shevy-java on Saturday February 14, 2026 @10:16AM (#47015128)
That may be, but I assume for videos that had some viewership base, there may be a consideration. E. g. if a video was viewed 20 million times, it may be worth more than one that was viewed only 5 times.
Re:YouTube as Storage by eMPee584 on Saturday February 14, 2026 @10:58AM (#47015485)
I've stumbled upon very valuable content with very low view numbers - the algorithms spiral around spectacularity and provocation, not quality or insight.
Re:YouTube as Storage by asah on Sunday February 15, 2026 @02:32AM (#47021755)
Then it's on you to share it !
Re:YouTube as Storage by eMPee584 on Monday February 16, 2026 @12:07PM (#47037496)
But to whom, I have no followers and a blog update has been on my TODO list for two decades..
Re:YouTube as Storage by coldtea on Saturday February 14, 2026 @01:47PM (#47017143)
>videos that had some viewership base, there may be a consideration

Those would be the worst of the lot regarding how valuable they are historically for example. Engaging BS content...

Re:YouTube as Storage by zaik on Saturday February 14, 2026 @09:27AM (#47014789)
Hopefully the deletion will not affect videos with thousands of views, even if the account is lost.
Re:YouTube as Storage by loloquwowndueo on Saturday February 14, 2026 @09:43AM (#47014890)
Sweet summer child.
Re:YouTube as Storage by CuriouslyC on Saturday February 14, 2026 @09:52AM (#47014950)
Goog is 100% not going to delete anything that is driving any advertising at all. The videos are also useful for training AI regardless, so I expect the set of stuff that's deleted will be a VERY small subset. The difference with email is that email can be deduplicated, since it's a broadcast medium, while video is already canonical.

I expect rather than deleting stuff, they'll just crank up the compression on storage of videos that are deemed "low value."

Re:YouTube as Storage by dessimus on Saturday February 14, 2026 @09:25AM (#47014777)
Monuments erode away and memories of those enshrined are lost time as well, nothing lasts forever.
Re:YouTube as Storage by bentcorner on Saturday February 14, 2026 @10:35AM (#47015287)

    I met a user from an antique land
    Who said: Two squares of a clip of video
    Stand in at the end of the search. Near them,
    Lossly compressed, a profile with a pfp, whose smile,
    And vacant eyes, and shock of content baiting,
    Tell that its creator well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these unclicked things,
    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
    And on the title these words appear:
    "My name is Ozymandias, Top Youtuber of All Time:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and like and subscribe!"
    No other video beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that empty profile, boundless and bare
    The lone and level page stretch far away.
Re:YouTube as Storage by donkeyboy on Saturday February 14, 2026 @05:18PM (#47018967)
This is amazing.
Re:YouTube as Storage by tempestn on Saturday February 14, 2026 @07:03PM (#47019731)
Would've been, once. These days I assume bentcorner asked their favourite LLM to generate a poem parodying Ozymandias about once-popular youtube videos.
Re:YouTube as Storage by fragmede on Saturday February 14, 2026 @10:26PM (#47020773)
or you could get over it and still enjoy it anyway. Like how Coke Zero tastes.
Re:YouTube as Storage by joquarky on Sunday February 15, 2026 @12:22AM (#47021287)
Brought to you by Carl's Jr
Re:YouTube as Storage by tempestn on Sunday February 15, 2026 @12:44AM (#47021358)
That is a fair point. Especially since, assuming it was AI-generated, it presumably wouldn't have existed at all otherwise.
Re:YouTube as Storage by 1bpp on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:38PM (#47021097)
It doesn't feel like it at all (I'd never expect an LLM to say 'pfp' like that, or 'lossly[sic] compressed', ASCII instead of fancy quotes) but who knows at this point.

I may have gotten incredibly neurotic about online text since 2022.

Re:YouTube as Storage by bentcorner on Sunday February 15, 2026 @10:23AM (#47024401)
Nope, I hand wrote this.

I actually considered using an LLM but in my experience they "warp" the content too much for anything like this. The effort required to get them to retain what I would consider something to my taste would take longer than just writing the poem myself. (Although tbf it's been awhile since I've asked a LLM to do parody work, so I could be wrong)

Re:YouTube as Storage by tempestn on Monday February 16, 2026 @12:02AM (#47031085)
Ah, well, kudos then!
Re:YouTube as Storage by spriggancg on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:27AM (#47015784)
let's see what will last longer over the ages : engraved stone or google?
Re:YouTube as Storage by georgefrowny on Saturday February 14, 2026 @04:15PM (#47018460)
Depends on the pH, probably.
Re:YouTube as Storage by herodoturtle on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:04AM (#47015537)
Like tears in rain <3
Re:YouTube as Storage by ralusek on Saturday February 14, 2026 @02:21PM (#47017429)
mono no aware