Just deleted my Gmail account with no remorse or hesitation felt. Watch out YouTube, you’re gonna be next…

@pete what’s your plan for YouTube? Are you going to cut it out cold turkey, use it in the browser, or something else?

@pimoore baller. I can’t do it. I should. But can’t.

I did try to get a new YouTube account with a masked email so I can watch decoupled from my account profile. Google now requires a phone number to ‘verify’ an account. Maybe I’ll just have to bookmark channels old school style.

@mike Subscribing to those channels I want to follow via RSS, which themselves are fewer now. Haven’t figured out an option if I want to watch on AppleTV, but I’m not bothered too much by that as I mostly watch on my iPad. The official app is an ad infested atrocity anyway.

I think you had something you were doing to watch on AppleTV?

@lukemperez I’m not surprised Google did that, they want you tied into their system with an identifiable link at all costs.

@ci I’m with FastMail right now and very happy with them. If I end up evaluating dropping it for iCloud it will only be from a cost perspective, as it’s an excellent service otherwise.

@pete I was using an RSS app on Apple TV, which let me watch the videos from channels I was following, but I’ve since moved to following channels as podcasts through Listenbox: https://listenbox.app

I still casually browse YouTube regularly, though, which I would prefer to stop. It’s been a tough habit to break.

@pimoore this is a problem if you want to support your content creators - you cannot subscribe to them without logging in (and as @lukemperez has said, Google now asks for phone number). In my case, I use yt-dlp to download and watch it on Plex. I have RSS feed of the creators that I monitor, too (NetNewsWire FTW).

@mike this is a good idea - what AppleTV RSS app do you recommend?

@pimoore I read some years ago that’s why a lot of apps moved to a phone number to start. You text yourself a link, sign up, boom. It’s faster. That’s true. But a phone number is akin to a social security number in that it’s unique and makes matching accounts easier too.

@rom that’s a great use of NNW.

@mike I recall you mentioning Listenbox before. What do you do for those that require video to get the context?

@rom NNW automatically picks up and formats the feed URL for YouTube, it’s flawless.

@pete Listenbox can generate video and audio feeds, so I just always subscribe to the video feed. Pocket Casts supports video podcasts and can play just the audio in the background if I want to just listen.

@pimoore just found out I can add YouTube subscriptions in Inoreader too. Nice!

@mike That's almost better than using RSS, though at this point I suppose we're splitting hairs. :)

@lukemperez @pimoore Also, in developing countries, people are more likely to have a phone number but not an email ID. But yeah, phone numbers are often linked to your real identity which Google would love to know

@rom Creators ask you to subscribe to their channels, because they know that subscribers get served more of their videos by the algorithm. If you really want to support a creator, the best thing you can do is spend a lot of time watching their videos, which is the only metric they and YouTube care about.

@pimoore I keep mine mainly for Google Maps stuff. YouTube is a plus, but I could just bookmark the channels I watch.

@rom It doesn’t matter where you watch them.

@pcora I pulled those subs I still wanted into RSS before deleting the account. I’m going to try @mdrockwell ’s suggestion of using Listenbox or Pocket Casts and see which method I end up preferring.

@pimoore oo, interesting. May I ask what you'll be using for email, instead? :)

@jasraj I’m currently with FastMail, and will evaluate when my sub is close to renewal whether to ditch it and switch my domain to iCloud. It would be a purely financial decision most likely, as I enjoy FM otherwise.

@pimoore 🙂👍

@jeroensangers nice! :)