What makes it not Foss? The source code is available and you can build it yourself if you want to

Grayjay is shit. I couldn’t use it. It’s just a horrible app. Good idea, but horrible app.

YouTube legal wants Futo to release apis and user data to them as they believe Grayjay is violating their terms.

Grayjay doesn’t store user data nor is it using their APIs so the terms don’t apply

Futo will not be removing Grayjay and won’t be complying with a request that cannot be fulfilled.

Other details:

• YouTube Premium’s download feature still requires an Internet connection to access content downloaded.

• Louis makes the point of being tired of paying for products and services that end up giving you less and less, which is part of the reason why Grayjay was created

• Content creators shouldn’t fear of being banned by an temperamental AI that could cripple their livelihood without an explanation which Grayjay attempts to solve as viewers can still access their content on Rumble, Twitch and other platforms if they get banned on Youtube.

Good on Louis for sticking to his guns.

TL;DW: Doesn’t pet the goddamn cat. I couldn’t tell what else he might have been saying.

YouTube sent him a cease and desist for an app he is creating/distributing claiming that the app is using YouTubes API in an app but apparently the app doesn’t use the API. So he basically replied “No, we aren’t using that data, check our open-source code” and that he has no plans on stopping

The old „but if we dont pay them all our money they might stahp!“

They wont.

Do you know how I know? Because youtube (google) is a predatory monopolist and they will always find ways to take as much as they can.

I‘m not rossmans biggest fan but he seems to have understood that its time to take off the kiddie gloves. I blocked everything and anything resembling youtube making money off me, I dont watch youtube content if I can help it and I dont upload anymore. I do upload and watch regularly in the fediverse and I‘m telling everyone to do the same.

I do my duty as a citizen of this planet so that we hopefully wont end up in some cyberpunk-like hellscape at some point. I encourage you to help.

his “solution” is some kind it proprietary video player that just plays Youtube videos.

It’s not proprietary, it’s source-available, and it plays a lot more than YouTube videos - in addition to YT, I use it to watch Nebula, Twitch, Odysee, and even Peertube on rare occasions. There are other plugins (that I don’t use) for BiliBili, Rumble, Patreon, Kick, and Soundcloud, and the way its plugin system works, there’s potential for many other paid subscription-based streaming services to be viewable through Grayjay. That is its real strength. If a creator uploads to a bunch of platforms, users can follow them on the platform they prefer, and get all their updates from one feed in one app, with added functionality that the official apps or sites simply might not have.

This is FUTO’s way of trying to make web video platforms more competitive, by creating an app that can interface with content from all of them and has all the popular features even if the sites themselves don’t. Grayjay has playlists, likes, dislikes, background playback, picture-in-picture, local history, the ability to block certain creators from the home feed, and the ability to hide individual videos from your feed. Furthermore, creators get a lot of ways they can monetize their content in Grayjay, like putting their merch store under the description of their videos, donation buttons, links to their Patreon or other subscription services, or general promotions, that would appear under all of their videos. Like… there are a lot of features here that really improve the experience with otherwise lackluster competitors. This tilts the market a tiny bit away from the established dominant players, and every new Grayjay user tilts it a little bit more.

Finally, it’s worth emphasizing that this is not Louis Rossmann’s personal pet project. His promotion of Grayjay, while it does align with his personal values, is paid work for a literal tech billionaire, Eron Wolf, who created and runs the FUTO organization. Neither of them need you to “take Louis Rossmann seriously.” They only want you to consider if the apps the company makes suit your needs and values.

The app will also link all platforms. If you subscribe to Louis for example you will also get his videos on Odysee, Rumble and whatever else he has. That’s what this string in his channel info does: 4Y1IC54hpe60aqaLCgjn7zlcSMH/IPxh5/cLnX6RKp0=

So if Youtube finally bans him, nothing will change for Grayjay users.

That’s the real point of Grayjay I think. It aggregates Youtube, Twitch and all the other stuff. Nice side effect is getting rid of all the ads and providing its own spam free, uncensored comment section.

This is a very strange take. Youtube is becoming shit all by itself, it doesn’t need help. And it’s amazing that you value Rossman so highly, one man who made Google do something

The entire point of grayjay is that its not only a YouTube client, its also a peertube and nebula client, so its easier to use the smaller services

Cause that would cost them money.

Because Grayjay allows users to follow others across multiple platforms such as Rumble, Odyssey and Twitch. So if they get banned off YouTube, they will still be able to access content on other platforms.

And with Grayjay, you can download these videos and access them without needing to connect to the internet which is required for YouTube Premium despite the content being downloaded on the YouTube app.

I’m not quite following what is your confusion when he outlined the problem Grayjay is trying to solve.

I’ll take one pdf of this video please.

How do you power your drives on a cross country drive? How do they handle the bumps and the vibrations?

Also, it’s rougly the same as why it’s easier to pay for streaming services instead of downloading your media or obtaining a physical copy, and managing that.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t use neither spofity, netflix, or anything like that, but downloading the media and transferring it to your mobile device is often not that easy, and always takes time, especially the first few times while you’re getting used to it. And then also don’t forget that a lot don’t even have real computers, just a phone, and good luck to connect a hard drive to that