With Reddit shutting down its API setting a precedent in the corporate tech world (and Reddit was a major outlier in that a ton of their users are technical minded and support third party clients, YouTube does not have that kind of userbase and will not get backlash for it), Twitter doing whatever the fuck they’re doing, and Google already hellbent on destroying ad blockers, the days of Newpipe, Invidious, and Freetube are numbered. Wouldn’t be surprised if they implement Netflix level DRM tomorrow that makes alt clients impossible. I say savour your alt clients while you can guys, you won’t be able to soon.
I’m worried about a snowball effect too, but unlike reddit I don’t think enough people use 3rd party YouTube apps to justify denying api access
But at the same time, not enough people use 3rd party YouTube apps to cause any significant backlash if they deny api access
If it were a moral company run by humans the solution is just let them be since it’s not a big revenue loss and people are still using the service. But since it’s run by what I can only assume are lizard people they’ll use that justification to shut it down