If I say this [the policy] is latently transphobic I think most people reading this will not understand what I'm talking about but this [the policy] is latently transphobic https://campaign.openworlds.info/@nedhamson/110380006752251602
So when Google announced yesterday they were going to start deleting old shit pretty much everyone's reaction was "um is YouTube fucked?". In apparent reaction to that reaction Google has now announced YouTube, specifically, will be exempt. However that still leaves everything else. And as Ars points out the spokesperson statement is "very vague and runs contrary to what all of Google's current documentation says". https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/05/googles-new-inactive-account-policy-wont-delete-years-of-youtube-videos/
Personally, I'm still upset that when Google Video shut down the Internet's only sensibly collected Martin Arnold archive was deleted. Occasionally I pull up a European DVD sales site and longingly look at a page for the 40-euro-plus-40-euro-shipping Cineseizure DVD but I have not pulled the trigger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnDagpv4kUk
Anyway in conclusion the company that turns on a dime day-to-day about whether they are going to be deleting your data or not can be trusted with your important personal records
Update: Okay holy shit so the thing that made *this* unavailable was the DMCA rather than Google per se but, although Cineseizure remains elusive, I just discovered Amazon has 8 copies of the Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker DVD with all her early stuff including the bizarre video with the two women writhing in chairs in an office lobby to Steve Reich's "Come Out", and it's "only" $5 shipping to Canada so I just hopped the fuck on that. Hopefully Handbrake can decode region 2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BXT0WW
I just assumed I was eventually gonna have to pay like a hundred bucks for that one
Nothing in the Internet is eternal; most of things don't last more than a decade.
I imagine Youtube will keep all its content; most of the old videos are low res anyway. But there is no guarantee; HBO Max deletes its own classic content all the time, alleging most of people don't see it anyway. Youtube has a much better cloud infrastructure, and I imagine the cost is much lower; but who knows.
@jgg @mcc The juxtaposition of these posts is amazing. Half a century ago, television was ephemeral and we lost so much good (or at least period) media to studios overwriting the reels after the episode aired, or just not recording things to begin with. For decades after, we went to great lengths to archive and recover media, with the goal of saving the culture of the day for future historians. Now, the networks are once again throwing out content to free their tapes^Wdiscs.