They are allowed to exist by YouTube, provided they don't affect Google in a negative way.
There are constant discussions in the tech community about how we keep the internet free and usable by all. We (developers) should be leading by example and creating services that don't rely on permission from large corporations to operate. Especially when those services are about distributing knowledge.
Claim 1: Google will shut down video aggregation and hosting sites
Counterclaim 1: But what about x, y and z that exist parallel to Youtube?
Claim 2: Those are allowed to exist by Google.
I dont disagree with your overarching point, it just seem like your arguing it in a flawed manner without any real evidence of your claim occurring or explaining why there are other sites that provide similar functionality without being affected by Google?
>We (developers) should be leading by example and creating services that don't rely on permission from large corporations to operate.
Great so that is what the original poster is doing? And your already claiming that Google is going to shut this down. Seems kinda alarmist.
It is alarmist for sure, we absolutely should be alarmed at how little control over content end users have.
YouTube specific examples are hard to come by, but here's something related to how they control their API from wikipedia: "YouTube also does not allow videos to run whilst the Android device is sleeping. This can be seen as an annoyance for some users. Particularly if the user is trying to use YouTube as a replacement music player.[13]"
When you look at the reference for that quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoVol6ujHk You get "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated."
Presumably that original use case was outside of their terms, but why? It's not to help users, it's because it infringes on Google Music and their Ad Partners will not be happy if people are listening to ads instead of watching them. If google could get away with monitoring your phone to check you're watching the ads they put up, I'm sure they would because they could charge 3x the price for them.
If we look at other similar companies that have offered APIs for developers to use in the past we actually do find lots of examples of services that already existing being shut down:
So yes, these apps are only allowed to exist while Google allows it, if there's a squeeze at google they will get shut down. There is no reason not to use different tech given the options we have available today if we want to protect content and respect our users.
Instead, why not scrape all the videos (those with the right licenses of course) and put them on PeerTube? https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube