It seems YT started another attempt at blocking alternative clients. They changed something in their API and both SmartTube and Tubular (NewPipe fork) are completely broken. Apparently it started happening this past week, but we personally just felt it today.
Edit: SmartTube already has an update but still not working for 4K videos it seems. Tubular still not working but it might be due to the upstream (NewPipe) is still working on a fix.
If you pass the street musician, and you throw quarter into their hat. There’s no third party. Nobody is validating the customer, nobody is validating the performer. The transaction is not inspectable. It is a pure transfer supporting the artist
That’s the purest form of money we have as humans
A lot of these online systems, want to make things convenient, but still inject third party opinions into the transactions. Oh this person is sanctioned, this money is for something we don’t approve of, this person’s been canceled, we can’t validate who the performer is. This performer is from Gaza, can’t give them money. That’s a lot of interference between the performer and the audience.
For all of the faults that digital cash have, and there are many, being the most democratic means for an audience to support our performer is one of its amazing highlights. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/cryptocurrency/
Dogmatic rejection of any technology, should always be followed with a thorough introspection of the trade-offs. If people want to say direct money is bad, they need to be thoughtful about it.