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Off topic but related… With so many ways to get around downloading videos/media like this for example, I will never understand why companies don’t just allow videos to be saved like a picture. Add a simple download button to make it obvious and simple for users to download a video. For example, Tiktok has this, and just adds their watermark to the downloaded video.

It’s just a false sense of security to users when they think people “can’t” download their content. Even apps like Snapchat that are marketed to be “save proof” are def not. I think it’s a betrayal to the user for any company to pretend a user’s media is “safe” from downloads/screenshots/etc.




Pretty obvious isn’t it? If you download the video from youtube/twitter/whatever and you watch it from your hard drive next time, they can’t serve you an ad.


They want to spy on what you are doing when browsing their website, giving you a video without hoops to jump through stops them from doing that.

They don't really care if you have a good time or if you really watch the video, it's just a bait.


If they used standard HTML video elements it would be just as easy, but everyone wants to use their own non-standard players.


Actually most use the HTML video element but use JS to download blobs and add them as src, and/or bury the elements like this:

https://imgur.com/C8AP7y0 (random video I found on threads as an example)

Just to break native download functionality and/or add own silly controls on top.


It keeps 95% of people from downloading it.




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