[collab/coop?] Dear fellow developers of parallel projects (youtube.com, <video> . . .)

[ImprovedTube]

Happy 2024! I'm an extension for YouTube since 2012, with ~550000 users [400KB of features +155KB for switches & 110KB UI] - This can be repetitive to maintain, as of YouTube changes. Several alternatives stopped along the way & i can't keep up every time either. In fact many relevant /demanded extensions & 'JS- & DOM-reverse-engineering' face the dilemma of not keeping up with updates and generations of users giving up. ( Potentially unnoticed in the modest user-counts while new users join.)

• There seem to be very few developers in the world, who are actively caring about extensions for www.youtube.com and HTML5 <video> & many of them might feel introverted.
  • But together /combined..., we have several million users (+ even great funding.) - As a team we could be so much better. ( - Less redundant code, used x times more often & x times more useful (+optimized to consume less electricity.) Should(n't) the sum of us care about that? (if YouTube has billions of users)
    • There could be a combined bug tracker & a few employees to look for the most important ones 24/7, etc...
    • And there is a lot more and a lot better to do, that nobody started yet:
      Check our /readme#ROADMAP ( + or do you like these?) : /w3c/webextensions/issues/506 @cyfung1031 & visions: /code-charity/Bulk-Contributor/, /bookmarklets-hub, /CollectiveTweaks, /Manifest-v3, ...

Inspiring examples:

• HTML5 Video Playing Tools[40kb] by @xinggsf & HTML5 video player enhanced script[278kb] by @xxxily are Top5 greasyfork scripts with over a million downloads. - Should we have integrated your work to make our users happier? (the 1st comes under MIT license)

• SPOI Options [950kb]: only ~8000 Users(, who have to pay ~$2/month! - So even 30% of this would be enough for 3 full-time developers and to be the Nr.1 YouTube.com extension by far. It sais the developer is donating 100% though!(!)
  

• https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js by @LuanRT bravely documents Youtube's "InnerTube"

  ..."now we can add smart /data features more easily. - Ideas / wishes?)
  - [ ] And Probably we should also already work together with https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js? ( if Sisyphos had twins, would they team or all do the same thing alone in different countries? )" (v4.443)

• Over 1000 UserScripts for YouTube were update since 2022 on greasyfork. Most of which have too few users / visibility

  • Nova by @raingart is combining ~77 of these scripts. This Project is going on since 5 years. Shouldn't it have more than ~10000 users?

• UnHook by @alisonchou made it to ~700000 users with < 20kb code of features. (and the name rhymes on YouTube🎈, does it?)

---

TYSM, all the best to you & many smiles!

(@code-charity/contributors

@NabokD @doma-itachi @Vulpelo @omnidevZero @Dosx001 @SevenTV @DeveloperMDCM @songiy @ThomasTavernier @CCCodes @Wykerd @maple3142 @0belous @zerodytrash @Yaw-Dev @cvzi @yukiscoffee @linkwanggo @zoosewu @matter-it-does @akiirui @sapondanaisriwan @bowencool @YelloNolo @SamantazFox @syeopite @Stypox @TobiGr @nokeya @MarcGuiselin @TeamNewPipe @Invidious ( Sorry if someone of the later ones doesn't immediately feel related enough! - just acknowledging your work) )

[adamlui]

I don't understand what do you want @ImprovedTube

[ImprovedTube]

hi @adamlui :) TLTR: working together efficiently maybe? Congratulations for reaching '22,294 contributions in the last year'!!

[MarcGuiselin]

You'd like some collaboration between different developers, but arn't exactly very clear on what that would look like. You have to elaborate more on the vision you have in mind.

A shared lib perhaps? Maybe merging several projects into one? Maybe you'd like some extensions to be transfered and owned by this github org you've created. I doubt these solutions will work for everyone.

Every extension comes with its own maintenance burden (mine long having been abandoned), and unless you can come up with a very tailored solution that somehow accommodates the needs of all the developers you can get on board, I'm not sure how realistic this is.

[talks2much]

@ImprovedTube Want to put my opinion on the current state of the extension ecosystem itself. I threw away all ideas after #976 I think if you want to scale it you also have modernize it in scalable ways (someone experienced can do that pretty sure) with things like TS & eslint: modular, typed, just a few-test-covered codebase can make DX more pleasent and it will bring more attention from experienced devs IMO. Don't need to change everything, that can be a partially integrated solution, codebase isn't that flexible (which is required due to frequent yt changes). Overall can say the extension has a few stability & perf issues, but that is completely different thing (but would be much easier to solve with what I said above).

Also you really really need a decent landing IMO (need at least hero image or something that pm2 website has). Anyway TY for everything you have done so far.

[ImprovedTube]

hi! @MarcGuiselin nice to hear from you! Yet your extension is still unique/relevant, nobody filled the void yet. Yes, all mentioned projects could share a lot of code. "Every extension comes with its own maintenance burden" Not necessarily where they intersect. When YouTube updates some CSS class name, ID or function name, some developer might care first (or cared to use it themselves). So their scripts might jump from 50 users to 3000 users for once and never be updated again. - While realistically the developers for many users don't always care or just can't keep up. So if you sum up the whole, you might see 100 developers in the world all update that same class name manually within 1 year, taking an average of 3 month. (=Too much. Insane waste of time chasing around a million users who eventually give up & are replaced by a new generation of users.) (While next to teamwork, some updates could be automated by a predictive regex or anything AI). (Like ImprovedTube, none of the projects seem to have a team larger than ~0.7 fulltime developers, nor automated testing set up, etc.)

[adamlui]

@ImprovedTube are you paying for a team to work on your extension? Or are you trying to form a team for a new venture? Also you said "you might see 100 developers in the world all update that same class name manually within 1 year. Taking an average of 3 month. Too much. Insane waste of time." Are you proposing a solution of some kind?

[ImprovedTube]

hi! @talks2much (i remember your pull request!) (and didn't want to close it or frustrate😟) Can you add eslint? Where would TS have helped yet? Most of the code is optimized for performance. Landing page with hero image? 😟 - unfortunately the maintainer & author of the shortcuts is gone & the shortcuts were added relatively late (i think the they have relatively few users). Https://github.com/code-charity/youtube/issues/1565

[ImprovedTube]

hi again! @adamlui sorry, why do you feel negative? You seem to make several userscripts including https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/456132-youtube-classic-remove-rounded-design-return-youtube-dislikes which was recently updated and is massive [87kb]. Thus i assume you have also already felt exhausted providing such service. At the same time our work intersects and thus could be more efficient /shared. - I also assume that naturally you would appreciate if your work (under MIT license) had 100 times more more users, as it might deserves. We will consider integrating it in future and helping it as many of our users want a classic YouTube. - Equally i want to understand more and know about developers, to make sure what they actually think (why are you on github?) and that they aren't frustrated doing their brave jobs, as most people would be. I know many chose to not really believe in teamwork. To 'stand introverted ground' they could chose just not to answer, or answer by email maybe. Publishing scripts for entertainment websites is a very social thing after all. Happy 2024!

[adamlui]

@ImprovedTube for example, I just found your old message: "working together efficiently maybe" but I don't know what this means, work together efficiently on what?

[ImprovedTube]

...but you say "share much of the code and share donations efficiently" so you will make us all maintainers with administrative permissions so revenue is split equally?

sounds good.

[adamlui]

you don't care about code ownership, or at least that you will be happy to maximize the usefulness of your code

That's not true, I care about attribution, but what you are proposing is me to cancel my project and grows your instead. Do you understand this sounds very unappealing to any average person?

the user-count as long as it is meaningful

The usercount is for your project not mine...

why would you call me 'not a coder'?

Earlier you said something like you wanted to find out about developers on GitHub like you don't know anything about code, but it appears you have since deleted that message. Also second time asking now, why did you delete @absidue's messages? Why do you keep ignoring my questions, including how exactly would revenue be shared? Is there a reason you don't care about these two issues?

[ImprovedTube]

@ImprovedTube are you paying for a team to work on your extension? Or are you trying to form a team for a new venture? Also you said "you might see 100 developers in the world all update that same class name manually within 1 year. Taking an average of 3 month. Too much. Insane waste of time." Are you proposing a solution of some kind?

Just read this 💡

..."waste of time chasing around the million users who eventually give up and are replaced by a new generation of users. - Also some updates could be automated by a predictive regex (or anything "AI"). None of the projects seem to have a team larger than 0.7 developers or automated testing.

Yes, trying to do be useful. ImprovedTube is also running on only as many volunteer working hours as 0.x full time jobs in total. Yet many developers work/have to work for a few $/hour. We could organize something serious/befitting as the users deserve.

"There could be a combined bug tracker & a few employees to look for the most important ones 24/7, etc..."

[ImprovedTube]

@adamlui 1. i did not propose for you to close your project nor to use any code nor without attribution. I just tagged you as of the potential in favor of the users. Users don't tend to feel owned by you or me. Features sharing the same code can appear in the build routines of multiple different UIs. We have a (draft for a) license since a few years:

CONTRIBUTORS: (Unlike all popular licences,) we would like to acknowledge,
that you become a shareholder of this project /cooperative, proportionally to the time well spent.
Please vote about our futures actions.

2. "...don't know...": earlier, i meant to make sure, it doesn't sound like i assume to know every personal psychology & intensity, why other relevant developers might not believe in teamwork., I also deleted unrelated comments to reduce scroll height & avoid impulsive misunderstandings, since public conversation in the favor of many users may be professional by default.

[ImprovedTube]

hi @adamlui! Most of the questions are repetitive and appear in the original post. The project doesnt have a budget. The point of this post is broad and relevant: Why not minimize the amount & reduancy of code across FOSS repos and share the code's user base. To increase the efficiency & challenge /depth. (And by the example of youtube.com code this topic is more extreme/relevant than generally.) If you like, you can even read the tags chosen /their definitions too.

[ImprovedTube]

..wow! @VampireChicken12 when did you make all this? https://github.com/VampireChicken12/youtube-enhancer &
did vite-web-extension help?

(please check my point above )

[comradekingu]

Maybe because the naming scheme isn't "completely different".
It is even hard to come up with anything closer to "YouTube Enhancer" than "Enhancer for YouTube"…

[ImprovedTube]

Sorry I returned scepticism eventually @VampireChicken12. (Dont be offended.)
Shouldn't I be more sorry, in case you chose to work alone for less success/meaning? (And obviously a lower star-rating. Even if that's an unfair comparison and takes time. Who else will notice & feel related to this exactly?) (Your work is the latest example for the cause of this discussion. Isn't the prediction relevant, that you might stop frustrated after x month/years, while even continuing ImprovedTube isn't necessarily viable, nor does the time ("opportunity") repeat the same again as if it was 2012 & YouTube would be young.)

[ImprovedTube]

( in short /generally: )

• Feeling competition with nothing to lose personally is sad, is it? Maybe no human is free of fear and pure volunteering might be special, but the fact that we even find the time to program is a clue, that we already are far from locked to repetitive work only.
• Society can try to keep up with technology in advance, rather than in retrospective. Since generally some technical work/progress could end up frustrating. (even if not bad like weapons).

only so many unique features exist.

Didn't know/expect if you weren't into many unique features yet.

• Unique plans with unique meaning : Progress? (globally)
• Lack of ideas : Join an inspiring teamwork or public cause, a public ranked to-do list?
• Programming the same again : (Needless) competition?
  • Our technically modernComplexComplicated noble efforts can serve unique meaning. (While physically 8 Billion people might do some of the same things in parallel to be fit (such as brushing teeth), there are unlimited questions to ask (or features to program). So it requires some pessimism (lack of optimism?) not to combine/share/merge/extending each other (Need not even fork, many forks are needless and could be mutually compatible toggles.)

[ImprovedTube]

thanks 😅

[ImprovedTube]

"YouTube Enhancer" ... "Enhancer for YouTube" @comradekingu

*...the first was the original name to me 😆. (Trying to remember before 2016 /why it was called "Youtube Enhancer Plus" in 2016. )

[Tithi49]

Thank you for your email

…

On Tue, 12 Dec, 2023, 5:16 AM ImprovedTube, ***@***.***> wrote: ..wow! @VampireChicken12 <https://github.com/VampireChicken12> when did you make all this? https://github.com/VampireChicken12/youtube-enhancer & did vite-web-extension <https://github.com/JohnBra/vite-web-extension> help? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1881 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A45NS73O6T4FEZA3VKQEFSLYI6LPFAVCNFSM6AAAAABAPYUL3GVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43SRDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHM3TQMRVGI4TC> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[adamlui]

[adamlui]

But I can monetize anytime, what you are proposing is I code for you instead? Then you are the owner so you can make money off me? Why would anyone accept your strange offer sir

[ImprovedTube]

hi @adamlui, you might have heard of open source software before

[adamlui]

yes what incentive are you giving to force me to abandon mine for yours I don't understand

[ImprovedTube]

hi :) @adamlui "force?" I favor meaningful work and teamwork. And by proportionality, we have to suggest authors, if they can make other projects with more of a good purpose (direct or indirect) and in shorter time, to think about those other projects more, and feel less stuck with the current ones. (That applies specifically to YouTube extensions without unique features. Maybe more than to any other niche. Also, neglected YouTube extensions contribute to a sad overall definition and mood among users "breaks too often"...

answered you (Dec 11 2023, same thread) too:

We have a (draft for a) license since a few years:

CONTRIBUTORS: (Unlike all popular licences,) we would like to acknowledge,
that you become a shareholder of this project /cooperative, proportionally to the time well spent.
Please vote about our futures actions.

If that's not enough, then maintenance-burden & a maintenance-debt of your Youtube project are a much more negative number financially. Why do you feel like you want to own debts alone? Do you want to own the most money and own the most debt also?

[adamlui]

No idea what you're talking about I do not incur much maintenance-debt and what is this shareholder agreement you are proposing. We have been in discussions for seemingly years and still cannot figure out what your proposal is (I tried asking the question 10 different ways already but you still cannot answer)

[ImprovedTube]

...and btw, if you are interested in the (lean/minimal) "financial options/plans" (@adamlui),
for example:

• ImprovedTube for Safari #1568 (comment)

and:

Incorporation?

• We should register a (simple) Non-Profit / Charity (for trust & transparency; donation-receipts; free advertisment from Google (, Facebook and other maybe) & potentially/increasingly public funding.)
  • What's the right way? (Irish Limited by Guarantee? British too? What are the alternatives?) ( @"Legal-Department"

(https://github.com/code-charity/youtube/releases/tag/v4.20)

of course these are little of a plan in comparison with that i could hardly let down 550000 users or forget them, which makes it just hard / insane to see most volunteers do less efficient work for fewer users. ( So that's just the key fact here again. And if some people just understood that, that might be relevant enough already?) (and you might not always be able to convince yourself of pessimism)
thanks!

[ImprovedTube]

PS: at @Youtube-Refined @MarcGuiselin Did you think of your extension as a think-tank already? 😃; crowdsourcing user's settings. (since maybe they have set 10000 different rules, but some that happen to be identical for multiple % of them and thus should be given a short name and be interesting to x% of youtube users too.

(i just happened to type this again:

furthermore we could cover 2,3,4 dimensional settings "rule builders" (doing something only if multiple conditions are met) example: #2042 (comment). like: chromewebstore.google.com/detail/youtube-refined/bhbammekghlcjhbiekoldhpfgelblcni and so much more (even if not every users will find them easy or ever learn about the power of such, we could crowd-source such rules ) #1881 (reply in thread) )

#2116 (comment) )

[ImprovedTube]

hi there again! :) As 2025 approaches too, isn't it sad not continuing this topic? How to connect developers? Why don't we "de-dupe" parallel projects?
Stay bright and all the best to you! @code-charity/contributors @dodieboy @raszpl @MarcGuiselin @talks2much @urfausto @raingart @Tithi49 and *if you like* : @VampireChicken12 @LuanRT @xinggsf @xxxily @alisonchou

When choosing efficiency you might build a bridge. (+when not requiring separation.)

---

#Merging parallel projects - this ideal is mental exercise and proof for optimism (technically one might in fact will work smarter soon, if only one wishes to.) Isn't merging the consequence of open development, and what you might felt, when originally understanding benefits of open code? So this topic is related to the idea of:

---

#Keeping forks [more] upwards-compatible (like addOns)

( While our example just features the existential meaning of efficiency(-while-endangered-of-extinction), since our maintenance burden is irrationally-high (when compared) and unfinished and our niche as a whole should not fork (yet in the first place it's split / shattered to 100s of abandoned repos)

• How many FOSS contributions in total do downstream and upstream efficiently or automatically?

• Some of the biggest examples are:
  *Linux(Kernel)⇆Android (For mobile hardware)
  *BTC⇆BCH & BTC⇆LTC⇆DOGE (BCH & DOGE originally changed parameters)
  *Ripple⇆Stellar, ownCloud⇆Nextcloud (Stellar foundation & NextCloud chose a different, more social mandate)
  *etc (Often no core-differences)

  • How well don't they work together?
    • A few top-contributors of these "forks" just in case one of them might like this post: @losh11 @luke-jr @sipa @laanwj @langerhans @latobarita @MonsieurNicolas @graydon @sisuresh @rokopt @rullzer @MorrisJobke @DeepDiver1975 @nickvergessen @snostorm @fhemberger @Fishrock123 @therebelrobot @mvandeberg @Mariusz-Trela @vogel76 @theoreticalbts)
      • ..."Interview Question of the day:" How much time/ratio did you spend with code of the root-project and did that feel efficient?
        • Thanks!!

• More (about parallelity):

  • un-forking: IO.js (un-forked from Node.js)
  • And BCH of course copied BTC's Database(=Ledger=Blockchain). And others started primarily as of data / governance (like Hive (forking from Steem to avoid wealth centralization) and ETH forking from itself to undo a theft, proving some decentralized (human-)governance and in turn triggering ETC keeping the theft for 'code is law'-/anarchy-principle (is there a repo? @TheEnthusiasticAs))