Google will start deleting inactive accounts after two years

[whatup876]

After what happened to Imgur and Twitter, the internet is having a sort of wipe out of history.

We already have the Internet Archive being threatened and there was already a story of Google going after inactive accounts a while ago.

Back up everything you like or even simply acknowledge.

This is something that major Youtubers should be talking about.

[mrthejoshmon]

Question, you know when you find a YouTube video by someone who hasn't uploaded in like, what, 9 years, does this mean if whoever owns the account doesn't return once every 2 years the entire channel goes?

 

There's like a million channels like that have uploaded things like tutorials and soundtracks (mostly soundtracks) that are going to just vanish if that's the case.

 

There's gonna be a lot of time capsules just straight up lost as well. It's sad but whatever, what can you do? Google isn't going to fund their CEO's 4th penthouse without cutting those costs y'know.

Edited May 17, 2023 by mrthejoshmon

[RDETalus]

Does account deletion = video deletion?

[mrthejoshmon]

2 hours ago, RDETalus said:

Does account deletion = video deletion?

To my knowledge, yes.

[HavoX]

It's a good thing I always keep my account active. (At least I try to...)

[Panzermann11]

The announcement says the deleted content includes Drive accounts aswell. Oh God, I can't imagine millions of downloads all around the Internet being wiped out. Why does the Internet has to be in a Alexandria Library-type of situation like this?

Edited May 19, 2023 by Panzermann11

[Murdoch]

The article doesn't specify youtube videos will get deleted. I would be surprised if they do but it would be nice to get clarification. They don't make money on inert mail and drive files but they can make money on YouTube videos. 

 

It sucks but ultimately businesses gonna business. They exist to make money. It's just another example of what i have said before - it is foolish to expect online things to exist forever. If you really care about something, make your own copy and back it up.

[Rampy470]

Via their creator liaison guy, old YouTube stuff is safe.

 

 

[Murdoch]

16 minutes ago, Rampy470 said:

Via their creator liaison guy, old YouTube stuff is safe.

 

 

 

Good. Did not think they would. 

[Panzermann11]

On 5/18/2023 at 3:33 AM, Rampy470 said:

Via their creator liaison guy, old YouTube stuff is safe.

 

 

I'm gonna have to take his words with a jar full of salt. As far as corporate speak goes, the guy might be lying.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Panzermann11

[Mr. Freeze]

Quote

we have no plans to

 

[Rampy470]

1 hour ago, Mr. Freeze said:

 

Eh that's just standard corpo speak. They get in the habit of saying that just in case they end up doing something later so they don't get sued.

 

You could ask them if they're going to eat children and they'd still be like "we have no plans to eat children at this time".

Edited May 18, 2023 by Rampy470

[Panzermann11]

On 5/18/2023 at 1:28 PM, Rampy470 said:

Eh that's just standard corpo speak. They get in the habit of saying that just in case they end up doing something later so they don't get sued.

 

You could ask them if they're going to eat children and they'd still be like "we have no plans to eat children at this time".

That's what I was thinking. I remember they straight-up lied that they're thinking about bringing back sorting videos by oldest on YouTube.

EDIT: Well, well, well, I guess I was wrong after all. They've kept their word and now brought back sorting videos by oldest.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Panzermann11

[Murdoch]

4 hours ago, Panzermann11 said:

I'm gonna have to take the liason's words with a jar full of salt. Guy might be lying.

 

I think it is unlikely. As I said above, they can't make money off inert email, drive files, calendar data etc. But they can still slap ads on old YouTube videos.

[Dr. Zin]

13 hours ago, Rampy470 said:

Via their creator liaison guy, old YouTube stuff is safe.

 

Safe for the moment. The amount of video stored on YT is ungodly huge and 183 hours of new content is currently uploaded every minute. Storage isn't free, at a certain point they will be incentivized to clear out videos that aren't reaching a certain view threshold (90% of videos on YT have less than 1000 total views by Google's own admission). If I were a betting man I'd wager within the next 2-3 years YT will announce mass video deletions.

 

33 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

I think it is unlikely. As I said above, they can't make money off inert email, drive files, calendar data etc. But they can still slap ads on old YouTube videos.

I think they key is that they make money on some YT videos. As stated above, Google themselves acknowledges than 90% of YT videos have less than 1000 views, and it wouldn't surprise me if over half of the videos on YT have <10 views. Obviously YT keeps their internal profitability metrics close to the chest, but I would bet most of the videos stored and indexed on YT servers cost more than they bring in. At a certain point YT has to ask themselves why they are spending money on content that hasn't been viewed in the better part of a decade, and so will be motivated to start mass deleting the deadwood (if they aren't already). Keeping server farms running ain't free, and eventually hoarding such a flood of data becomes impractical. I'm no hardware engineer or database designer, but developing, maintaining and continuously expanding a system to store, index and deliver large files at an instant's notice isn't a trivial task or cheap. Again, someone is going to say, "Why are we paying to host videos that haven't been viewed in over five years when we could delete them and put off building the next multi-million dollar server farm for six months?"

Edited May 18, 2023 by Dr. Zin

[Murdoch]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Zin said:

"Why are we paying to host videos that haven't been viewed in over five years when we could delete them and put off building the next multi-million dollar server farm for six months?"

 

Yes very true. Fortunately most of the stuff that might get targeted for eventual deletion is probably of little value. As I said above, you can't expect online things to exist forever. If it really matters to you, make your own copy. 

[Dr. Zin]

Yeah, the first couple decades of the internet spoiled us because organizations were willing to offer cheap or free hosting as a loss leader. Even nominally non-commercial entities are contributing to this, there's a shitload of information that was hosted on university websites that has been deleted due to students graduating, faculty retiring/leaving the institution, or the insidious organizational website redesign and "cleanup." I've seen the latter cause a lot of damage on hobbyist run websites too.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Dr. Zin

[Al-Faris M]

Not very surprising to me. It's your average corporation decision about changing/removing something quite important to some people or big.
 

42 minutes ago, Dr. Zin said:

"Why are we paying to host videos that haven't been viewed in over five years when we could delete them and put off building the next multi-million dollar server farm for six months?"

While I agree on this, their plan was about going after inactive accounts, not about (active) accounts that have uploaded obscure Youtube videos, so this means they can also remove popular videos from inactive accounts.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Al-Faris M

[Rampy470]

On 5/18/2023 at 3:21 AM, Panzermann11 said:

That's what I was thinking. I remember they straight-up lied that they're thinking about bringing back sorting videos by oldest on YouTube.

I think you misunderstand me: I'm saying that them saying "we have no plans to" isn't an indication that they think they'll ever do it, it's just something they get in the habit of saying just in case so they don't get sued. Like in the hypothetical I gave obviously they're never going to start eating children.

 

Also on the sort by oldest thing they only announced it would be coming back two weeks ago and specified that it would be coming back retooled in the coming months so it's more than a bit early to be calling it a straight-up lie.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Rampy470

[invictius]

What counts as inactive?  I have gmail accounts that are semi-throwaway, they're delegated to my main account.  They get regular emails though, so is it two years without receiving an email or two years after having not directly logged into the account?  Never mind the fact that often I won't get an email I'm expecting from a delegated account, and have to log in.

[James ritchings]

Can I recover My Old Google Account After December 1, 2023?

[Koko Ricky]

I recently went through my hundreds of liked/favorites videos, saved all the ones I still care about to my hard drive using Statcher, then deleted my entire watch/archive history. I'm not sure what prompted it, but I'm certainly glad I did. A chunk of videos unfortunately were not salvageable due to being removed by the user, or set to private. I personally feel there's a lot of looseness when it comes to video preservation online that ought to be addressed.