A demographic time bomb that could hit America - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-the-us-avoid-japans-demographic-disaster/2018/12/31/1f29ba66-0d3f-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html <comment><USER2> For the USA, this probably isn't a problem as long as we allow immigration the way we do now. Here's the population pyramid diagram for the USA:

[https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of- america/2...](https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of- america/2017/)

For Japan: [https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2017/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2017/)

For the whole world: [https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2017/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2017/)

Ideally, the "pyramid" would be a cylinder, with all ages being roughly the same distribution. This would be a population that is not growing or shrinking. You can see that Japan's younger population is less than it's older population, for the whole world there are many younger people than older... and for the USA it's pretty close to a cylinder.

So will this demographic time bomb hit America? Probably not.

<comment><USER3> Isn't allowing immigration like we do just going to create an even greater demographic time bomb in the future? Eventually, immigration is going to decline and we are going to be faced with an even greater problem because the population is so much larger.

And that's not factoring in climate change issues. Shifting millions of people from countries that cause very little pollution on a per capita basis to the country that leads the world in per capita basis is going to add to climate and pollution issues.

Seems like we are between a rock and a hard place.

<comment><USER4> The long play is that by allowing immigration will make the USA the youngest nation in the near future, and beyond that, immigration from previously 1st world countries because the American economy is much better for them than their own. Younger nations have more workers to keep social security afloat.

<comment><USER5> One day these young workers get old and need social security. You can't rely on a constant influx of young people forever.

<comment><USER4> It hasn't stopped since 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

<comment><USER5> The whole battle about immigration shows to me that the country is filling up slowly. For a long time they could just settle on empty land or take it from native americans but that's not possible anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article mentions childcare, and I can definitely attest that it is a factor in people's family size decisions, along with the push for two working parents. We are privileged enough that we can survive on one income, however, were that not the case we'd be looking at paying $12/k a year for each child in childcare, on top of other baby-rearing costs. As it is, my wife plans to drop to (extreme) part time once we hit baby #2 ... at that point we'll still suffer some loss, but at baby #3 it will be a wash.

And why such a childcare shortage? The government, of course. In a time of extreme demand, shortage, and rapidly rising rates, the availability of childcare is still decreasing. I asked about this, and our local center has to report to & be inspected by three separate government agencies. Their compliance costs are enormous. They're as much a paperwork collection, processing, and reporting center as they are a childcare center. With the advent of nanny cams, I can watch my child any time I choose, and record the action whenever I wish. Makes me wonder if the regulation needs to be quite so heavy in the modern age.

On a separate but related note: the impact of low birthrates and long life expediencies is unavoidable. Either:

1) People need to work longer, or

2) Retired people need to have a lesser lifestyle (so that the working population can live approximately the same lifestyle that current retirees had while _they_ were working), or

3) Working people need to have a lesser lifestyle compared to past generations (to free up resources for retirees)

It seems that we are slow-walking towards 3), which is a problem because it'll to some extent push the working population into a death spiral. They have less, so they work more, so they have less children, and the problem worsens. Repeat.

<comment><USER7> > We are privileged enough that we can survive on one income, however, were > that not the case we'd be looking at paying $12/k a year for each child in > childcare, on top of other baby-rearing costs.

This seems like a bit of a puzzle here. Staying home means you lose one income. But going to work costs you almost that entire income if you have a couple of children for childcare costs, and on top of that you also never see your children. So why not stay home? Same money plus better life for all three of you.

Is it so you can stay in the industry and in the future when they go to school you have kept your high paying job?

<comment><USER8> It's not as straightforward. The stay-at-home-parent leaves the workforce which is good for the first pre-school years cost-wise, but getting back into the workforce after those "lost" years (bad term, as they're not lost -- there's true value in them to society, it's just not paid work) is inheritently difficult.

Overall lifetime income is impacted by this decision.

This is the substantive metric for the gender wage gap as that gap is measured in the overall lifetime income, not the per-wage of equivalent positions as it's inaccurately reported.

Women generally leave the workforce to care for children, lose their prestige/position and when re-entering have to start at the beginning or lower position/wage and try to catch-up.

Better childcare options would improve this immeasurably, or less stigma around both parents sharing the childcare time equitably would as well. In some countries this is the case, and it is having a measurable impact on childbirth rates.

<comment><USER9> This exactly.

My wife and I have one child. For the first six months, the child was home with her (the typical maternity period in this country)

For the second six months, she worked and the child was in daycare. It was a really good daycare, and the minder was damn near angelic. But it was also kind of horrible. Many nights I had put the child to bed before she was home from work. We wondered what the hell the point of having a kid you get to see on the weekends is.

After paying for childcare, she had relatively little to show for her job. We were also a lot more likely to do expensive things like eat out, etc. due to exhaustion. Part time work was not an option for either of us.

We eventually decided to have one parent stay home. It was her, because she made less money (perhaps because of a self-reinforcing bias that mothers are more likely to stay home, and thus are paid less?). Realistically speaking, it wasn't "I want to take a few years off work" but rather "I am throwing my _entire career_ in to the dumpster for this". Because in most fields that have decent jobs, you just _can't_ leave for 3-5 years and hop back in where you left off. It doesn't happen.

Paradoxically, because she's home with the kid this makes us more likely to consider having a second, because childcare is a sunk cost. If there were inexpensive childcare and better part-time options we'd be more likely to stick with one. I suspect this explains why Nordic countries have low birth rates and high labour participation rates from mothers. That's not a bad thing though - ultimately the world should be working to get the fertility rate below 2 children per women, especially in the developed world.

We fell in to the two-income trap in the 1970's and it's been getting worse ever since. Combined with the death of decent-paying blue collar jobs (though programming is quick becoming blue collar) it will result in similar decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> what's the matter with a shrinking population? we keep hearing how automation is going to put so many people out of work anyway. a lower economic throughput isn't dramatic if the population gets proportionally smaller. not to mention that population growth can well be cyclical: there used to be a time where the US population was just half of what it is today after all, no reason why we couldn't be headed toward some kind of equilibrium. it doesn't have to be a downward spiral to zero.

the real concern seems to be coming from the elites whose leech-like business model is premised on squeezing as much wealth as possible from the consuming masses. it's this uninterrupted funneling that prevents their whole machinery from collapsing.

<comment><USER3> A shrinking population places enormous strains on social benefits ( social security, medicare, etc ) and would devastate the two largest retirement assets of people - homes and stock market ( 401k ).

The dominant 20th century economic and social model is based on constant population and consumption growth. Ultimately, as a society, we've borrowed too much from the future. If these assumptions fail, the stock market would collapse and housing prices would decline.

We could head towards an equilibrium, but that would require an economic and social paradigm shift and lots of near to intermediate pain for a lot of people. Paradigm shifts rarely happen and when they do, it's because of extreme circumstances causing a lot of societal pain.

It's like we are on a runaway train that's about to crash but we are too afraid to jump because jumping could mean death.

<comment><USER11> > The dominant 20th century economic and social model is based on constant > population and consumption growth.

This. It's probably worth reiterating just how fundamental this is: the necessity of growth is built in, fundamentally to the way that the dollar (and the euro, then yen, etc) itself works.

I'm not convinced that punting on decisions has to be as bad as a crash. Japan has failed to meet growth for a few decades, and the way they handled it, there is just social malaise, an alienated generation, and excellent melancholy anime.

<comment><USER12> Watching NHK World, parts of Japan look idyllic and make me want to retire there, or even move there now. I watched a charming piece the other day about an island whose inhabitants have amongst the highest life expectancy in the world. A genuine community, shared activities and culture, lack of stress, plenty of fruit and vegetables as well as little traffic seemed to be the recipe. Perhaps the rest of the world could do with some of this so-called stagnation!

<comment><USER11> NHK World (my mother watches this) is definitely government propaganda. This is not to say that Japan is a horrible place, it's generally nicer than the US, but there's lots of societal malaise going over there. Also Japan sweeps a lot of poverty and soft corruption problems under the rug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ever wondered why Poor countries tend to population increases whereas rich countries with abundance of basic resources tend to have low/negative population growth?

here is your answer:

[http://www.physicsoflife.pl/dict/calhoun's_experiment.html](http://www.physicsoflife.pl/dict/calhoun's_experiment.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> If only there were a large population of people literally risking their lives to come here with their children to help us resolve this issue.

<comment><USER10> see my comment above. the job market these people are supposedly propping up is going to get wiped out by automation in a few decades, thus only exacerbating the problem.</comment></comment>


The story of my startup (and the Google/YouTube API trap) - <AUTHOR> http://www.totlol.com/t/story <comment><USER2> I went to the TotLol web site and it looks great.

Very clean elegant design. A high quality user experience.

Unfortunately, I agree with a previous comment, that creating a filtered replica of YouTube content, and delivered free of YouTube's ads is not something anyone can reasonably expect YouTube to continue to do over the long-term, regardless of what they might have said or not said at a point in time.

To build a business plan solely around scraps of bandwidth and server resources from a third-party site makes no sense. No need to bring up evil traps and conspiracy. It's just plain common sense on the part of Google to protect their business interest.

I am sympathetic to the entrepreneur's plight, but I think this problem represents a big gaping hole in business planning. I suggest seeking seasoned advisors who understand that only the paranoid survive.

<comment><USER3> _...creating a filtered replica of YouTube content, and delivered free of YouTube's ads is not something anyone can reasonably expect YouTube to continue to do over the long-term, regardless of what they might have said or not said at a point in time._

Google makes billions monetizing other people's content. They scrape zillions of web pages, index them, and then monetize the whole thing by running ads next their service. How is that different than one person developing a niche audience based off of Google's content and trying to monetize that?

Sure it makes sense for Google to limit access to protect their business plan. But, it is hypocritical and kind of a dick move on their part to try to legally prevent other people from doing what they've done from the beginning.

I have a hunch that moves like this will lead to a lot more anti-trust law suits against Google.

<comment><USER4> This is stupid. Filtering the content and hot linking to it while stripping the ads is very different from what google does in its profitable search businesses.

<comment><USER5> I didn't check out the site in question, but don't they arguably offer some kind of better filterting or navigation than youtube? In which case your argument loses its value.

I'd be surprised if the site was a replica of youtube minus the ads. They must provide some value for users to like it like they seem to.

<comment><USER4> The value it provides to users is immaterial. It uses Google's finite, expensive bandwidth resources without providing any form of compensation. This is very different from what Google does, which is to rehost snippets and direct traffic to content providers. They do not use the content providers' finite resources, and they do compensate providers by sending traffic.

There's nothing wrong with what Toltol is doing as long as Google allows it. But the TOS is very much like a robots.txt file. To complain about a website roboting you out when your usage is detrimental (or at any other time, for that matter) is just silly. Using a site does not create an obligation where that site's maintainers must continue to provide you service. They are more than justified to cut you off for any reason or no reason at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i think you are going about this all wrong.

You should just ignore Google's TOS...hell everyone else does, it's much easier to beg forgiveness than it is to follow the rules. + do you really think they'd ever cut your access?

Think about the shitstorm that'll happen..."GOOGLE is raping our children by shutting down their favorite site!"

The chance of them pulling the plug is insignificant, and you destroying your site over some fine print is crazy. Read the fine print of any website, any service, all of them have the "by using this site you grant us the rights to your children"

I'm not saying you should be complacent, you should still create a backup version of the site, so that if google ever shuts you down, you can instantly switch to a ~1000 video backup from places like vimeo. Why? So that you have something to offer to your users, while they rebuild your database with vimeo links.

Throwing in the towel over something that might happen in the future(contrary to common sense) is simply irresponsible.

<comment><USER7> Notable point: YouTube got where it is by ignoring the TOS of a huge percentage of the content it serves.

<comment><USER8> I haven't heard this and it sounds interesting. Can you provide a link?

<comment><USER9> Most of the youtube videos are pirated, unauthorized uploads. And people flocked to youtube to see a free version of latest * MTVs, without having to pay a single dime for it.

<comment><USER10> Content doesn't have a TOS. It has a copyright. In the United States, at least, the DMCA allows content owners to file a take down request. If youtube has been ignoring DMCA takedown requests, that's news to me.

<comment><USER11> Unless you're less than three years old you should know that google hasn't always owned youtube. Before the google acquisition youtube was breaking all kinds of copyright laws. And they grew in popularity because of it.

<comment><USER10> I upvoted you because you appear to be bringing new information to the table that I'm actually interested in, as it would shed light on how a scrappy new company succeeded despite violating "rules of the game" - not TOS, admittedly, but in this case copyright laws.

Do you have any articles or citations that show where youtube, prior to the google acquisition, ignored a DMCA takedown request? It's important to note that (in the United States at least, I can't speak for other countries), hosting copyrighted information posted by others is not a violation of copyright law, but, once you've been notified that such content exists with the appropriate DMCA request, you are required to take it down (or have the content poster respond to the DMCA request). This is known as Safe Harbor , and was, to my knowledge, the reason why google felt comfortable acquiring YouTube.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm very apprehensive about doing anything that relies so strongly on a third party service, and this is unfortunately a great illustration why.

I'm very conscious about always having a means to maintain control over my product. That might mean I'm actually shooting myself in the foot in other ways. But at least I can (hopefully) never fall victim to a situation like this.

<comment><USER13> It probably wouldn't be so much of a problem if you could enter into some kind of deal with Google where you would pay a monthly fee in return for access to their API (for example) and Google would have a financial incentive to allow you to keep using it.

In this case, however, the guy was expecting to get something for free to build his business on and that, I think, is just plain silly.

<comment><USER14> Given the AdSense/AdWords scandals, I doubt that the financial incentive would be so strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Am I wrong in thinking Google has a simple base argument in that recreating Youtube without Google's ads is a bad thing for the future of their site?

It's a shame that a legitimate site may have brought the issue to light, but it's always only a matter of time before it turns into a method of generating revenue by creating dozens of Youtube clones using Youtube's API, and replacing all the ads with porn.

<comment><USER16> Theorically speaking, you could recreate youtube whitout the ads juste by running a crawler that would create an html page embedding each video it finds. Of course the API facilitate that - but if the website doesn't have some solid added value, then it's no use at all (you're better off installing Adblock).

Besides, "inline" video advertisement has it's purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of the only things Dave Winer has ever said that I agree with is:

"Sometimes developers choose a niche that's either directly in the path of the vendor, or even worse, on the roadmap of the vendor. In those cases, they don't really deserve our sympathy."

The author built a site that really is a feature YouTube should just have, and he even did it on the YouTube platform. One that once they know about they can just build without much effort.

I won't say nothing good could come of that (small acquisitions happen that way frequently) but this is why pretty much the only thing I'll ever build on a platform is games. Facebook, YouTube, or Microsoft are never going to up and say "hey we need to make a football game because that's really lacking here". Any utility feature at all is going to either fail or get cloned.

The proper way to go about this (though I've no idea how) would have been to avoid that reliance on YouTube. Perhaps syndicating content from big YouTube competitors, licensing original, etc. I really don't know the niche well enough to be helpful, but I certainly would advise not being just a feature on someone else's site and going for some value add.

Granted none of that negates the fact that this looks like a dickish move on Google's part.

<comment><USER18> not true. Google is a platform provider and their path is to let niche and verticals work independently. And even if in the path, Google can handle it without pick-a-brain meetings with the micro startup in order to smush them

<comment><USER17> YouTube is first and foremost a destination with an ancillary platform. Something that lets people make and curate collections of videos on it is a lot like what Netscape was to Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have to say, it all sounds a bit thin - but even then, I would think you deserve the effort of a reply to your situation.

If you are able to provide genuine valuable content to users through an integrated API service (no matter who the provider of that API is), Google should place high 'content' value on that as well. After all, Google wants the web to be of 'value' to users, which in the grand internet cycle, brings them money through Adwords, etc.

It _could_ be all coincidence. In order to clear it up, it makes sense that open, honest communication between Google and you (Ron) starts again.

Best of luck - I certainly hope it can be cleared up, as I hate to think of the potential business ideas (and revenue!) that will be discarded if developers feel they can't trust Google and its services.

<comment><USER20> "Not trusting Google" seems to be a theme on the internet lately.

Presumably Google, being no fools, will pick up on that and understand that it's a problem, both for advertisers and developers.

It's just a question of how long it takes them.

It's entirely possible that many of these situations with Google looking bad are primarily a result of them just not communicating. But presumably Google could figure that out, too. They're the only ones with the information to do so.

<comment><USER21> It seems that several different people at Google did plenty of communicating with Ron. What we have here is ( _NOT_ ) a failure to communicate!

<comment><USER22> While several e-mails were sent back and forth, I have a hard time calling the conversation effective communication on Google's part. Saying one thing and doing another is not communication.

<comment><USER23> Have you read the post ? That is a lot of email back and fort. The author even had a meeting with a Google director and spoke with a manager.

<comment><USER22> Yes. From the end of the post:

"I contacted Hunter. I contacted Kuan. I contacted Stephanie. I even sent an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com

"Stephanie "can't remember exactly" what the reason for the delay was. Her "memory is hazy". These are direct quotes in case you wondered. Kuan won't answer a simple question regarding his own I/O presentation. I guess he doesn't want to lie. If replying, Hunter emits random legal verbiage. The person who actually made the decisions is courageously hiding behind them."

This is not effective communication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thank you for the writeup - definitely an eye-opener.

Options:

1) Re-enable videos to be uploaded to your own site. Put ads on those. You have enough of a name that you should get at least a trickle of videos which you can use for public (free) parts of the site. Maybe video contributors get free access - X months per video.

2) Get other non-video content up there. Forums, user-submitted articles etc. Change the balance of Youtube vs. non-Youtube content.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd like to take this opportunity to rant against sites that have some global forward set up to bounce a mobile user from any page on the site to the mobile home page. I'd love to read your post, but I'm on a train right now with my iPhone and the only page you're willing to serve me is your main app page. Those kinds of redirects should only be set up for the home page.

<comment><USER26> Or if you're going to redirect to the mobile version on pages other than the home page, make sure you're redirecting to the same article, just formatted differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Excellent post Ron. I've been semi-following Totlol for a while now. I have kids, and I think it's a fantastic product. There needs to be something like Totlol out there. I think once you have kids, you suddenly realize this :)

Good luck on the job search. I'll cross my fingers the legal walls crumble, as I'd love to see you working on a project you've started and are excited about.

</comment><comment><USER28> IANAL. It's important to note that not everything in a contract/TOS/EULA is binding. The terms of any contract can be subject to litigation. If I sign a contract agreeing to sell you my kidney for $10,000 that clause of the contact will likely be voided by the courts if either party decided to litigate. There is also the fact the the contract cannot be negotiated, I think lawyer call it the "war of paperwork" AFAIK a contract isn't valid unless the option to negotiate is available. There is more info here - <http://www.ReasonableAgreement.org>

<comment><USER29> Does the EFF (or someone like them) handle TOS violation litigation? If not, how can a little one-man shop compete against an entity like Google in court?

Sure, the reasonableagreement people sound cool... but who, specifically, is going to front him the money needed to litigate against MegaCorp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've been toying around with a prototype application that uses the YouTube API, and I remember the first time I came across this passage in the TOS very well.

Read it again, closely:

"...the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of the API Client containing YouTube audiovisual content, unless other content not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales."

That's _really_ vague.

How is one to determine what "sufficient value" might mean here? It seems to me that this passage might as well read "you're ability to place advertisements on a web page that uses the YouTube API is subject to our whims."

Of course, I understand that building an application that uses something like the YouTube API is inherently risky, and I think YouTube is well within their rights to have a clause like this in their TOS. I get it. But if you're like this Totlol guy and you're trying to build a business that might support you financially with revenue derived from advertising... I think you're right to be scared off.

<comment><USER13> It's not vague at all. If you're totlol.com and _all_ your content is from YouTube, you're in violation of the TOS. If, on the other hand, you have a blog that occasionally posts YouTube videos but a lot of other content as well, you should be fine.

<comment><USER30> But what if you're providing a service that's built on top of the YouTube API and provides value in that it helps people find interesting videos for their children to watch?

What might constitute "sufficient value" in that case?

<comment><USER13> In that case you're not providing "other content not obtained from YouTube" at all, so you're violating the TOS.

<comment><USER31> Is the curation provided by the totlol users not itself content? I'd argue that it is. That is, placement into category, tagging, rating, and even the boolean fact of its presence on totlol are each nontrivial pieces of information---i.e. content---provided on the page. Which isn't to say, necessarily, that they _balance_ the contribution of the YouTube content, but here we are again: what does "sufficient" mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> After reading the entire article, this definitely impacts any interest I had to integrate with google maps, youtube or google app engine.

I wonder what the chances are they will change gmail terms the way they did to author (ie deceptively) and if I should look into other providers.

<comment><USER26> You should be leery of building a business that piggybacks on any service, Google-owned or otherwise. The first question you should ask yourself if you build something on XYZ is, "What will we do if XYZ is no longer an option?" If you don't have an answer, find a new idea.

<comment><USER33> Playing devil's advocate, I would counter that many companies have successfully built themselves around 3rd party API's from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc...

One option would be to _pay_ for better ToS (ex: an 'enterprise' version of the API - though Youtube does not seem to have such option).

<comment><USER34> None of those companies are mature, by definition (since none of those platforms have been around for long). Some of them have significant revenue, but would I buy stock in one (e.g., Zynga)? I don't think so. I consider the Facebook Platform a toy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> While I understand that the YouTube integration is really nice, rolling your own encoding and video-serving is not out of the question. There are a number of libraries for some popular languages that will help automate the process (with ffmpeg) and cover up the messy details if you need. The cheap FLVplayer is easily skinned to match your site, etc. And Amazon's S3 storage is almost free.

<comment><USER36> While S3 storage is fairly cheap, bandwidth still isn't. I did some math for a video clip I'm working on. And 1.000.000 views (a lot, but not unfeasible for a popular music vid. Some rank 5+ million) still costs a few thousand $... Hard to make that back on ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think the moral of this story is "don't build a business that relies on a single other players API." Talk about a single point of failure.

<comment><USER38> Every business takes risks.

If you build a business that relies on a single other player's API, you risk having them encroach on you when you become successful.

If you insist on never putting yourself at anyone's mercy (either by writing your tools from scratch or waiting until you have a cross-platform solution), you risk being trounced by someone else who does, or spreading yourself too thin and delivering a mediocre product.

The former concerns me; the latter terrifies me.

Countless people have become rich by building products that depend on one company's platform (think iPhone, Windows, Office, .NET, Facebook, etc). This post is just a reminder that it's not a panacea.

<comment><USER18> Google is NOT other player. They are the Internet

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Anyone else feel uncomfortable about parking toddlers in front of a computer screen?

<comment><USER40> Yes, me too. Reading tip: [http://www.violentacres.com/archives/345/adventures-in- volun...](http://www.violentacres.com/archives/345/adventures-in-volunteering- part-2/)

<comment><USER41> What does a stupid parent trying to adopt a puppy have to do with parking kids in front of a computer screen?

Like the story you linked to said, leaving a dog alone with a three year old is dangerous. There is no real danger in looking at videos with your kid (or letting them watch it themseles).

<comment><USER42> It has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this thread and, if it isn't flatly inappropriate for HN, creeps right up to the border.

<comment><USER40> Depends on how you define thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> YouTube has a big problem of third-party sites that blindly index their content for the sole purpose of selling ads on traffic derived from organic search results. From personal experience in working with google legal, I can tell you that the timing is likely coincidental. Regardless, they include such verbage for leverage in protecting brand identity and trademark. I suggest two things before jumping to conclusions: 1. Consult a lawyer, and 2. Work with your contacts at YouTube to get the right person to review your situation.

Good luck, and as a father-to-be I hope everything works out.

</comment><comment><USER44> Google should offer you a job. Or buy the site. Or do both. I think it would greatly benefit both parties.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not to miss part of the story is where GOOG declines giving Totlol special privileges for the API, despite all they say about how great Totlol is.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm sure totlol.com is a nice site and all but ...

The guy's making money showing clips that are hosted somewhere else without reimbursing the people that actually pay for the streaming bandwidth.

The people that do pay for the bandwidth, ie YouTube/Google, notice what he's doing and change their terms and conditions to reflect what has been their intent all along, namely that ordinary consumers can use their API and what have you to build mini sites on which they can show a selection of clips to a small group of friends, but that rules out the egregious freeloading this guy was planning to do.

So the story here isn't that this guy was cheated, it's that Google/YouTube were naive enough to think that if they provided all their bandwidth for free no one would take advantage of that and that now, possibly thanks to totlol.com, they've learned.

<comment><USER46> Not really, if Google/YouTube wanted to, they would put ads on embedded videos, just as they do on YouTube (I don't think I've seen ads on embedded videos).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This guy didn't get banned by Google, but he couldn't make enough money with his startup so he had to get a real job. To save his ego, he blames Google and their TOS.

<comment><USER48> Comments like this deserves a downvote

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I like your idea. But why not go after real content? Talk to Time Warner/Disney/somebody like that.

Personally, I'd pay to let my kids watch a few minutes of on-demand cartoons every day in a walled garden. Can't believe Disney/etc. hasn't done this yet. Their existing iphone apps/web sites for kids are a joke.

(They have a few "watch a cartoon now" type things, but its like a bad TV station instead of a youtube-like experience.)

</comment><comment><USER50> Like building a business model on top of Twitter or Facebook, you are at the whim of another entity, for your financial security, and not for something easily replaceable, but you actual audience and/or content. Your options are either to diversify or develop actual contractual agreements with the company in question so you can't be just tossed out with a change of the terms of service.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm sure totlol.com is a great site and all, but I seriously doubt you're single-handedly responsible for a change to the YouTube TOS.

</comment><comment><USER52> Man dont give attention to the bad comments and even for Google. That´s all about YOU and YOUR GUTS. You did an amazing job, just keep it up, keep on going, keep working and dont stop no matter what ! There´s tons of job to do and only you can get it done. Go rock the world !

</comment><comment><USER53> I am surprised another similar site hasn't been mentioned so far: kideos.com (our kids love it), similar concept.

Tthe difference is, it doesn't have as much user participation(screening is done mostly/fully by site owners). I do wonder how they are faring under this threat/opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER54> I understand the need for Google to eek out a profit out of Youtube. What really bothers me (if the post is accurate) is that Google wasn't as transparent as they should have been.

</comment><comment><USER55> Some follow-up <http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/29/totlol-youtube/>

</comment><comment><USER56> This really stinks of something. The author is a bit sensationalist. We are also clearly missing Google's part of the story.

<comment><USER41> The author thought to replicate Youtube for a specific audience. First with his own content, that didn't work too well. Luckily enough, Youtube created an API to get specific content.

So now the author had the same business model as Youtube, except aimed at a specific part of their audience, and he was using their content, not paying them a dime, and wants to make money off it.

The story makes perfect sense. For Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> At least with Seattle IT you know when you're going to get screwed. With San Francisco IT it always comes unexpected.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is the first time I've seen your site - it seems pretty great, but I'd love to be able to browse video without having to authenticate.

<comment><USER59> I believe Act Five "Not to Die" explains this:

 _For the first time in my life I built something according to lawyers' guidelines not users' wishes. This is how the current set-up of Totlol came to be. This is why users are nagged._

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Live by the cloud, die by the cloud.

<comment><USER61> YouTube isn't a cloud service, its a video hosting service.

Hint: Try and backup your "cloud" content - If possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> your dedication and honesty is commendable...Don't give up!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "A spokesperson for YouTube said he could not comment on the complaint, primarily because the relevant YouTube employees and lawyers are off for the holidays."

([http://newteevee.com/2009/12/29/totlol-creator-learns-the- ha...](http://newteevee.com/2009/12/29/totlol-creator-learns-the-hard-way-he- cant-build-a-business-on-youtube/))

</comment><comment><USER63> Regardless of everything else, the timeline Ron describes makes pretty sad reading. What amazes me always is that sleazy people seem to think the truth will never come out.

</comment><comment><USER64> good job communicating your story, and good luck finding a day job.

and don't give up on a plan b for your site. think.......</comment>


Our Secret Sauce: Why our sales team can outperform yours. - <AUTHOR> https://elasticsales.com/blog/2012/12/07/our-secret-sauce-why-our-sales-team-can-outperform-yours/ <comment><USER2> Great read. Do you guys do all verticals or do you have any specialties?</comment>


Show HN: TeXnique – A LaTeX Typesetting Game - <AUTHOR> https://texnique.xyz <comment><USER2> One of the developers here! Right now, we compare answers visually, so for example `n \choose k` and `\binom{n}{k}` will both be accepted. However, sometimes there are things that look similar to the human eye, but are rendered slightly differently -- this is usually due to alignment, spacing, or size. For example, `\not\in` (bad) vs `\notin` (good) is a pretty annoying example. Making the comparison / feedback mechanism better is a tough problem. It isn't as simple as increasing the pixel threshold: replacing a + with a - has an extremely small pixel difference (and the two characters have the same width, so it doesn't affect anything else), but we shouldn't accept both.

Right now, the website is a super simple static HTML page. If we have time, we'd also like to add some new features, like a leaderboard and (hopefully) better comparison logic. Feel free to contribute, and we appreciate the feedback!

<comment><USER3> Nice idea for a game -- I use LaTeX quite a lot so it was fun testing that I could type everything. One small LaTeXing speed trick I was using is to drop curly braces for single-letter arguments, like

       \frac 1 n

instead of

       \frac{1}{n}

though even greater gains would be from having your own bespoke file-of- macros.

I feel like the game doesn't give enough time with respect to how long it takes to type certain expressions, so you'll get some high variance on scores just from this cutoff. If you get a big expression right at the end of the time limit, there's a chance you'll lose out on 11 points because it took a second to recognize what you typed --- I played three times, getting around 53 and 55 points the first two times, but then the third time I only got 42 because it didn't recognize the following expression:

       W(x,p)=\frac{1}{\pi \hbar}\int_{-\infty}^\infty\langle x+y|\hat\rho|x-y\rangle^{-2ipy/\hbar}dy

and I couldn't spot the difference in the few seconds I had left.

For some of the equations, I was tempted to fix the typesetting, but I figured if I did it wouldn't recognize it. For example, there needs to be a hairline space in integrals:

       \int u\,dv

Or for divisibility it should use \mid for the relation and not |.

A small frustration was the delay between typing an expression, recognition, then rendering the new expression, especially since this all counted toward the time limit. Maybe having MathJax pre-render the expressions could speed some of this up. Another option is instead of a trial of how many you can complete is having a small collection then timing how long it takes to complete that. Instead of having a sequence of expressions with different numbers of points, the page of expressions could all be of a similar level of difficulty.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the feedback! In fact, you can even do stuff like $\binom nk$ or $\frac 1n$, you don't need the space.

<comment><USER3> (Sometimes when I'm particularly lazy, I've gone as far as \frac1n. Though usually I consider spaces to be cost-free.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Couple of pieces of feedback:

1\. There's an order of magnitude difference in the difficulty of problems. Some are hardly more complex than a couple of subscripts and maybe a \frac{}{}, while others need matrix notation. However, they all count as "1 problem." That's pretty weird.

2\. There were also a couple of problems where I couldn't figure out why it wasn't accepting my answer, as it was visually identical. It must already be allowing for several variations (\text vs. \operatorname, \over vs. \frac), but Latex is so flexible it doesn't seem to be able to catch all the equivalent ways to solve problems. Plus, there's absolutely no feedback, which means you can sink 30 seconds into a hard problem, not have it accept it, and have no idea what to do next.

<comment><USER2> 1\. That's why we added a point system, but I agree the variation in difficulty is pretty wild.

2\. See my comment above - comparison is a tough problem right now, the website is pretty simple. We'd like to improve it though!

<comment><USER4> I think it's a great start - I'm a big fan of typing games like TyperA, and one of the things I enjoy most about blogging or answering questions on stats.stackoverflow.com is formatting mathematical in beautiful LaTex. It just needs to be just a little bit more polished overall to be a really compelling experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> LOVE THIS!

But I have a few suggestions.

1) have a variable time. 3 minutes is pretty tough (maybe 5 default?) Sometimes I can get 10, sometimes I can get 1. I know there's the skip, but this is more fun for learning than competing tbh (can't seem to quite get to 40. Maybe a few more goes). (I can hack this like another comment says with console lol)

2) do a recap! Including the ones you skip. That way when you skip you don't feel like you lose out on the learning. It's "I can't remember this, I'll get it next game" kinda thing. It would also be great to see the different possible solutions.

3) there's some cases I can't quite see what's wrong with. There's a few I spent the entire time looking for the difference. Anyone else hit this issue? Most of them were pretty simple too so I wouldn't have expected them to be written in a different way, especially since all parts of my solutions were in other problems that I got right. Maybe also have a "I got this right" button and you the devs can get new methods? (I wouldn't auto store these, but maybe give the points and manually check later. If you're interested in maintaining and continuing this project)

4) some help with formatting would be awesome. I'm writing the messiest latex of my life here simple because I can't use a tab.

But all in all I love this. Already sent to a bunch of friends and I'm going to have students use this.

Edit:

5) maybe make the total points in a game similar. My highest score I got a really large problem and then a small problem. Other runs in going very fast and don't even score 30 because they are all low points.

Edit 2:

Some of these that are low points are really time consuming. Getting to 40 seems like a luck based thing

<comment><USER2> Thanks for all the feedback!

1\. Hmm, perhaps we could change the game model? Instead of solving as many as you can in three minutes, we could (1) have a set time per problem, and a fixed number of problems or (2) have some system to add back time for correct answers.

2\. This is on our todo list!

3\. Yes, see my comment from above -- we're thinking of simple ways to accept slight variations. A way to contest variations might is a good idea.

4\. How do you propose we do this?

5\. So right now, a problem is worth ceiling(length of our solution / 10.0) points. This seemed like a good way to reward harder questions proportional to the time spent solving them. Any other suggestions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was much more fun after I entered `secondsRemaining = 100000` in the console.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was able to complete one problem within the 3 minute time limit. I had to try multiple times to get the right code for two of the symbols required. The linked symbol drawing site would have helped on one of them.

I really like the format of the user interface with instant response/feedback.

It seems like you're pretty close to having an genuinely useful page.

Suggestions:

\- As-is, this is really only useful to people who already have some familiarity with this material already. It would be way more useful if it had an additional mode for an absolute beginner

\- Instead of being just a memory/recall test, the primary usage mode should be a tutorial and response format for learning

\- In the learning mode, first present information on one new concept, then allow the user to test their new knowledge on a problem similar to the way the existing system works

<comment><USER2> Tutorial mode is a great idea! Yeah, this is definitely geared towards experienced people.

<comment><USER8> +1! a tutorial mode would be really helpful. Especially if it included a "reveal (one possible) answer" functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had a lot of fun with this.

I surprised myself by remembering some symbols I haven't used in a while but was stumped on a few I should have known (nth roots).

Thankfully typesetting here meant math formulas, not minipage layouts.

</comment><comment><USER10> This was really fun! Here are some thoughts:

Most researchers / students I know who are "power-users" of TeX have fairly idiosyncratic editing habits, so it would be nice to support `\newcommands` or eventually editor bindings. (I write a lot of "live-TeX" during lectures for school: [https://github.com/acganesh/stanford- compendium](https://github.com/acganesh/stanford-compendium), and I have one- character `vim` macros for each symbol). I ended up opening a `vim` pane and copying my TeX over to Chrome.

I know Evan Chen (MIT grad student) is a really prolific live-TeXer, so you might try contacting him for feedback. I'm a huge fan of this project of his: [https://github.com/vEnhance/napkin](https://github.com/vEnhance/napkin).

I really like the visual equation recognition, sort of like a beefed up DeTeXify. It's very helpful to ensure that all "equivalent" TeX commands are matched appropriately.

I think there are some gotchas with space matching (I opened a few GitHub issues, e.g. [https://github.com/akshayravikumar/TeXnique/issues/7](https://github.com/akshayravikumar/TeXnique/issues/7)), but these should be fixable.

Feel free to contact me if I can help! Sounds like a really fun project.

<comment><USER2> Supporting custom macros seems hard, but we should be able to fix spacing problems if we revamp the comparison logic entirely. Thanks for filing the Github issues -- we definitely welcome any contributions, so let us know if you have any ideas!

Also, we're friends with Evan and have already gotten his feedback. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For irrationality of root 2, I typed.

        \sqrt{2}\not\in\mathbb{Q}

It refused to accept this answer, even though it looked pixel-for-pixel identical with the intended output.

On further play...perhaps there's some small difference between \not\in and \notin, as there is clearly between \not\exists and \nexists, but I couldn't see it..

Similarly, for the inverse of a complex number, I couldn't figure out why it didn't accept:

         z^{-1} = \frac{\overline{z}}{|z|^2},\forall z \neq 0

<comment><USER7> Probably was supposed to be \notin rather than \not\in? They are not pixel for pixel identical.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the comparison logic is pretty simple right now (see my comment). Unfortunately, `\not\in` and `\notin` look slightly different.

We're figuring out the best way to accept slight variations. It's a tough problem and isn't as simple as increasing the pixel threshold. For example, replacing a + with a - has an extremely small pixel difference (and the two characters have the same width, so it doesn't affect anything else), but we shouldn't accept both.

<comment><USER11> How about the complex number inverse one?

<comment><USER12> Perhaps \bar{z} instead of \overline{z}?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is really good fun! But it would be nice if I could finish up the problem I'm on when the timer runs out. Currently, it just gets taken away abruptly.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, it should let you finish the problem and alternatively show the answer once you're done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey, wow! This is such a fun game! Thank you so much. How about we make a highscore for some tricky feats?

Finally something to let my TeX mind out at.

A problem is though, that at times the game will surprisingly quit saying I've run out of time? Don't know what is going wrong here.

<comment><USER2> Weird...before the 3-minute limit? Maybe there's a bug somewhere with the timer.

<comment><USER15> It happens after succesfully finishing several rounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe it would be more fun if you got back some time proportional to the number of points for a problem (maybe twice the number of points?). Otherwise I'm going to skip the matrix stuff since it takes way too long to type (for me).

<comment><USER2> Hmm that might be a good idea! The point system is supposed to normalize difficulty, but I understand people might skip the egregiously long ones anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome! You should accept submissions from the crowd... and eventually summarize good guidelines. In addition to the not you mentioned, I get particularly itchy when I see bad spacing and/or incorrect punctuation. Thank you for your service to the community!

</comment><comment><USER18> I love this game. My first week of Classical Mechanics and QM, I dove right in and decided to take notes live in LaTeX.

Obviously I knew the basics, but boy does immersion work in learning a language.

I highly recommend it for anybody who wants to climb the curve.

</comment><comment><USER19> I entered my answers in plain TeX and they worked.

I'm either rusty, or the time limits aren't reasonable.

I barely made it through the big equation with the partials in it (sorry forgot the name).

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a neat game. I wonder if it could also function as a teaching aid, if you provided hints, at the cost of points, as the timer runs up for a single problem.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, nice. 15 years after giving up on learning TeX, I just wrote my first successful (La)TeX formula, in only 2 minutes and 47 seconds! Sweet!

</comment><comment><USER22> I got zero. Zero formulae typed in 3 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER23> i solved the problem in time and got 0 points. not trying again i guess?</comment>