This is absolutely terrible news. It's been pretty clear this was coming, and I think fairly clear that this is part of a very high-level strategy for Google. They've been investing heavily in all aspects of this for years now, on the client and server side. It reeks of enshittification to me, but more than that I think we're just about to enter the era of locked/closed tech. A Youtube <i>without</i> DRM does almost feel like an anachronism when you consider the rest of the landscape. Most people willingly buy devices that severely limit what they can do, so I'm not expecting any real pushback from consumers either. Those of us who really care about this will probably just find ourselves faced with a choice: digitally divide (and deprive) ourselves for our principles, or be forcefully shoved into the same box as the lowest common denominator users.<p>Assuming non-evil motivations on the G executives part, I do wonder if AI was the final straw here. In order to build their "moat" on Gemini they need to make it so data collectors can't get to Youtube videos. Only "real" way to ensure that is to DRM things. X/Twitter, Reddit, Stack Overflow, and many others have taken steps as well for similar reasons. I'm sure it's something they wanted to do <i>anyway</i> so maybe AI is more an excuse than a reason, but it's surely not nothing.