Hello! Data hoarders [0] like myself use tons of automation for this task. For online videos specifically, I watch them locally so as to avoid as much telemetry as possible, and when I see a video I want to watch, I save it to a playlist. Then I have youtube-dl set up so that it will sync with the playlist and download any new videos that it doesn't already have. Your question about finding the time is on the money: The "choice" we are given is a complete farce, and time is the main way the monopolies turn the screws on getting you to behave the way they want. They make it exceptionally time-consuming to NOT give them everything they want. I spend an infurating amount of time not trusting my phone or my computer, and refusing to allow telemetry of any kind. I'm not married and have no children, and those things certainly make the problem that much more difficult. People seem to not give a shit about this nightmare dystopia we've built, they just want to connect their iPhone to your wifi network to they can shovel more data into tiktok or whatever. The more people you have in your life, the harder it becomes to "choose" not to give up (an inevitably insane amount of) your telemetry. It fucking sucks!! I am slowly feeling more and more helpless and now I even feel like I might have some understanding about that guy who flew a Cessna into that IRS building "lol".
Thanks for the explanation. Saving it when it comes up makes sense, I somehow imagined someone specifically going out there to download it all like a madman.
Probably should do the same when I get around it. You're absolutely right about the way the internet has developed. In addition to the privacy concerns now it looks like data availability will be an increasing issue with sites removing or limiting access left and right.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/