# whats the deal with this youtube thing

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [December 1, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650 "2012-12-01T05:15:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650/1 "2012-12-01T05:15:39Z")

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\*Sorry for the interruption. We have been receiving a large volume of requests from your network. To continue with your YouTube experience, please enter the verification code below.  
\*  
never seen that before  
and I go on youtube a lot everyday

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**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650/2 "2012-12-01T11:06:32Z")

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IME, too many requests in too short a time from the same person (or network it seems). Google is very prissy about harvesters or whatever imagined impositions they’re having to endure, something must have tripped their ERMAHGERD switch.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650/3 "2012-12-07T11:52:38Z")

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You get a similar response if you leave too many comments in a short period of time. And too many seems to be randomly defined.

At least you can read their captchas now. For a while, they were horrible.

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**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650/4 "2012-12-07T14:00:16Z")

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Since Youtube (Google) pays the owners of the videos fees based on the amount of views, you can imagine why some people might game that system and setup a bunch of computers to continuously watch their videos. To prevent that kind of abuse, you can see why Youtube would have some protections against non-humans “watching” their videos.

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**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-this-youtube-thing/642650/5 "2012-12-07T15:39:05Z")

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Youtube is a newfangled internet thingy. It’s sort of like a big collection of laserdiscs that you can access over a phone line.