Hooktube as a website is still alive, but they're just embedding youtube's vids now. That means youtube can still do all the analytics that they do on their home site.
Google's beef with hooktube is not that they direct traffic away from their site. If anything that actually saves them some money on bandwidth. Their issue its that hooktube was designed to neuter the metadata collection that made google into the monolith it is today.
On a side note, any age-restricted video on youtube can be bypassed by opening the video as an embed. You just have to move the URL around to this format.
Hooktube as a website is still alive, but they're just embedding youtube's vids now. That means youtube can still do all the analytics that they do on their home site.
Google's beef with hooktube is not that they direct traffic away from their site. If anything that actually saves them some money on bandwidth. Their issue its that hooktube was designed to neuter the metadata collection that made google into the monolith it is today.
On a side note, any age-restricted video on youtube can be bypassed by opening the video as an embed. You just have to move the URL around to this format.
https://youtube.com/embed/LDwNuawSUmM
This Star Trek video (Spock's Brain) on YT asked me to sign in to confirm my age, but played on HT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDwNuawSUmM
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=LDwNuawSUmM
I don't know why you'd need age verification to watch Star Trek, but that HT is still up and saying that it is YT light makes me wonder is there is more to this. Maybe YT bought it or there are exceptions it can take advantage of.