>sometimes I download educational videos and other useful content I'm worried might get deleted
I've seen enough stuff on the web (not just YouTube) deleted that now, I try to always download and archive anything I think I might want to look at again in the future. You just never know when it's going to disappear. These services cannot be trusted to retain anything for the future.
>with the crackdown on adblockers, I'm worried the ability to download videos will just completely cease to exist.
I really don't see how this is possible, technically. As long as they're sending data to people to view on their own computers, it's just not possible to prevent copying that data. The only thing they can do is make it more difficult, but unless they change to requiring people to use a proprietary application to view that data, there's only so much they can do while making stuff that can be viewed in a web browser. Companies have been trying to come up with copy-protection schemes for decades and still haven't succeeded; the only times they've arguably done so is when they completely controlled the whole platform (and even then, eventually people cracked it if it was popular enough).
I think it's always just going to be an arms race between the content purveyors and the crackers, so there will only be short periods where copying will be impossible, until the crackers figure out the new scheme. What's much more important, IMO, is the issue of content simply being deleted or otherwise inaccessible. We see this all the time now.
I've seen enough stuff on the web (not just YouTube) deleted that now, I try to always download and archive anything I think I might want to look at again in the future. You just never know when it's going to disappear. These services cannot be trusted to retain anything for the future.
>with the crackdown on adblockers, I'm worried the ability to download videos will just completely cease to exist.
I really don't see how this is possible, technically. As long as they're sending data to people to view on their own computers, it's just not possible to prevent copying that data. The only thing they can do is make it more difficult, but unless they change to requiring people to use a proprietary application to view that data, there's only so much they can do while making stuff that can be viewed in a web browser. Companies have been trying to come up with copy-protection schemes for decades and still haven't succeeded; the only times they've arguably done so is when they completely controlled the whole platform (and even then, eventually people cracked it if it was popular enough).
I think it's always just going to be an arms race between the content purveyors and the crackers, so there will only be short periods where copying will be impossible, until the crackers figure out the new scheme. What's much more important, IMO, is the issue of content simply being deleted or otherwise inaccessible. We see this all the time now.