If You Were Building a YouTube Data Product Today, Which Approach Would You Choose?
Quick question for developers building products around YouTube data.
When you need access to comments, transcripts, channel information, video metadata, and other public data, are you still relying on scraper APIs, or do you use the official YouTube APIs whenever possible?
I'm especially curious about the long-term tradeoffs. Scrapers seem to offer more flexibility, but official APIs appear much easier to maintain over time.
For those who've worked with both, which approach has been more reliable in practice?
If you were building a new product today, which route would you take and why? I'm interested in real-world experiences rather than theoretical pros and cons.