Developer builds YouTube giveaway picker, hits API limits and impossible subscription check

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A developer built a YouTube giveaway comment picker tool after a YouTuber needed a transparent, fair way to select winners without bias. Using the YouTube Data API v3, the tool fetches all top-level comments with pagination, filters duplicates, and randomly selects a winner. The project exposed several technical hurdles, including URL parsing bugs triggered by mobile share links with tracking parameters, and the tool's inability to read reply-thread comments. A planned 'must be subscribed to enter' filter was ultimately removed because the API does not allow checking whether a specific user subscribes to a channel. The experience highlighted a gap between how giveaway features are commonly imagined and what YouTube's public API actually permits developers to verify.

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