Like burning down a forest to make sweet nutrients for new growth, YouTube is winding down its service to myriad older devices today. All in the name of progress, of course. In a notice, spotted by MacRumors, YouTube notes that "select" devices that were made in 2012 (or earlier) will find that any special-made YouTube apps will no longer work. That's thanks to a change in YouTube's Data API, which Google says opens it up to features like comments, captions, RSS push notifications, and flagging videos.

So much for that TV you bought a few years ago

So far, the list of devices that the update puts out to pasture includes older TVs and Blu-ray disc players from Sony and Panasonic, Google TV devices running version 3 or 4, game consoles without support for Adobe Flash or HTML5, along with iOS devices running anything less than iOS 7. The update also impacts the second-generation Apple TV, requiring users to start videos on their iPhones, iPods, and iPads then stream them using AirPlay.

The change is likely to have the biggest impact on anyone who hasn't purchased a dedicated streaming device in the past three years, and that relies instead on apps built into Smart TV sets. Considering most people only update their TV sets every eight years or so, that's potentially a lot of Smart TV owners. For its part, YouTube telegraphed the move early last month, giving developers on some of those devices about six weeks to make changes.