5 ms·

When is there going to be a legitimate YouTube contender? Seems like it's ripe for a replacement...

farnsworthy 9y ago
Someone please do this. (You'll probably need a lot of money.) In the meantime, download anything you enjoy today, because it may not be there tomorrow.
- dvt 9y ago
  If you have traction, the money will come. But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? Honest question. I think that YouTube has reached Google levels of optimization. Sure, it could be better, but not better enough that people are willing to switch.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? For any specialized market, probably a lot; YouTube may be the ultimate least-common-denominator user-submitted-video streaming service, but it's not the only one there is room for.
    - dvt 9y ago
      > For any specialized market, probably a lot This is doubly true for services like Google Search, and yet (for example) security-oriented engines like DDG are barely making a dent. I honestly don't think niche is the way to go if you're trying to go after Google/YouTube/Facebook. You'd need to figure out a core issue or core need that has been overlooked. And I just don't really see one.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > This is doubly true for services like Google Search, and yet (for example) security-oriented engines like DDG are barely making a dent. DDG is making a huge dent in the narrow segment it is designed to appeal to, which is all any specialized service can hope for. I think DDG fans persistently overestimate how many people find Google’s personalization a net cost. > I honestly don't think niche is the way to go if you're trying to go after Google/YouTube/Facebook. You'd need to figure out a core issue or core need that has been overlooked. Sure, if you are trying to replace one of those as the dominant mass market player in its domain you need to do that. Also, I think you are more likely to find a core need by dealing with a need that seems niche but is really just more pronounced and visible in that particular niche than by digging around in the dark for a core need.
        dvt 9y ago
        > Sure, if you are trying to replace one of those as the dominant mass market player in its domain you need to do that. The parent post was discussing disrupting the major player -- YouTube. Me making some tiny website that caters to videos of, say, amateur astronomy, while interesting and successful in its own right, would not so much as make a dent (let alone disrupt) YouTube. That was my point: that disrupting YouTube (like disrupting Google) seems, to me, nigh impossible.
        exDM69 9y ago
        It's not just disrupting YouTube, it's also about creating a sustainable service. Video streaming has enormous costs which you need to get back somehow. Unless your niche audience is willing to pay per minute, it is going to be difficult to pay the bills.
- Scoundreller 9y ago
  It sounds like there will be a huge opportunity for howto/DIY videos that people don't really subscribe to. Google isn't removing any videos, but they are using the demonetized videos as bait to get you to watch their monetized videos.
- CryoLogic 9y ago
  Bandwidth prices are dropping every year, but ATM it's very difficult to be profitable with video streaming. Like crazy hard. 200k views of a 250mb video is 40tb bandwidth which is $3600-$4600 streaming from Amazon S3 depending on if you use CloudFront or not. You basically need your own data centers and wholesale bandwidth, aka scale.
  - jopsen 9y ago
    Amazon is pretty expensive for bandwidth, scaleway.com sells cheap VMs and baremetal with 200 MBit/s unmetered bandwidth at like 3 EUR/mo. Building a reliable service, handling peak, etc. is hard, and driving down latency will probably cost more... But 40TB can be done a lot cheaper than 3-4k USD.
    - c0rkscrew 9y ago
      >scaleway.com sells cheap VMs and baremetal with 200 MBit/s unmetered bandwidth I'm sure if you rented hundreds of those and actually used the bandwidth they would kick you out.
jakebasile 9y ago
The closest I can think of is Vimeo, but they've concentrated more on highly edited, niche, even arthouse style video. I don't know much about their technical equivalence with respect to performance because I don't find any videos on there I'd like to watch. Twitch has been attempting to compete in the video game space by adding uploads and comment systems on videos, but Twitch has its share of problems such as a haphazard dashboard and a terribly designed mobile app. Vid.me was around for a while but recently shut down. It's not a very competitive space imo.
- SyneRyder 9y ago
  Vimeo also has a lot of conference talk videos from software & maker conferences. I run a monthly email newsletter that includes a "conference video of the month", and my main source is a few Vimeo conference channels I've subscribed to. But Vimeo's Samsung Smart TV app broke last year, and they haven't fixed it in months. They blame Samsung, and they're probably right, but Netflix, YouTube & Amazon have continued updating their apps during those months. It just feels like Vimeo isn't giving their product the attention that it needs.
  - idointernet 9y ago
    It was a painful few months but it's fixed. Thanks for being patient.
    - SyneRyder 9y ago
      Oh wow, I guess it is! (Well, sort've... I get a blank white screen at launch for 30 seconds, then a blank grey screen for another 10-15 seconds. But after that, it actually works! This is with v2.0.8. I'd never thought to keep waiting through the white screen. Thank you!!)
      - idointernet 9y ago
        That version number seems strange. Mind if I get some more info? What year / model tv are you using?
firloop 9y ago
Is YouTube even profitable? Even if they are, it seems like the only reason cost could be "reasonable" is because they piggy back off of being Google scale (co-location, negotiated bandwidth rates, global network of self-hosted data centers). Not to mention the network and aggregate effects of having an existing ad market and user profiles for targeting ads. One could probably mitigate high operating costs by charging for the service or limiting who can post on the site. But I think these two factors greatly contribute to YouTube's monopoly status.
- Scoundreller 9y ago
  Google's biggest threat is you going somewhere else with your search-terms and eye-balls. If you went to Amazon videos for all of your video-consumption, Amazon would know exactly how to target you without having to pay Google.
pwaai 9y ago
wait, so I need to navigate away from youtube to watch some highly niche content? This is what people on youtube thinks and the perceived opportunity cost is not enough to force people to switch....unless its content that is downright banned on youtube Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out there and for people to enjoy. So far, all the comments on HN are about how they won't get paid, they will be replaced by people who do it without monetary rewards or saavy enough to monetize through external revenue sources.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out there and for people to enjoy. Yeah, if there is an adequate substitute for your monetized product provided by an ever-refreshing pool of people willing to work for free, you're in a precarious position. Pretty much independently of the behavior of any middleman.
jdietrich 9y ago
There are a million better options for video hosting. The problem is discoverability - YouTube's search box and recommendations bar have a near-monopoly on discovering new video creators. If you're not on YouTube, you'll have a huge uphill struggle to build an audience. It doesn't help that Google also have a near-monopoly on search, so they can strangle traffic to any competing service through opaque algorithm tweaks.
tanilama 9y ago
Never was, and probably won't be there for a long time. If you wish to compete with Youtube, consider a feature match of the followings: 1. Fast streaming, everywhere, on phones and browsers. 2. Super High resolution videos. 3. Huge content reserves. 4. Good search and discovery experience. 5. The ability to battle spams and handle external copyright claim to avoid lawsuit. 6. Robust ad platform and sales and the infrastructure to sustain operations. Youtube has achieved this because they are part of Google, they enjoy all kinds of technological advantage: Storage/Serving/Spam filtering/Video encoding/Machine Learning, and years and years of accumulation of data, losing billions of dollars while getting constant cash injection from Google. It is hard to replicate Youtube, heck, even Chinese doesn't succeed to copy one of their own. None of the video streaming websites in China is exactly the model of Youtube.
- a_imho 9y ago
  I don't necessarily think one needs to replace youtube by brute force. It mostly offers cheap disposable entertainment and that's not so hard to come by. Noted I'm probably not their main target audience.
- sundarurfriend 9y ago
  "1. Fast streaming, everywhere, on phones and browsers" and "4. Good search and discovery experience" are the essentials (with 1 including the hosting requirements). Most users are ready to put up with moderate resolution videos, the content will accumulate surprisingly quickly as long as there is some initial content to draw people in, and it'll be good news for the platform when spam and copyright issues become actual problems. But feature 1 is big enough in cost and difficulty, to be a big barrier to entry by itself.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > 5. The ability to battle spams and handle external copyright claim to avoid lawsuit. That's also vital. Otherwise you're risking your entire platform on lawsuits from film and music companies when copyrighted content is inevitably uploaded.
MachinShinn- 9y ago
Facebook is already a legitimate YouTube contender. Where have you been?

Someone please do this. (You'll probably need a lot of money.) In the meantime, download anything you enjoy today, because it may not be there tomorrow.

dvt 9y ago
If you have traction, the money will come. But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? Honest question. I think that YouTube has reached Google levels of optimization. Sure, it could be better, but not better enough that people are willing to switch.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? For any specialized market, probably a lot; YouTube may be the ultimate least-common-denominator user-submitted-video streaming service, but it's not the only one there is room for.
  - dvt 9y ago
    > For any specialized market, probably a lot This is doubly true for services like Google Search, and yet (for example) security-oriented engines like DDG are barely making a dent. I honestly don't think niche is the way to go if you're trying to go after Google/YouTube/Facebook. You'd need to figure out a core issue or core need that has been overlooked. And I just don't really see one.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > This is doubly true for services like Google Search, and yet (for example) security-oriented engines like DDG are barely making a dent. DDG is making a huge dent in the narrow segment it is designed to appeal to, which is all any specialized service can hope for. I think DDG fans persistently overestimate how many people find Google’s personalization a net cost. > I honestly don't think niche is the way to go if you're trying to go after Google/YouTube/Facebook. You'd need to figure out a core issue or core need that has been overlooked. Sure, if you are trying to replace one of those as the dominant mass market player in its domain you need to do that. Also, I think you are more likely to find a core need by dealing with a need that seems niche but is really just more pronounced and visible in that particular niche than by digging around in the dark for a core need.
      - dvt 9y ago
        > Sure, if you are trying to replace one of those as the dominant mass market player in its domain you need to do that. The parent post was discussing disrupting the major player -- YouTube. Me making some tiny website that caters to videos of, say, amateur astronomy, while interesting and successful in its own right, would not so much as make a dent (let alone disrupt) YouTube. That was my point: that disrupting YouTube (like disrupting Google) seems, to me, nigh impossible.
        exDM69 9y ago
        It's not just disrupting YouTube, it's also about creating a sustainable service. Video streaming has enormous costs which you need to get back somehow. Unless your niche audience is willing to pay per minute, it is going to be difficult to pay the bills.
Scoundreller 9y ago
It sounds like there will be a huge opportunity for howto/DIY videos that people don't really subscribe to. Google isn't removing any videos, but they are using the demonetized videos as bait to get you to watch their monetized videos.
CryoLogic 9y ago
Bandwidth prices are dropping every year, but ATM it's very difficult to be profitable with video streaming. Like crazy hard. 200k views of a 250mb video is 40tb bandwidth which is $3600-$4600 streaming from Amazon S3 depending on if you use CloudFront or not. You basically need your own data centers and wholesale bandwidth, aka scale.
- jopsen 9y ago
  Amazon is pretty expensive for bandwidth, scaleway.com sells cheap VMs and baremetal with 200 MBit/s unmetered bandwidth at like 3 EUR/mo. Building a reliable service, handling peak, etc. is hard, and driving down latency will probably cost more... But 40TB can be done a lot cheaper than 3-4k USD.
  - c0rkscrew 9y ago
    >scaleway.com sells cheap VMs and baremetal with 200 MBit/s unmetered bandwidth I'm sure if you rented hundreds of those and actually used the bandwidth they would kick you out.

jakebasile 9y ago

The closest I can think of is Vimeo, but they've concentrated more on highly edited, niche, even arthouse style video. I don't know much about their technical equivalence with respect to performance because I don't find any videos on there I'd like to watch. Twitch has been attempting to compete in the video game space by adding uploads and comment systems on videos, but Twitch has its share of problems such as a haphazard dashboard and a terribly designed mobile app. Vid.me was around for a while but recently shut down. It's not a very competitive space imo.

SyneRyder 9y ago
Vimeo also has a lot of conference talk videos from software & maker conferences. I run a monthly email newsletter that includes a "conference video of the month", and my main source is a few Vimeo conference channels I've subscribed to. But Vimeo's Samsung Smart TV app broke last year, and they haven't fixed it in months. They blame Samsung, and they're probably right, but Netflix, YouTube & Amazon have continued updating their apps during those months. It just feels like Vimeo isn't giving their product the attention that it needs.
- idointernet 9y ago
  It was a painful few months but it's fixed. Thanks for being patient.
  - SyneRyder 9y ago
    Oh wow, I guess it is! (Well, sort've... I get a blank white screen at launch for 30 seconds, then a blank grey screen for another 10-15 seconds. But after that, it actually works! This is with v2.0.8. I'd never thought to keep waiting through the white screen. Thank you!!)
    - idointernet 9y ago
      That version number seems strange. Mind if I get some more info? What year / model tv are you using?

firloop 9y ago

Is YouTube even profitable? Even if they are, it seems like the only reason cost could be "reasonable" is because they piggy back off of being Google scale (co-location, negotiated bandwidth rates, global network of self-hosted data centers). Not to mention the network and aggregate effects of having an existing ad market and user profiles for targeting ads. One could probably mitigate high operating costs by charging for the service or limiting who can post on the site. But I think these two factors greatly contribute to YouTube's monopoly status.

Scoundreller 9y ago
Google's biggest threat is you going somewhere else with your search-terms and eye-balls. If you went to Amazon videos for all of your video-consumption, Amazon would know exactly how to target you without having to pay Google.

pwaai 9y ago

wait, so I need to navigate away from youtube to watch some highly niche content? This is what people on youtube thinks and the perceived opportunity cost is not enough to force people to switch....unless its content that is downright banned on youtube Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out there and for people to enjoy. So far, all the comments on HN are about how they won't get paid, they will be replaced by people who do it without monetary rewards or saavy enough to monetize through external revenue sources.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out there and for people to enjoy. Yeah, if there is an adequate substitute for your monetized product provided by an ever-refreshing pool of people willing to work for free, you're in a precarious position. Pretty much independently of the behavior of any middleman.

jdietrich 9y ago

There are a million better options for video hosting. The problem is discoverability - YouTube's search box and recommendations bar have a near-monopoly on discovering new video creators. If you're not on YouTube, you'll have a huge uphill struggle to build an audience. It doesn't help that Google also have a near-monopoly on search, so they can strangle traffic to any competing service through opaque algorithm tweaks.

tanilama 9y ago

Never was, and probably won't be there for a long time. If you wish to compete with Youtube, consider a feature match of the followings: 1. Fast streaming, everywhere, on phones and browsers. 2. Super High resolution videos. 3. Huge content reserves. 4. Good search and discovery experience. 5. The ability to battle spams and handle external copyright claim to avoid lawsuit. 6. Robust ad platform and sales and the infrastructure to sustain operations. Youtube has achieved this because they are part of Google, they enjoy all kinds of technological advantage: Storage/Serving/Spam filtering/Video encoding/Machine Learning, and years and years of accumulation of data, losing billions of dollars while getting constant cash injection from Google. It is hard to replicate Youtube, heck, even Chinese doesn't succeed to copy one of their own. None of the video streaming websites in China is exactly the model of Youtube.

a_imho 9y ago
I don't necessarily think one needs to replace youtube by brute force. It mostly offers cheap disposable entertainment and that's not so hard to come by. Noted I'm probably not their main target audience.
sundarurfriend 9y ago
"1. Fast streaming, everywhere, on phones and browsers" and "4. Good search and discovery experience" are the essentials (with 1 including the hosting requirements). Most users are ready to put up with moderate resolution videos, the content will accumulate surprisingly quickly as long as there is some initial content to draw people in, and it'll be good news for the platform when spam and copyright issues become actual problems. But feature 1 is big enough in cost and difficulty, to be a big barrier to entry by itself.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > 5. The ability to battle spams and handle external copyright claim to avoid lawsuit. That's also vital. Otherwise you're risking your entire platform on lawsuits from film and music companies when copyrighted content is inevitably uploaded.

MachinShinn- 9y ago

Facebook is already a legitimate YouTube contender. Where have you been?