5 ms·

The biggest threat to YouTube is YouTube. Censorship is getting out of hand and demonetizing/banning sucessful tubers is making people ask questions. Question

The biggest threat to YouTube is YouTube. Censorship is getting out of hand and demonetizing/banning sucessful tubers is making people ask questions. Questions like: Should I continue to invest in this platform or start moving my viewers elsewhere? Personally, if I had a following, I’d be getting my branded media site up and running. I’d continue to post teaser content to YouTube, but host my full content on servers I control.

on_and_off 8y ago
The hard part is that Youtube is actually really great at playing videos. I have always found the alternatives surprisingly subpar. It should maybe not be a surprise, after all they had all the time they needed in order to improve the experience.
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  Pornhub plays videos pretty well even in Mobile and they are just mp4 files. 4chan does pretty well with webm files except for the short length. Browsers can deal with video just fine and the experience is not so different from Youtube. Just serve the files in a format they can play.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  There was a time where dailymotion had a shot but they missed it and failed hard on this part. Vimeo is probably the only one that felt good (even though the average resolution being higher killed my poor old laptop)
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Vimeo never streams well on any of my computers, on any of my networks. It reminds me of RealPlayer how often it buffers.
  - on_and_off 8y ago
    Vimeo tends to really annoys me by forcing me to go to their website if I want to see the video in high def. This tends to make me make sure to just leave the website afterwards.
notatoad 8y ago
>if I had a following, I’d be getting my branded media site up and running. I’d continue to post teaser content to YouTube, but host my full content on servers I control and you'd lose most of your audience. there's a reason that youtube's creators are still on youtube. Thinking about the people who watch a youtube channel as that channel's viewers is mostly a mistake. Some portion of a channel's subscribers would follow to a different site, but most of the audience of a YouTube channel is YouTube's audience. YouTube is sending the audience to videos via the popular feed, suggested video links, up next, the subscriptions page, and all their other discovery tools. Only the most hard-core fans will move to your branded content site. And even when the audience moves, then you're doing ad sales yourself instead of taking advantage of all the companies doing big bulk ad buys on youtube, and paying for hosting yourself. Bandwidth isn't free, and youtube is very efficient at hosting and delivery. Other video sites tend to suck. Best case scenario, your pre-roll or banner ads pay for your hosting and ad sales work. The only profit you should expect to retain on your branded site is the in-video placements you're already doing on YouTube, and your Patreon revenue - the things YouTube demonetization can't affect anyways. The pathway for a content creator to exit youtube is to sign a TV deal. Dedicated channel websites don't work.
- IanDrake 8y ago
  While I see your point, YouTube doesn’t work if you get demonetized or banned. I’ve played in other company’s ecosystems twice and went out of business both times when I got the boot. One doesn’t actually have a business when relying on another party’s ecosystem, it’s just an illusion. An illusion that ends suddenly and with no recourse.
CM30 8y ago
This seems to be true of many social media sites now, with Digg being the old example. They don't so much lose to competitors doing better so much as the services shooting themselves in the foot with poorly thought changes and bad moderation.
varrock 8y ago
I'm late to respond to this, but this sounds just like Nelk on YouTube. They are a pranking channel (ignore the immaturity), but they are banned on YouTube after barging into the Google Headquarters and recording a prank. They are now uploading "PG" content to their YouTube channel (after a serious ban from YouTube), while also branding their own media site where you pay for their "explicit" pranks.

on_and_off 8y ago

The hard part is that Youtube is actually really great at playing videos. I have always found the alternatives surprisingly subpar. It should maybe not be a surprise, after all they had all the time they needed in order to improve the experience.

hiccuphippo 8y ago
Pornhub plays videos pretty well even in Mobile and they are just mp4 files. 4chan does pretty well with webm files except for the short length. Browsers can deal with video just fine and the experience is not so different from Youtube. Just serve the files in a format they can play.
agumonkey 8y ago
There was a time where dailymotion had a shot but they missed it and failed hard on this part. Vimeo is probably the only one that felt good (even though the average resolution being higher killed my poor old laptop)
- rhizome 8y ago
  Vimeo never streams well on any of my computers, on any of my networks. It reminds me of RealPlayer how often it buffers.
- on_and_off 8y ago
  Vimeo tends to really annoys me by forcing me to go to their website if I want to see the video in high def. This tends to make me make sure to just leave the website afterwards.

notatoad 8y ago

>if I had a following, I’d be getting my branded media site up and running. I’d continue to post teaser content to YouTube, but host my full content on servers I control and you'd lose most of your audience. there's a reason that youtube's creators are still on youtube. Thinking about the people who watch a youtube channel as that channel's viewers is mostly a mistake. Some portion of a channel's subscribers would follow to a different site, but most of the audience of a YouTube channel is YouTube's audience. YouTube is sending the audience to videos via the popular feed, suggested video links, up next, the subscriptions page, and all their other discovery tools. Only the most hard-core fans will move to your branded content site. And even when the audience moves, then you're doing ad sales yourself instead of taking advantage of all the companies doing big bulk ad buys on youtube, and paying for hosting yourself. Bandwidth isn't free, and youtube is very efficient at hosting and delivery. Other video sites tend to suck. Best case scenario, your pre-roll or banner ads pay for your hosting and ad sales work. The only profit you should expect to retain on your branded site is the in-video placements you're already doing on YouTube, and your Patreon revenue - the things YouTube demonetization can't affect anyways. The pathway for a content creator to exit youtube is to sign a TV deal. Dedicated channel websites don't work.

IanDrake 8y ago
While I see your point, YouTube doesn’t work if you get demonetized or banned. I’ve played in other company’s ecosystems twice and went out of business both times when I got the boot. One doesn’t actually have a business when relying on another party’s ecosystem, it’s just an illusion. An illusion that ends suddenly and with no recourse.

CM30 8y ago

This seems to be true of many social media sites now, with Digg being the old example. They don't so much lose to competitors doing better so much as the services shooting themselves in the foot with poorly thought changes and bad moderation.

varrock 8y ago

I'm late to respond to this, but this sounds just like Nelk on YouTube. They are a pranking channel (ignore the immaturity), but they are banned on YouTube after barging into the Google Headquarters and recording a prank. They are now uploading "PG" content to their YouTube channel (after a serious ban from YouTube), while also branding their own media site where you pay for their "explicit" pranks.