5 ms·

No because you can publish it yourself. We don't need giant middlemen to use the Internet.

by wbl 8y ago

kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
While that is true, it is quite difficult to compete against ad-revenue-driven content creation.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Eventually, people will have to run ads on their own websites, the same as before Youtube. There will be a lot less video content because serving video is a tough thing.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    I'm sure there are cloud providers out there offering this rather cheap... And it's only going to be cheaper in the future :)
    - Kalium 8y ago
      You're absolutely right! It's certainly going to become cheaper and easier to host video! With that said, is it perhaps possible that the problems publishers of content struggle with are in the main not those of the nuts and bolts of publishing? Perhaps, even, that these problems (content discovery, gaining access to users, analytics, ad management) might be well-addressed by platforms?
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        We could start a company that indexes websites so that they can be discovered. To help them monetize their content, we could also design an advertising platform that didn't require any special contracts or business clout to join. An advertising platform that was based on the words on the webpage - we could use it to fund the discovery side of our business. Let me call up my Stanford buddies and we'll get going. I know a guy named Eric that might like this idea.
    - teraflop 8y ago
      It won't be so cheap if those cloud providers have to charge you the cost of the liability they're incurring for your potential copyright infringement.
notatoad 8y ago
most people do need middlemen though. if you require everybody to host their own content on their own websites, you go back to the old days of the internet where the only content was published by nerds. which had a certain charm, but was a lot smaller and less inclusive than today's internet.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Alternatively: You create a market for better tools that make it easier for individuals and companies to self-publish.
  - dasil003 8y ago
    Problem is no one wants to be a pipe. Imagine what Twitter could have been if they had accepted this vision instead of turning into yet another media company that sells ads. Even ISPs are trying to be media companies.
- sigstoat 8y ago
  it could be even easier than it was. there's no reason someone couldn't make a small bit of desktop software which, fed AWS/Azure/GCP/DO/github pages/etc credentials, set up every aspect of a website, and automatically synced some local directory of content to the relevant site.
  - jasode 8y ago
    >there's no reason someone couldn't make a small bit of desktop software which, fed AWS/Azure/GCP/DO/ The gp (notatoad) mentioned technical skill as a barrier and you responded to that point but easy-to-use idiot-proof software isn't really the issue. The bigger problem(s) mega-sites like Youtube solves is financial. When one uploads a video to Youtube, it doesn't matter if it gets 0 views or 1 billion views. The cost is the same to the uploader: $0. Hosting it on one's own with AWS/Azure/GCP/DigitalOcean/etc will have variable egress costs and budgeting/forecasting a potential expense of thousands of dollars is not something regular people want to tackle. (The difficulty of this should be apparent from the stories of sophisticated tech geeks getting blindsided by unexpected AWS bandwidth bills.) The other option of placing a bandwidth limit to cap the costs means you create a different problem: a popular video will result in web surfers seeing annoying "bandwidth exceeded" error messages. Another financial problem Youtube addresses is monetization. Hosting it on a self-managed cloud means less opportunities for ad revenue. Yes, a lot of HN despise ads but many uploaders of desirable video content like the ad payouts.
Hemospectrum 8y ago
Are you planning to run your own T1 lines to the backbone when you're building your own datacenter to host one video? We don't "need" them, sure, but we live in a society. We're supposed to be able to delegate work to others who specialize in doing it.
- merlincorey 8y ago
  T1 lines provide a scant 1.544 Mbps of bandwidth. No one is doing any amount of video over T1 lines in 2018.
  - jamiek88 8y ago
    I took a double take at that. T1? For video? Does that still happen? I remember the massive boost getting a T1 at work was, in 2001.
  - Hemospectrum 8y ago
    Thanks, that was a dumb mistake on my part... And a mistake I wouldn’t make if I could rely on a third party to build and run a datacenter for me. I’m not interested in building a datacenter.

No because you can publish it yourself. We don't need giant middlemen to use the Internet.

by wbl 8y ago

No because you can publish it yourself. We don't need giant middlemen to use the Internet.

kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago

While that is true, it is quite difficult to compete against ad-revenue-driven content creation.

whatshisface 8y ago
Eventually, people will have to run ads on their own websites, the same as before Youtube. There will be a lot less video content because serving video is a tough thing.
- jopsen 8y ago
  I'm sure there are cloud providers out there offering this rather cheap... And it's only going to be cheaper in the future :)
  - Kalium 8y ago
    You're absolutely right! It's certainly going to become cheaper and easier to host video! With that said, is it perhaps possible that the problems publishers of content struggle with are in the main not those of the nuts and bolts of publishing? Perhaps, even, that these problems (content discovery, gaining access to users, analytics, ad management) might be well-addressed by platforms?
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      We could start a company that indexes websites so that they can be discovered. To help them monetize their content, we could also design an advertising platform that didn't require any special contracts or business clout to join. An advertising platform that was based on the words on the webpage - we could use it to fund the discovery side of our business. Let me call up my Stanford buddies and we'll get going. I know a guy named Eric that might like this idea.
  - teraflop 8y ago
    It won't be so cheap if those cloud providers have to charge you the cost of the liability they're incurring for your potential copyright infringement.

notatoad 8y ago

most people do need middlemen though. if you require everybody to host their own content on their own websites, you go back to the old days of the internet where the only content was published by nerds. which had a certain charm, but was a lot smaller and less inclusive than today's internet.

ForHackernews 8y ago
Alternatively: You create a market for better tools that make it easier for individuals and companies to self-publish.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Problem is no one wants to be a pipe. Imagine what Twitter could have been if they had accepted this vision instead of turning into yet another media company that sells ads. Even ISPs are trying to be media companies.
sigstoat 8y ago
it could be even easier than it was. there's no reason someone couldn't make a small bit of desktop software which, fed AWS/Azure/GCP/DO/github pages/etc credentials, set up every aspect of a website, and automatically synced some local directory of content to the relevant site.
- jasode 8y ago
  >there's no reason someone couldn't make a small bit of desktop software which, fed AWS/Azure/GCP/DO/ The gp (notatoad) mentioned technical skill as a barrier and you responded to that point but easy-to-use idiot-proof software isn't really the issue. The bigger problem(s) mega-sites like Youtube solves is financial. When one uploads a video to Youtube, it doesn't matter if it gets 0 views or 1 billion views. The cost is the same to the uploader: $0. Hosting it on one's own with AWS/Azure/GCP/DigitalOcean/etc will have variable egress costs and budgeting/forecasting a potential expense of thousands of dollars is not something regular people want to tackle. (The difficulty of this should be apparent from the stories of sophisticated tech geeks getting blindsided by unexpected AWS bandwidth bills.) The other option of placing a bandwidth limit to cap the costs means you create a different problem: a popular video will result in web surfers seeing annoying "bandwidth exceeded" error messages. Another financial problem Youtube addresses is monetization. Hosting it on a self-managed cloud means less opportunities for ad revenue. Yes, a lot of HN despise ads but many uploaders of desirable video content like the ad payouts.

Hemospectrum 8y ago

Are you planning to run your own T1 lines to the backbone when you're building your own datacenter to host one video? We don't "need" them, sure, but we live in a society. We're supposed to be able to delegate work to others who specialize in doing it.

merlincorey 8y ago
T1 lines provide a scant 1.544 Mbps of bandwidth. No one is doing any amount of video over T1 lines in 2018.
- jamiek88 8y ago
  I took a double take at that. T1? For video? Does that still happen? I remember the massive boost getting a T1 at work was, in 2001.
- Hemospectrum 8y ago
  Thanks, that was a dumb mistake on my part... And a mistake I wouldn’t make if I could rely on a third party to build and run a datacenter for me. I’m not interested in building a datacenter.