5 ms·

The bigger question is how do you plan to foot the bill for serving videos at that scale.

by enitihas 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Eikon 7y ago
Exactly, there's a reason why no one is competing with youtube.
- tsherr 7y ago
  Would ads that don't track users sell?
  - enitihas 7y ago
    Even if you could sell ads as well as YouTube, you will neither have Google's scale or technological advantages, nor will you be able to survive on the same margin as YouTube. But off course, any YouTube competitor will most likely receive far less from ads than YouTube does (not counting things like facebook video here). If we ever want to have a better YouTube alternative, I think the main question is would people be willing to pay a good amount of money for that service. Personally, I find the YouTube model better. Even though it tracks people, it atleast makes videos freely accessible to everyone. Would something like khan academy or OCW even exist without YouTube?. However, I have observed that as one progress through the social ladder economically, the appetite for a paid but non tracking model grows.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Most individuals have gotten very accustomed to largely not paying (directly) for hosted content/email/etc. This isn't universal. There are relatively niche sites that people pay to use, or at least have paid tiers. But free is what most people expect. (Look at all the outrage when SmugMug eliminated the 1TB free limit that Yahoo put on Flickr.)
      - mayeaux 7y ago
        My take is you go the freemium model. Free version of NodeTube gets you cool features, but if you want really epic features (livestreaming, increased file uploads, private/unlisted uploads) then you have to pay a bit. My bet is that people will get behind the project and pay a bit of extra money on a freemium model to access the extra features and support the NodeTube instance.
javajosh 7y ago
If everyone downloads once and serves twice, then you can reach every human in about 30 iterations. If you want to prevent client storage because you want to create a repeated controllable attention resource, then you will have a scaling problem. (It's too bad you can distribute everything as a torrent and give people an easy way to pay for the movie they just downloaded, even if it was just "on their honor".)
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Getting 1 video to a billion people is dead simple, getting a million videos to 1,000 people is damn hard. YouTube serves both ends of the spectrum.
  - mayeaux 7y ago
    Really good points raised here guys. Here's my take on each point raised: 1) Appeal to viewers: it's slick, no clutter, really fun, and people hate YouTube. There's lots of appeal already just based on the reaction I've gotten posting it around a bit. 2) NodeTube has built in integration with Stripe where you can offer a 'plus' version of the site for $5/month. $5/month gets a LOT of hosting bang for your buck, so the bet is that your Plus subscriptions will outpace your hosting costs, I feel quite confident in that. 3) Regarding a video that may sit on the platform for a long time with zero views, my suggestion would be in that case since the file is serving the purposes more of being backed up rather than serving as content that you would prompt the user to pay a fee for using NodeTube as a 'backup service'. It seems harsh but if profitability is important to the project then you would remove those uploads that satisfy a condition that basically marks them as 'totally inactive, only using the platform as a content backup'. Interested to hear your guys thoughts on this concept. Thanks guys!
    - detaro 7y ago
      > people hate YouTube. Do they? In my bubble, that's certainly a very uncommon sentiment from the consumer side.

The bigger question is how do you plan to foot the bill for serving videos at that scale.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Eikon 7y ago

Exactly, there's a reason why no one is competing with youtube.

tsherr 7y ago
Would ads that don't track users sell?
- enitihas 7y ago
  Even if you could sell ads as well as YouTube, you will neither have Google's scale or technological advantages, nor will you be able to survive on the same margin as YouTube. But off course, any YouTube competitor will most likely receive far less from ads than YouTube does (not counting things like facebook video here). If we ever want to have a better YouTube alternative, I think the main question is would people be willing to pay a good amount of money for that service. Personally, I find the YouTube model better. Even though it tracks people, it atleast makes videos freely accessible to everyone. Would something like khan academy or OCW even exist without YouTube?. However, I have observed that as one progress through the social ladder economically, the appetite for a paid but non tracking model grows.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Most individuals have gotten very accustomed to largely not paying (directly) for hosted content/email/etc. This isn't universal. There are relatively niche sites that people pay to use, or at least have paid tiers. But free is what most people expect. (Look at all the outrage when SmugMug eliminated the 1TB free limit that Yahoo put on Flickr.)
    - mayeaux 7y ago
      My take is you go the freemium model. Free version of NodeTube gets you cool features, but if you want really epic features (livestreaming, increased file uploads, private/unlisted uploads) then you have to pay a bit. My bet is that people will get behind the project and pay a bit of extra money on a freemium model to access the extra features and support the NodeTube instance.

javajosh 7y ago

If everyone downloads once and serves twice, then you can reach every human in about 30 iterations. If you want to prevent client storage because you want to create a repeated controllable attention resource, then you will have a scaling problem. (It's too bad you can distribute everything as a torrent and give people an easy way to pay for the movie they just downloaded, even if it was just "on their honor".)

zamadatix 7y ago
Getting 1 video to a billion people is dead simple, getting a million videos to 1,000 people is damn hard. YouTube serves both ends of the spectrum.
- mayeaux 7y ago
  Really good points raised here guys. Here's my take on each point raised: 1) Appeal to viewers: it's slick, no clutter, really fun, and people hate YouTube. There's lots of appeal already just based on the reaction I've gotten posting it around a bit. 2) NodeTube has built in integration with Stripe where you can offer a 'plus' version of the site for $5/month. $5/month gets a LOT of hosting bang for your buck, so the bet is that your Plus subscriptions will outpace your hosting costs, I feel quite confident in that. 3) Regarding a video that may sit on the platform for a long time with zero views, my suggestion would be in that case since the file is serving the purposes more of being backed up rather than serving as content that you would prompt the user to pay a fee for using NodeTube as a 'backup service'. It seems harsh but if profitability is important to the project then you would remove those uploads that satisfy a condition that basically marks them as 'totally inactive, only using the platform as a content backup'. Interested to hear your guys thoughts on this concept. Thanks guys!
  - detaro 7y ago
    > people hate YouTube. Do they? In my bubble, that's certainly a very uncommon sentiment from the consumer side.