11 ms·

I get what you're trying to say but your ideas have to compete with YouTube et al which are not only "free" for the content creators but can actually make them

I get what you're trying to say but your ideas have to compete with YouTube et al which are not only "free" for the content creators but can actually make them some money. A content creator already has a non-zero cost to make a video, having to pay more money to host it just makes them less likely to keep making content. There probably are ways to keep a catbirds.com running but as the difficulty increases the likelihood of the site's maintainers keeping with it decreases significantly. If the site tanks all of its hoisted content goes with it. Ask all the people that had their content wiped from MP3.com how that feels. So from a content creator's point of view, why hitch their wagon to catvids.com? It costs them money and isn't guaranteed to be around in a year. They're also far less likely to make any money no matter how much traffic aggregators send them. Sticking with YouTube is way less of a hassle and gives them a far better chance to make money if nothing else to break even to keep making content.

ehnto 6y ago
You're right and I absolutely agree it's unlikely to work. YouTube is so much more than just a technical solution too, it's success is strongly tied to it's community dominance. The aggregators don't own or host the content in the system I am thinking of, they just consume and redistribute their sources. So if catvids.com goes away the creator's source is still online. It's also probably syndicated to a bunch of other cat video sites simultaneously from that one source. Thinking through it more, it's pretty much an RSS feed but for videos. In fact I would probably just use the RSS protocol if I were ever to try and get something like this off the ground. Have an open source aggregator template so it's easy to start one, and then monetize it by starting the first video source hosting as a service company. I don't think it could ever take off though, the "Next YouTube" will be another massive corporate, closed platform with deep pockets or venture capital.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  You just invented video podcasts.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    Well now I can't help but feel you're intentionally missing the point to be reductive. To spell it out, the core value proposition is that Platform A, and Creator B, actually want to work together to syndicate video for profit, because we have solved for Video Hosting by creating an ecosystem that makes it profitable. The technology isn't important, and nothing has been invented. I was just using it as a language to convey the platform/ecosystem I had in mind. Could it work? Probably not, I don't think users would go to hundreds of different websites to find what they want.

ehnto 6y ago

You're right and I absolutely agree it's unlikely to work. YouTube is so much more than just a technical solution too, it's success is strongly tied to it's community dominance. The aggregators don't own or host the content in the system I am thinking of, they just consume and redistribute their sources. So if catvids.com goes away the creator's source is still online. It's also probably syndicated to a bunch of other cat video sites simultaneously from that one source. Thinking through it more, it's pretty much an RSS feed but for videos. In fact I would probably just use the RSS protocol if I were ever to try and get something like this off the ground. Have an open source aggregator template so it's easy to start one, and then monetize it by starting the first video source hosting as a service company. I don't think it could ever take off though, the "Next YouTube" will be another massive corporate, closed platform with deep pockets or venture capital.

giantrobot 6y ago
You just invented video podcasts.
- ehnto 6y ago
  Well now I can't help but feel you're intentionally missing the point to be reductive. To spell it out, the core value proposition is that Platform A, and Creator B, actually want to work together to syndicate video for profit, because we have solved for Video Hosting by creating an ecosystem that makes it profitable. The technology isn't important, and nothing has been invented. I was just using it as a language to convey the platform/ecosystem I had in mind. Could it work? Probably not, I don't think users would go to hundreds of different websites to find what they want.