13 ms·

YouTube owns more than discovery too: they own relationship between viewers and producers. Most of the YouTube channels I follow have no external means to noti

YouTube owns more than discovery too: they own relationship between viewers and producers. Most of the YouTube channels I follow have no external means to notify me about new videos. If I were to stop using YouTube, they were banned, or YouTube subscriptions stopped working the same, they would have no way to actually contact me about new content, and they’d lose me. Effectively YouTube owns the relationship between the creators and I. This can be changed, CGPGrey has been building a mailing list for this reason, but it takes a lot of painstaking deliberate action to achieve. Migrating to a new platform alone is insufficient.

v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago
That‘s why you plug your twitter and maybe other socials (mailing list as well I guess, though less usual) at every possible opportunity. It‘s incredibly important to cultivate the relationship with your audience. In the event that you have to change platform for whatever reason, you still have a line of communication.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Twitter has the same problem as YouTube. Email is a federated open source protocol and far superior as way of securing your fan base. It's probably a great idea for content providers to self-host a website with their videos on it as well.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    I agree generally, but most people I know barely ever check their personal emails, pretty much just enough to sign up for twitter/instagram/snapchat/whatever's popular now.
    - sgt 6y ago
      In what kind of bubble do you live? Most people I know check their personal e-mails quite regularly.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        Mostly people aged 18-25.
        sgt 6y ago
        Ok, then it makes sense. That age group is still considered very young adults, and most are still studying and not even exposed to full time jobs yet. As soon as you receive important emails from banks etc you start checking your personal e-mail regularly.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago
    That works for very niche streamers/creators. Maybe with an older audience as well. If your a streamer on twitch or YouTube chances are your audience isn‘t older than 30. I personally don‘t really use email for actual communication. Twitter is pretty much perfect to communicate to an audience. Yes it isn‘t federated but at least you‘re using a bunch of different platforms to diversify risk. Generally I would advise new content creators to be present on every possible platform.
    - sgt 6y ago
      I don't use Twitter but I tried it a few years back. It's hard to follow relevant content if half of what you see are people's re-tweets. With e-mail I can easily sift through and find what is relevant to me.
- bredren 6y ago
  The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band [1] In March of 2009, the band went from a blog-looking thing [2] that collected email addresses to putting every social channel front and center. [3] By November 2010, they had iTunes Ping, Twitter, an iPhone app, Facebook, Myspace, the bassist's twitter feed all being pushed in huge tiles. At the time this was extraordinary, since many artists did not have a handle on social at all and definitely were not pushing people "away" from direct connection like this. I believe the idea was to allow many platforms to get between you and your fans/followers, but to allow the fans to choose which platform that would be. As the OP suggests, this can be a lot of work. [1] Coran Capshaw, the band's manager created an early dial-up ISP company in Charlottesville that went on to become MusicToday. was responsible for major tech advances in live entertainment [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davema... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davema...
  - csharptwdec19 6y ago
    > The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band Judged. However, on a more serious note, I new people who were -very- attached to bands/musicians based on interactions they had on MySpace and LiveJournal. One problem with any online exposure in the modern web is that the bar from 'unknown' to 'trolls flooding your inbox' is pretty low. I do wonder however whether small time performers wind up trapped by this: When they are first growing they probably can't pick the ideal "Social Media" person, which may limit certain exposure and opportunities.
    - bredren 6y ago
      > Judged You don’t know the half of it. I ran a DMB blog and large online community. It was where I did a lot of my first web programming. :| Whatever you think of their music, DMB and their fans pioneered a bunch of areas. One of the most forward decisions by the band was to allow online distribution of their live recordings. Being mainstream at that point meant it pushed torrenting of the live shows into the workflows of many people who wouldn’t have otherwise have been exposed to the tech. It also drew the hackers of sorts to their scene who would illicitly capture and record IEM streams, mix them with mic recordings then combine them with stealth monopod videos to release bootleg copies of entire shows. Only the Radiohead fans came close to the amount of enthusiasm in the DMB scene back then. That said—if I could go back I’d pick Radiohead to follow.
kbenson 6y ago
This is a natural extension of any platform geared for the general public as creators, because managing all that for someone in one place provides real benefit to the user. It's just as you note that benefit comes with loss of control. It's really no different than anything else in life. People hire contractors to do larger home repairs, and the contractors contact and subcontract other specialty workers as needed (drywall, woodworking, plumbing, electrical) for things they can't cover themselves. As the homeowner, unless you make an effort to know who these people are, you won't know who they are and may not know what their company is. The benefit is that you don't need to know any of it and can just let the contractor coordinate it all for you. Youtube is just like that contractor, except instead of a local guy that cares about your business it's a giant multinational which is hard to get to care if they screw something up for you because you're one of many millions of other customers. The parallels of you can handle all this coordination youtube offers with more control are obvious. Either hire someone to do it all for you or handle it yourself if you want control, because no matter what platform you go to that handles it for you, chances are it will exhibit some or all of the problems that Youtube has, or even new ones.
munk-a 6y ago
I disagree somewhat - well, I think simply backing up content is insufficient but if you diversify your platform now and manage to snag a significant number of viewers then you should be good. Shared platforms like DLive (a la pewdiepie fame and others) or watchnebula.com is one way to do this and can be very strong for topically related subjects - independent platforms like Dropout.tv are also an option but you're either hoping to win the bandwidth vs. advertiser cost balance or going to need to charge for access - both of which can lower your subscriber rate. I think it's hard to make a fully independent platform so I think topical ones are a better option - but YouTube is really in a position of power due to the network effect. As long as they don't shoot themselves in the foot with controversy and banning then they should be able to easily hold onto their position - everything challenging them has an uphill battle.
imglorp 6y ago
I would really like a recommendation engine that I own and control. It would know what I read and watch. It would find new stuff for me, dedupe it, listen to my feedback,and learn from its mistakes. It would work with all kinds of media, not just youtube or HN. And it would all be private. I don't mind paying for my content but I do mind being the product.
- rvrabec 6y ago
  +1 I'd also pay for something like this...
  - h0p3 6y ago
    ヽ༼ ຈل͜ຈ༼ ̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿̿ ̿༽Ɵ͆ل͜Ɵ͆ ༽ﾉ ¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸ └[∵┌]└[ ∵ ]┘[┐∵]┘ +1. I'll even pay a liquid democracy ideology subscription fee for this to be built. I will pay for 3 years without even a working prototype. Do it right, or don't do it at all; take the space by storm. Build it to give it away! I'm willing to accept a number of copyleft licenses. Iteratively, decentralize until it hurts, then centralize until it works. Take 'em down bois! Prove your progress in a P2P-hosted git. Show me it is owned by the workers, from leadership to infrastructure to what runs on my machine. You freely give away 10% gross of what you are given and show me what you are made of (when you pick out your gods). Assume your user has a Pinephone. I want it synchronized across my devices on Dat. I want it to be integrated with my Tiddlywiki and Fraidycat. Favor Rust in your construction. Make it live in both my terminal and browser as nearly dialectical equals. Help me choose my moderators (those who censor and shape), make it simple for me to re-use the models of individuals in how I remodel my filter-bubbles. I work hard to make my data public, and I will work with others who are willing to do the same; build with our data if you need. I want us to pick out what is salient together using fundamental human trust established over mere wires in Gradualized T42T. ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°) ¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸ ヘ( ^o^)ノ＼(^_^ )
    - jamiek88 6y ago
      Wow GPT-3 is getting good.
Andrex 6y ago
Remember when people browsed pages to find new content by creators instead of being spoonfed by an algorithm? I do, but the memory is well-faded, and growing dimmer...
- edgyquant 6y ago
  Yeah I remember when no one but nerds like us used the web
choicenotchance 6y ago
Not really. Most of the Youtubers I follow post like 10 posts on other SM sites whenever a new video is uploaded. I get notified anyhow, probably not at the earliest, but I definitely don't miss it.
octygen 6y ago
Yes, unless you crosspost to Instagram or Facebook and tell people in your videos about all three. Or is that frowned upon at YouTube and/or monitored if you have a high viewership channel?
- SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
  YouTube doesn't care about that.

v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago

That‘s why you plug your twitter and maybe other socials (mailing list as well I guess, though less usual) at every possible opportunity. It‘s incredibly important to cultivate the relationship with your audience. In the event that you have to change platform for whatever reason, you still have a line of communication.

chrisco255 6y ago
Twitter has the same problem as YouTube. Email is a federated open source protocol and far superior as way of securing your fan base. It's probably a great idea for content providers to self-host a website with their videos on it as well.
- Shared404 6y ago
  I agree generally, but most people I know barely ever check their personal emails, pretty much just enough to sign up for twitter/instagram/snapchat/whatever's popular now.
  - sgt 6y ago
    In what kind of bubble do you live? Most people I know check their personal e-mails quite regularly.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      Mostly people aged 18-25.
      - sgt 6y ago
        Ok, then it makes sense. That age group is still considered very young adults, and most are still studying and not even exposed to full time jobs yet. As soon as you receive important emails from banks etc you start checking your personal e-mail regularly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- v7p1Qbt1im 6y ago
  That works for very niche streamers/creators. Maybe with an older audience as well. If your a streamer on twitch or YouTube chances are your audience isn‘t older than 30. I personally don‘t really use email for actual communication. Twitter is pretty much perfect to communicate to an audience. Yes it isn‘t federated but at least you‘re using a bunch of different platforms to diversify risk. Generally I would advise new content creators to be present on every possible platform.
  - sgt 6y ago
    I don't use Twitter but I tried it a few years back. It's hard to follow relevant content if half of what you see are people's re-tweets. With e-mail I can easily sift through and find what is relevant to me.
bredren 6y ago
The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band [1] In March of 2009, the band went from a blog-looking thing [2] that collected email addresses to putting every social channel front and center. [3] By November 2010, they had iTunes Ping, Twitter, an iPhone app, Facebook, Myspace, the bassist's twitter feed all being pushed in huge tiles. At the time this was extraordinary, since many artists did not have a handle on social at all and definitely were not pushing people "away" from direct connection like this. I believe the idea was to allow many platforms to get between you and your fans/followers, but to allow the fans to choose which platform that would be. As the OP suggests, this can be a lot of work. [1] Coran Capshaw, the band's manager created an early dial-up ISP company in Charlottesville that went on to become MusicToday. was responsible for major tech advances in live entertainment [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090219153059/http://www.davema... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davematthewsband.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101105102023/http://www.davema...
- csharptwdec19 6y ago
  > The first "big" band I ever saw go multi-channel to connect with fans was Dave Matthews Band Judged. However, on a more serious note, I new people who were -very- attached to bands/musicians based on interactions they had on MySpace and LiveJournal. One problem with any online exposure in the modern web is that the bar from 'unknown' to 'trolls flooding your inbox' is pretty low. I do wonder however whether small time performers wind up trapped by this: When they are first growing they probably can't pick the ideal "Social Media" person, which may limit certain exposure and opportunities.
  - bredren 6y ago
    > Judged You don’t know the half of it. I ran a DMB blog and large online community. It was where I did a lot of my first web programming. :| Whatever you think of their music, DMB and their fans pioneered a bunch of areas. One of the most forward decisions by the band was to allow online distribution of their live recordings. Being mainstream at that point meant it pushed torrenting of the live shows into the workflows of many people who wouldn’t have otherwise have been exposed to the tech. It also drew the hackers of sorts to their scene who would illicitly capture and record IEM streams, mix them with mic recordings then combine them with stealth monopod videos to release bootleg copies of entire shows. Only the Radiohead fans came close to the amount of enthusiasm in the DMB scene back then. That said—if I could go back I’d pick Radiohead to follow.

kbenson 6y ago

This is a natural extension of any platform geared for the general public as creators, because managing all that for someone in one place provides real benefit to the user. It's just as you note that benefit comes with loss of control. It's really no different than anything else in life. People hire contractors to do larger home repairs, and the contractors contact and subcontract other specialty workers as needed (drywall, woodworking, plumbing, electrical) for things they can't cover themselves. As the homeowner, unless you make an effort to know who these people are, you won't know who they are and may not know what their company is. The benefit is that you don't need to know any of it and can just let the contractor coordinate it all for you. Youtube is just like that contractor, except instead of a local guy that cares about your business it's a giant multinational which is hard to get to care if they screw something up for you because you're one of many millions of other customers. The parallels of you can handle all this coordination youtube offers with more control are obvious. Either hire someone to do it all for you or handle it yourself if you want control, because no matter what platform you go to that handles it for you, chances are it will exhibit some or all of the problems that Youtube has, or even new ones.

munk-a 6y ago

I disagree somewhat - well, I think simply backing up content is insufficient but if you diversify your platform now and manage to snag a significant number of viewers then you should be good. Shared platforms like DLive (a la pewdiepie fame and others) or watchnebula.com is one way to do this and can be very strong for topically related subjects - independent platforms like Dropout.tv are also an option but you're either hoping to win the bandwidth vs. advertiser cost balance or going to need to charge for access - both of which can lower your subscriber rate. I think it's hard to make a fully independent platform so I think topical ones are a better option - but YouTube is really in a position of power due to the network effect. As long as they don't shoot themselves in the foot with controversy and banning then they should be able to easily hold onto their position - everything challenging them has an uphill battle.

imglorp 6y ago

I would really like a recommendation engine that I own and control. It would know what I read and watch. It would find new stuff for me, dedupe it, listen to my feedback,and learn from its mistakes. It would work with all kinds of media, not just youtube or HN. And it would all be private. I don't mind paying for my content but I do mind being the product.

rvrabec 6y ago
+1 I'd also pay for something like this...
- h0p3 6y ago
  ヽ༼ ຈل͜ຈ༼ ̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿̿ ̿༽Ɵ͆ل͜Ɵ͆ ༽ﾉ ¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸ └[∵┌]└[ ∵ ]┘[┐∵]┘ +1. I'll even pay a liquid democracy ideology subscription fee for this to be built. I will pay for 3 years without even a working prototype. Do it right, or don't do it at all; take the space by storm. Build it to give it away! I'm willing to accept a number of copyleft licenses. Iteratively, decentralize until it hurts, then centralize until it works. Take 'em down bois! Prove your progress in a P2P-hosted git. Show me it is owned by the workers, from leadership to infrastructure to what runs on my machine. You freely give away 10% gross of what you are given and show me what you are made of (when you pick out your gods). Assume your user has a Pinephone. I want it synchronized across my devices on Dat. I want it to be integrated with my Tiddlywiki and Fraidycat. Favor Rust in your construction. Make it live in both my terminal and browser as nearly dialectical equals. Help me choose my moderators (those who censor and shape), make it simple for me to re-use the models of individuals in how I remodel my filter-bubbles. I work hard to make my data public, and I will work with others who are willing to do the same; build with our data if you need. I want us to pick out what is salient together using fundamental human trust established over mere wires in Gradualized T42T. ( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°) ¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸¸.••.¸ ヘ( ^o^)ノ＼(^_^ )
  - jamiek88 6y ago
    Wow GPT-3 is getting good.

Andrex 6y ago

Remember when people browsed pages to find new content by creators instead of being spoonfed by an algorithm? I do, but the memory is well-faded, and growing dimmer...

edgyquant 6y ago
Yeah I remember when no one but nerds like us used the web

choicenotchance 6y ago

Not really. Most of the Youtubers I follow post like 10 posts on other SM sites whenever a new video is uploaded. I get notified anyhow, probably not at the earliest, but I definitely don't miss it.

octygen 6y ago

Yes, unless you crosspost to Instagram or Facebook and tell people in your videos about all three. Or is that frowned upon at YouTube and/or monitored if you have a high viewership channel?

SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
YouTube doesn't care about that.