4 ms·

> by choice If you have two choices, namely no money and some money and you must have money to eat then you don't have two choices. There is no choice, because

> by choice If you have two choices, namely no money and some money and you must have money to eat then you don't have two choices. There is no choice, because the other platforms are far too small to compete. What should arguably happen more is uploading to more than one location, but searching for youtube alternatives is almost impossible (at least if you want one that actually has some potential. There is a ton of trash).

dfxm12 6y ago
If the issue is money, there are many ways to make money besides relying on YouTube.
- simias 6y ago
  You need to reach your audience somehow. Even creators who earn a lot from Patreon and other websites had to build their following, often on Youtube. People can complain as much as they want (and sometimes rightly so) but it's a simple technical truth that nobody else can provide a Youtube-quality service for free. The operating costs are just insane.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I read the parent as saying YouTube is probably a pretty lousy bet if you have no other income stream to eat. Yes, some people do pretty well. So do some actors. And some authors. That doesn't make those occupations good full-time financial choices if you're broke. Most people posting on YouTube have day jobs or other means of support. I'm actually tempted to think that patronage and ad supported models lure a lot of people into thinking they can monetize their hobby in a significant way that they would never think they could if they were playing a musical instrument for tips.
    - dfxm12 6y ago
      You read correctly. :)
    - apostacy 6y ago
      This is just conservative Prager-U corporate toadying. Essentially, if you don't like your job, stop complaining and quit! People invested significantly in YouTube because they were promised that it was a platform for everyone. Now they are gentrifying the platform and driving everyone off who isn't a major celebrity, via gaslighting. If you are a celebrity like Logan Paul, the rules simply do not apply to you. YouTube will fully monetize anything you put up, up to and including violating the terms of service or even committing actual crimes in real life. YouTube is perfectly capable of treating people better, they just choose not to. People can see it is wrong when Uber does stuff like this to contractors who are far less invested in the platform, but YouTube gets a free pass to abuse its contributors.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        There are plenty of platforms for everyone out there. They're just not a path to riches, or indeed even to material "side hustle" income, for the vast majority of people. Anyone who ever thought otherwise is... let's just say optimistic.
- simonh 6y ago
  What's your experience of using them to establish and grow a viewer base and monetise the kind of content created by a typical Youtube channel?
soco 6y ago
Maybe Vimeo or Dailymotion will pick up some users this way, like Signal and Telegram picked lately some Whatsapp traffic...
tobyhinloopen 6y ago
You can cross upload your content, right? Just upload it to all platforms. Sure noone will watch from there but if enough people start doing it, viewers will follow. At some point it must be worth it to set an example for your colleague creators. It just needs a start
- edbob 6y ago
  This is impractical due to YouTube's algorithm. If y people watch your content on alternative sites that would otherwise have watched on YouTube, this reduces the algorithm's score and could result in x : (x > y) less views on YouTube due to reduced placement. It's probably not a problem at small numbers of views, but if you actually started getting significant views on alt sites, you would be heavily incentivized to pull your content back to YouTube exclusively. The network effects are just too strong. Even if a few very devoted creators stick to using alt sites at personal cost, 99% of creators will remain exclusively on YouTube and the alt sites will not be able to compete on content. TLDR: A few people may do it, but it won't scale.

dfxm12 6y ago

If the issue is money, there are many ways to make money besides relying on YouTube.

simias 6y ago
You need to reach your audience somehow. Even creators who earn a lot from Patreon and other websites had to build their following, often on Youtube. People can complain as much as they want (and sometimes rightly so) but it's a simple technical truth that nobody else can provide a Youtube-quality service for free. The operating costs are just insane.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I read the parent as saying YouTube is probably a pretty lousy bet if you have no other income stream to eat. Yes, some people do pretty well. So do some actors. And some authors. That doesn't make those occupations good full-time financial choices if you're broke. Most people posting on YouTube have day jobs or other means of support. I'm actually tempted to think that patronage and ad supported models lure a lot of people into thinking they can monetize their hobby in a significant way that they would never think they could if they were playing a musical instrument for tips.
  - dfxm12 6y ago
    You read correctly. :)
  - apostacy 6y ago
    This is just conservative Prager-U corporate toadying. Essentially, if you don't like your job, stop complaining and quit! People invested significantly in YouTube because they were promised that it was a platform for everyone. Now they are gentrifying the platform and driving everyone off who isn't a major celebrity, via gaslighting. If you are a celebrity like Logan Paul, the rules simply do not apply to you. YouTube will fully monetize anything you put up, up to and including violating the terms of service or even committing actual crimes in real life. YouTube is perfectly capable of treating people better, they just choose not to. People can see it is wrong when Uber does stuff like this to contractors who are far less invested in the platform, but YouTube gets a free pass to abuse its contributors.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      There are plenty of platforms for everyone out there. They're just not a path to riches, or indeed even to material "side hustle" income, for the vast majority of people. Anyone who ever thought otherwise is... let's just say optimistic.
simonh 6y ago
What's your experience of using them to establish and grow a viewer base and monetise the kind of content created by a typical Youtube channel?

soco 6y ago

Maybe Vimeo or Dailymotion will pick up some users this way, like Signal and Telegram picked lately some Whatsapp traffic...

tobyhinloopen 6y ago

You can cross upload your content, right? Just upload it to all platforms. Sure noone will watch from there but if enough people start doing it, viewers will follow. At some point it must be worth it to set an example for your colleague creators. It just needs a start

edbob 6y ago
This is impractical due to YouTube's algorithm. If y people watch your content on alternative sites that would otherwise have watched on YouTube, this reduces the algorithm's score and could result in x : (x > y) less views on YouTube due to reduced placement. It's probably not a problem at small numbers of views, but if you actually started getting significant views on alt sites, you would be heavily incentivized to pull your content back to YouTube exclusively. The network effects are just too strong. Even if a few very devoted creators stick to using alt sites at personal cost, 99% of creators will remain exclusively on YouTube and the alt sites will not be able to compete on content. TLDR: A few people may do it, but it won't scale.