4 ms·

Patreon’s building native video hosting for creators to sidestep YouTube

62 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

junon 5y ago
I foresee this being very successful if they make the barrier to entry for the viewer essentially zero. People have been starved for a YouTube alternative for the better part of a decade now.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  There’s still a cost but Mux, Cloudflare, Vimeo, and other video infra providers continue to make hosting your own video content less painful as time goes by. Patreon has the benefit that there’s a revenue model they can offset the video cost with. Free video hosting of very popular content is always going to be a challenge, economically speaking. Someone’s gotta pay for disk and bandwidth.
  - breakingcups 5y ago
    Cloudflare and Vimeo are insanely expensive once you cross a threshold. Those looking to make their own video hosting platform may be better off with something like BunnyCDN.
- astlouis44 5y ago
  100%.
- godshatter 5y ago
  Creators will likely see extra revenue if they make some videos patron-only, at different levels. Some creators will likely get too greedy and lose viewers, while others will probably do fine holding a select few back to attract new patrons. The bonus for users will be (hopefully) fewer in-video sponsorship ads (I know all about squarespace and nord vpn, thanks), and no algorithms sending you content you don't want. Less discoverable of new content, though. I suppose "click like and subscribe" will turn into "become a patron!", so that's a wash. Hopefully there won't be as much self-censorship, too, because they have another revenue stream if a video gets demonetized. Or maybe they will put the controversial ones on Patreon only. I'll be interested to see how this turns out. If it becomes competitive, I suspect YouTube will ban Patreon links instead of doing the more sane thing of partnering with them.
  - pitaa 5y ago
    I still see getting your viewers over to patreon being the most difficult part. No matter how many times you plug a patreon in your YouTube videos, only a small percent of viewers are going to follow the link.
bsder 5y ago
It would also be nice because Patreon could actually haul Google into court for not blocking uploads of their videos. One of the major problems with uploading your own videos on a different platform is that someone is always going to upload it to YouTube and you really have no defense against that. If Patreon could concentrate that via many creators, they could force YouTube to actually police that instead of just blowing it off.
throwawaysea 5y ago
The only disappointing thing here is that Patreon is an even more aggressive censor than YouTube, and is very responsive to (progressive) complaints about creators or content. As long as we are entertaining a competitor to YouTube I wish it would be in the hands of an organization that supported free speech.
- bogantech 5y ago
  It will never happen because any such site that does pop up will be smeared as a Nazi site by the media and Twitter mob
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  It's a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" scenario. YouTube already has direct donation mechanisms, so patreon isn't really bringing anything new to the table. Patreon is just as beholden to corporate interests and censorship as YouTube. There's enough creators out there for patreon to make money off of people YouTube banned, but this isn't progress for the internet, just business as usual.

62 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

I foresee this being very successful if they make the barrier to entry for the viewer essentially zero. People have been starved for a YouTube alternative for the better part of a decade now.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
There’s still a cost but Mux, Cloudflare, Vimeo, and other video infra providers continue to make hosting your own video content less painful as time goes by. Patreon has the benefit that there’s a revenue model they can offset the video cost with. Free video hosting of very popular content is always going to be a challenge, economically speaking. Someone’s gotta pay for disk and bandwidth.
- breakingcups 5y ago
  Cloudflare and Vimeo are insanely expensive once you cross a threshold. Those looking to make their own video hosting platform may be better off with something like BunnyCDN.
astlouis44 5y ago
100%.
godshatter 5y ago
Creators will likely see extra revenue if they make some videos patron-only, at different levels. Some creators will likely get too greedy and lose viewers, while others will probably do fine holding a select few back to attract new patrons. The bonus for users will be (hopefully) fewer in-video sponsorship ads (I know all about squarespace and nord vpn, thanks), and no algorithms sending you content you don't want. Less discoverable of new content, though. I suppose "click like and subscribe" will turn into "become a patron!", so that's a wash. Hopefully there won't be as much self-censorship, too, because they have another revenue stream if a video gets demonetized. Or maybe they will put the controversial ones on Patreon only. I'll be interested to see how this turns out. If it becomes competitive, I suspect YouTube will ban Patreon links instead of doing the more sane thing of partnering with them.
- pitaa 5y ago
  I still see getting your viewers over to patreon being the most difficult part. No matter how many times you plug a patreon in your YouTube videos, only a small percent of viewers are going to follow the link.

bsder 5y ago

It would also be nice because Patreon could actually haul Google into court for not blocking uploads of their videos. One of the major problems with uploading your own videos on a different platform is that someone is always going to upload it to YouTube and you really have no defense against that. If Patreon could concentrate that via many creators, they could force YouTube to actually police that instead of just blowing it off.

throwawaysea 5y ago

The only disappointing thing here is that Patreon is an even more aggressive censor than YouTube, and is very responsive to (progressive) complaints about creators or content. As long as we are entertaining a competitor to YouTube I wish it would be in the hands of an organization that supported free speech.

bogantech 5y ago
It will never happen because any such site that does pop up will be smeared as a Nazi site by the media and Twitter mob
robbedpeter 5y ago
It's a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" scenario. YouTube already has direct donation mechanisms, so patreon isn't really bringing anything new to the table. Patreon is just as beholden to corporate interests and censorship as YouTube. There's enough creators out there for patreon to make money off of people YouTube banned, but this isn't progress for the internet, just business as usual.