4 ms·

Why would you want to create an alternative to Youtube anyway? Streaming videos for free is a terrible business model YT itself still wasn’t profitable back in

by wwtrv 5y ago

Why would you want to create an alternative to Youtube anyway? Streaming videos for free is a terrible business model YT itself still wasn’t profitable back in 2015 (and Google stopped releasing figures after that) for all we know Google might still be subsidizing it, in any case it took at least 10 years for it to break even.

n8cpdx 5y ago
Probably to avoid the national/continental embarrassment of relying on the Americans for every basic piece of technology European society depends on. The original comment was about how government websites rely on YouTube to host their content. I guess there’s also a case for not subjecting European citizens to the perils of Google’s data collection efforts, or the government’s content to the moderation whims of YouTube’s algorithms. This is part 2 of the dirty duo of European business attitudes: “why even bother?” Nothing is ever worth doing in Europe, an unfruitful complement to the belief that nothing is possible in Europe.
- wwtrv 5y ago
  Sorry, honestly but you sound to me like of this “European” attitude you’re fighting against. Basically you’re suggesting investing large amounts of public money (because no sane VC would invest enough capital to build an alternative YT) not driven by actual business needs (you know that you can just host videos directly on tour own server?) but instead some weird ideas about avoiding “national embarrassment”. If European citizens valued their data enough, preferred hosting their videos on EU servers etc. and were willing to pay extra for this such a service would already exist, but they don’t. Given the current consumer preferences no independent free video streaming could compete with YT unless Google was broken up into multiple companies.
  - n8cpdx 5y ago
    > If European citizens valued their data enough, preferred hosting their videos on EU servers etc. and were willing to pay extra for this such a service would already exist, but they don’t. The same could be said for anything that doesn’t always exist. > because no sane VC would invest enough capital to build an alternative YT Perhaps no European VC. The premise of a VC is that you fund things that aren’t a sure bet, on the hopes that a few ventures will be successful. VC has always been high-risk, high-reward, and you don’t need to start at YouTube scale. It is possible to start with modest funding and grow from there. > Given the current consumer preferences no independent free video streaming could compete with YT unless Google was broken up into multiple companies. Vimeo continues to exist. As does DailyMotion. As does twitch. As do Chinese alternatives. Stop making excuses for businesses.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"for all we know Google might still be subsidizing it" That would be called dumping, and it is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
- wwtrv 5y ago
  So you’re saying that it’s illegal for a company to subsidize it’s unprofitable products by using funds from more successful products? Because that’s basically what’s Google business model was from the beginning (i.e. release a bunch of free stuff to tie in users into their ecosystem and gather their data) : Gmail, Maps, Docs, Chrome are illegal because they are/were subsidized by the Search/Ads business? Have dumping laws ever been actually applied to software?
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    That is my understabding of what dumping laws mean. Many laws have not been properly tested on software, even ownership of data is still sketchy. I am saying that, as scrutiny of software conpanies increases, and a new generation of lawmakers comes in that has some computer literacy, chances that any dumping laws will be applied increase dramatically

by wwtrv 5y ago

n8cpdx 5y ago

Probably to avoid the national/continental embarrassment of relying on the Americans for every basic piece of technology European society depends on. The original comment was about how government websites rely on YouTube to host their content. I guess there’s also a case for not subjecting European citizens to the perils of Google’s data collection efforts, or the government’s content to the moderation whims of YouTube’s algorithms. This is part 2 of the dirty duo of European business attitudes: “why even bother?” Nothing is ever worth doing in Europe, an unfruitful complement to the belief that nothing is possible in Europe.

wwtrv 5y ago
Sorry, honestly but you sound to me like of this “European” attitude you’re fighting against. Basically you’re suggesting investing large amounts of public money (because no sane VC would invest enough capital to build an alternative YT) not driven by actual business needs (you know that you can just host videos directly on tour own server?) but instead some weird ideas about avoiding “national embarrassment”. If European citizens valued their data enough, preferred hosting their videos on EU servers etc. and were willing to pay extra for this such a service would already exist, but they don’t. Given the current consumer preferences no independent free video streaming could compete with YT unless Google was broken up into multiple companies.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  > If European citizens valued their data enough, preferred hosting their videos on EU servers etc. and were willing to pay extra for this such a service would already exist, but they don’t. The same could be said for anything that doesn’t always exist. > because no sane VC would invest enough capital to build an alternative YT Perhaps no European VC. The premise of a VC is that you fund things that aren’t a sure bet, on the hopes that a few ventures will be successful. VC has always been high-risk, high-reward, and you don’t need to start at YouTube scale. It is possible to start with modest funding and grow from there. > Given the current consumer preferences no independent free video streaming could compete with YT unless Google was broken up into multiple companies. Vimeo continues to exist. As does DailyMotion. As does twitch. As do Chinese alternatives. Stop making excuses for businesses.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"for all we know Google might still be subsidizing it" That would be called dumping, and it is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

wwtrv 5y ago
So you’re saying that it’s illegal for a company to subsidize it’s unprofitable products by using funds from more successful products? Because that’s basically what’s Google business model was from the beginning (i.e. release a bunch of free stuff to tie in users into their ecosystem and gather their data) : Gmail, Maps, Docs, Chrome are illegal because they are/were subsidized by the Search/Ads business? Have dumping laws ever been actually applied to software?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  That is my understabding of what dumping laws mean. Many laws have not been properly tested on software, even ownership of data is still sketchy. I am saying that, as scrutiny of software conpanies increases, and a new generation of lawmakers comes in that has some computer literacy, chances that any dumping laws will be applied increase dramatically