4 ms·

It does have competitors. IMO, Odysee/LBRY is the most viable one but only time will tell because all the competitors lack some things and have been slow to de

It does have competitors. IMO, Odysee/LBRY is the most viable one but only time will tell because all the competitors lack some things and have been slow to develop. The competitors have a hard time gaining traction because in the way many of us would expect because we live in a different world from when YouTube first became a thing. YouTube in 2005 was way different. You could find just about anything on there. Pranks, home videos, entire TV shows, bumfights, skits, you name it. Mostly young people used it, and back then the youth were a little more "based" than my impression of Gen Z today. I remember older folks like my parents almost universally dismissing YouTube as "a bunch of crap" and how wrong I felt they were. Guess who turned out to be right about the future of information and entertainment! Today, I'd wager everyone's interacted with YouTube at least once. There is nothing edgy or fringe about YouTube anymore. It's a mainstream media platform saddled with its past that it just can't shake. Without big advertisers and big audiences, it wouldn't be sustainable, thus it has developed to not offend the normies or their political allies. Many have moved over to other platforms, but they are essentially the same kind of audience and creators that were on YouTube back in the old days. The so-called normies who didn't take YouTube seriously back then are now easily frightened of the dangerous content found on alt-tech. They are unlikely to ever move away from the warm fuzzy feeling only provided by the MSM and Silicon Valley. Although I desire people be a little less allergic to supposedly dangerous content, can we really blame people for being disinterested or avoidant to YouTube competitors? Maybe this is the way it should be. Average Joes/Janes/Jaydens will be happy on YouTube and TikTok, and the ends of the bell curve will find their place on smaller platforms that aren't interested in pleasing everyone.

gwbas1c 5y ago
The content may have matured, but has YouTube really changed? I always thought the point was to make it easy for anyone to publish an original video? (And then to make it easy for anyone to watch the video.)
- randomdata 5y ago
  > but has YouTube really changed? Unquestionably. If you recall, YouTube originally made its mark by having pirated copies of the SNL Lazy Sunday skit floating around, which quickly saw it become recognized it as the place to watch all kinds of pirated TV shows. Eventually they started enforcing duration limits to quash people uploading entire episodes, but it wasn't until the content ID system was implemented that it started to see that type of content disappear and the 'homemade' stuff take over. The home videos may have always been there, but it wasn't why people were using the service originally.
  - armchairhacker 5y ago
    When was the content id system implemented? I'm sure there were plenty of pirated videos on YouTube (honestly there still are but they use cuts/filters/awful quality to get around), but I remember homemade videos in the top charts even before 2008.
    - randomdata 5y ago
      2007, if the internet is to be believed.
  - zokier 5y ago
    Which is in part why building youtube competitor is so difficult. Bootstrapping with pirated content is not something that will fly as easily in 2020 as it did in 2005
  - gwbas1c 5y ago
    Strange, I've been peeking at YouTube since the beginning and I almost never used it for pirated content.
coldtea 5y ago
>IMO, Odysee/LBRY is the most viable As a competitor? It's not even a bug on their radar... It's like waiting for Mastodon to replace Facebook and co...
- sharemywin 5y ago
  or like youtube or netflix to replace cable and TV stations.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I mean in terms of having lots of the creators I like on it (around 80% I'm guessing), being less likely to become censorious, and isn't a broken piece of crap. I don't give a hoot whether they are an economic competitor.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >in terms of having lots of the creators I like on it Are you tastes in any way representative of any large segment of the population though? Like, do these creators have thousands or millions of viewers?
    - boogies 5y ago
      > Like, do these creators have thousands or millions of viewers? Yes, Minute Physics and Veritasium are two examples I remember off the top of my head (not an LBRY user since I quit algorithmic video binges after abusing them possibly worse then I do HN, IRC, and assorted doomscrolling now :P).
      - coldtea 5y ago
        But, Minute Physics and Veritasium are on YouTube. So, maybe it's just cross-posting and their 99% audience is not there? Of course from a "can I adopt X" perspective, cross-posted content to X is fine, even if most users watch it on YouTube. But for that to be meaninful on a larger scale most popular content should be cross-posted to Odysee (or original to it). E.g. Veritasium is for sure popular, but it might just be part of a tiny slither of YouTube content that made it to the platform - so that would mean I could adopt Odysee as a YouTube replacement only if my interests intersect with that slither.
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
> The competitors have a hard time gaining traction because in the way many of us would expect because we live in a different world from when YouTube first became a thing. > Although I desire people be a little less allergic to supposedly dangerous content, can we really blame people for being disinterested or avoidant to YouTube competitors? My takes on this is that DMCA/copyright laws is huge barrier of scaling. Lots of contents providers (I mean small players) are not comfortable expanding their platform due to copyright laws. It would requires to have a human moderation, legal contact, etc. Content Farms and Media Companies are huge abuser of DMCA takedowns, you can see the effects on YouTube. It is ramparts with legal issues because Google rather to use the bots to deal with the issues and that didn't help. Google allows companies to spam the takedowns with random urls that are not relevant to the contents. Also public domain contents is another issues as well. There are companies that use DMCA takedown on content that are public domain which allows fair use. Sony Entertainments did this a few times, and they are not the only one doing this blatantly. They can do this because they knows they won't be accountable for it. There are illegal contents uploaded daily and it have to be taken down which the small players don't have the resources to do so. There are a lot of legal hurdles that small players need to account for before trying to scale bigger. It comes with risks, some players are not willing to take that risks, even Section 230 offers protections. But it didn't offer protection against companies that are brutal and ruthless with faking DMCA takedowns.
rendall 5y ago
Would you mind listing more of these other platforms? YouTube can be so tediously, stiflingly boring. I had not heard of Odysee/LBRY, so thanks for the tip. LiveLeak was a bit too extreme for me, personally, though I am glad it existed, puzzled to see it go. Anything replace it? Vimeo is nice for finding avant-garde or art videos. There are curated, paid services for films like Mubi, Shudder and NoBudge.
- fsflover 5y ago
  https://joinpeertube.org https://joinpeertube.org

gwbas1c 5y ago

The content may have matured, but has YouTube really changed? I always thought the point was to make it easy for anyone to publish an original video? (And then to make it easy for anyone to watch the video.)

randomdata 5y ago
> but has YouTube really changed? Unquestionably. If you recall, YouTube originally made its mark by having pirated copies of the SNL Lazy Sunday skit floating around, which quickly saw it become recognized it as the place to watch all kinds of pirated TV shows. Eventually they started enforcing duration limits to quash people uploading entire episodes, but it wasn't until the content ID system was implemented that it started to see that type of content disappear and the 'homemade' stuff take over. The home videos may have always been there, but it wasn't why people were using the service originally.
- armchairhacker 5y ago
  When was the content id system implemented? I'm sure there were plenty of pirated videos on YouTube (honestly there still are but they use cuts/filters/awful quality to get around), but I remember homemade videos in the top charts even before 2008.
  - randomdata 5y ago
    2007, if the internet is to be believed.
- zokier 5y ago
  Which is in part why building youtube competitor is so difficult. Bootstrapping with pirated content is not something that will fly as easily in 2020 as it did in 2005
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  Strange, I've been peeking at YouTube since the beginning and I almost never used it for pirated content.

coldtea 5y ago

>IMO, Odysee/LBRY is the most viable As a competitor? It's not even a bug on their radar... It's like waiting for Mastodon to replace Facebook and co...

sharemywin 5y ago
or like youtube or netflix to replace cable and TV stations.
ravenstine 5y ago
I mean in terms of having lots of the creators I like on it (around 80% I'm guessing), being less likely to become censorious, and isn't a broken piece of crap. I don't give a hoot whether they are an economic competitor.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >in terms of having lots of the creators I like on it Are you tastes in any way representative of any large segment of the population though? Like, do these creators have thousands or millions of viewers?
  - boogies 5y ago
    > Like, do these creators have thousands or millions of viewers? Yes, Minute Physics and Veritasium are two examples I remember off the top of my head (not an LBRY user since I quit algorithmic video binges after abusing them possibly worse then I do HN, IRC, and assorted doomscrolling now :P).
    - coldtea 5y ago
      But, Minute Physics and Veritasium are on YouTube. So, maybe it's just cross-posting and their 99% audience is not there? Of course from a "can I adopt X" perspective, cross-posted content to X is fine, even if most users watch it on YouTube. But for that to be meaninful on a larger scale most popular content should be cross-posted to Odysee (or original to it). E.g. Veritasium is for sure popular, but it might just be part of a tiny slither of YouTube content that made it to the platform - so that would mean I could adopt Odysee as a YouTube replacement only if my interests intersect with that slither.

Isthatablackgsd 5y ago

> The competitors have a hard time gaining traction because in the way many of us would expect because we live in a different world from when YouTube first became a thing. > Although I desire people be a little less allergic to supposedly dangerous content, can we really blame people for being disinterested or avoidant to YouTube competitors? My takes on this is that DMCA/copyright laws is huge barrier of scaling. Lots of contents providers (I mean small players) are not comfortable expanding their platform due to copyright laws. It would requires to have a human moderation, legal contact, etc. Content Farms and Media Companies are huge abuser of DMCA takedowns, you can see the effects on YouTube. It is ramparts with legal issues because Google rather to use the bots to deal with the issues and that didn't help. Google allows companies to spam the takedowns with random urls that are not relevant to the contents. Also public domain contents is another issues as well. There are companies that use DMCA takedown on content that are public domain which allows fair use. Sony Entertainments did this a few times, and they are not the only one doing this blatantly. They can do this because they knows they won't be accountable for it. There are illegal contents uploaded daily and it have to be taken down which the small players don't have the resources to do so. There are a lot of legal hurdles that small players need to account for before trying to scale bigger. It comes with risks, some players are not willing to take that risks, even Section 230 offers protections. But it didn't offer protection against companies that are brutal and ruthless with faking DMCA takedowns.

rendall 5y ago

Would you mind listing more of these other platforms? YouTube can be so tediously, stiflingly boring. I had not heard of Odysee/LBRY, so thanks for the tip. LiveLeak was a bit too extreme for me, personally, though I am glad it existed, puzzled to see it go. Anything replace it? Vimeo is nice for finding avant-garde or art videos. There are curated, paid services for films like Mubi, Shudder and NoBudge.

fsflover 5y ago
https://joinpeertube.org https://joinpeertube.org