3 ms·

At this point it feels like producers perhaps should boycott YouTube and go to better platforms. Maybe having one’s own website and use Wistia or similar for h

by cpach 5y ago

At this point it feels like producers perhaps should boycott YouTube and go to better platforms. Maybe having one’s own website and use Wistia or similar for hosting the videos?

andybak 5y ago
I suspect that there's a vast queue of people who would love succesful producers to step away from YouTube so they could take their place.
jzb 5y ago
Amen. Stop helping companies create walled gardens that ultimately screw you. You’d think we’d have learned that lesson by now.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
How, exactly, is that person going to get views? If they are supported by advertisements or sponsorships, do you think that is going to happen? Probably not. The biggest problem really is this: A lot of folks have never heard of Wistia (I hadn't until reading your comment). I'm probably not going to go there on my own - you know, unless they advertise on a youtube channel that I'm watching or something similar. And honestly, why would I believe that the smaller place is going to be any more fair to content producers, especially if they happen to pick up a lot of market share and can no longer provide the personal assistance they gave when small? And a website isn't exactly a substitute either: Who is going to find your website, anyway? Part of what makes large platforms popular is discoverability. Now, you might have some luck with some topics - the sort that people actually search for - but I'm not usually looking up any infotainment topics in a general search engine. I just go to youtube for that.
- easrng 5y ago
  AFAIK Wistia is for embedding video in other sites without a branded player. You aren't supposed to have heard of them.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- mistermann 5y ago
  I can't vouch for the quality, but the consensus opinion in a recent thread is that the things you mention aren't actually problems, or at the very least they are the problems of the publisher and no one else, not worthy of discussion, etc: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30825144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30825144 What is going on in this thread, I cannot explain.
rtsil 5y ago
The problem is Wistia (and the likes) is crazy expensive if one of your videos goes viral, in addition to the streamer having to handle monetization, promotion, DMCA complaints, audience interaction. People became captive of Youtube because Youtube made complicated and expensive things easy and cheap. People became used to how practical it is, even if the price is putting their livelihood at the whims of Google. The ideal world would be if video hosting was like websites, where you have multiple separate and competing companies for domain names, DNS, file hosting, database, load balancing, ads, CDNs, email marketing... And if you're not happy with one of them, you can easily switch to another, all while remaining in full control of your contents and where they are displayed.
- richardfey 5y ago
  > People became used to how practical it is, even if the price is putting their livelihood at the whims of Google. I wonder what alternative history we could have had if YouTube wasn't acquired. It makes for an interesting short story writing prompt as well.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    If YouTube wasn't acquired it would have died. There was no way to host video cheaper than ad revenue. Video just requires too much compute, storage and bandwidth compared to the few cents you get from an occasional ad click. Google could offer it cheap bandwidth and storage. They could use consumers love of Google products to force ISP's to deliver YouTube video traffic cheaper when ISP's threatened to block YouTube because it used too much bandwidth. Even with that, it wasn't profitable for 10+ years!

by cpach 5y ago

At this point it feels like producers perhaps should boycott YouTube and go to better platforms. Maybe having one’s own website and use Wistia or similar for hosting the videos?

andybak 5y ago

I suspect that there's a vast queue of people who would love succesful producers to step away from YouTube so they could take their place.

jzb 5y ago

Amen. Stop helping companies create walled gardens that ultimately screw you. You’d think we’d have learned that lesson by now.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

How, exactly, is that person going to get views? If they are supported by advertisements or sponsorships, do you think that is going to happen? Probably not. The biggest problem really is this: A lot of folks have never heard of Wistia (I hadn't until reading your comment). I'm probably not going to go there on my own - you know, unless they advertise on a youtube channel that I'm watching or something similar. And honestly, why would I believe that the smaller place is going to be any more fair to content producers, especially if they happen to pick up a lot of market share and can no longer provide the personal assistance they gave when small? And a website isn't exactly a substitute either: Who is going to find your website, anyway? Part of what makes large platforms popular is discoverability. Now, you might have some luck with some topics - the sort that people actually search for - but I'm not usually looking up any infotainment topics in a general search engine. I just go to youtube for that.

easrng 5y ago
AFAIK Wistia is for embedding video in other sites without a branded player. You aren't supposed to have heard of them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mistermann 5y ago
I can't vouch for the quality, but the consensus opinion in a recent thread is that the things you mention aren't actually problems, or at the very least they are the problems of the publisher and no one else, not worthy of discussion, etc: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30825144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30825144 What is going on in this thread, I cannot explain.

rtsil 5y ago

The problem is Wistia (and the likes) is crazy expensive if one of your videos goes viral, in addition to the streamer having to handle monetization, promotion, DMCA complaints, audience interaction. People became captive of Youtube because Youtube made complicated and expensive things easy and cheap. People became used to how practical it is, even if the price is putting their livelihood at the whims of Google. The ideal world would be if video hosting was like websites, where you have multiple separate and competing companies for domain names, DNS, file hosting, database, load balancing, ads, CDNs, email marketing... And if you're not happy with one of them, you can easily switch to another, all while remaining in full control of your contents and where they are displayed.

richardfey 5y ago
> People became used to how practical it is, even if the price is putting their livelihood at the whims of Google. I wonder what alternative history we could have had if YouTube wasn't acquired. It makes for an interesting short story writing prompt as well.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  If YouTube wasn't acquired it would have died. There was no way to host video cheaper than ad revenue. Video just requires too much compute, storage and bandwidth compared to the few cents you get from an occasional ad click. Google could offer it cheap bandwidth and storage. They could use consumers love of Google products to force ISP's to deliver YouTube video traffic cheaper when ISP's threatened to block YouTube because it used too much bandwidth. Even with that, it wasn't profitable for 10+ years!