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But now it seems like there's more criminal profit potential in extortion, as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. A growth indu

But now it seems like there's more criminal profit potential in extortion, as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. A growth industry!

q-big 4y ago
> as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. as creators decided to make themselves ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services.
- lmm 4y ago
  As a creator you've got to meet the audience where they are. The problem is the monopoly position of those services, and the anticompetitive practices they're able to follow as a result (e.g. banning creators from broadcasting the same content through multiple channels).
- brokencode 4y ago
  Creators don’t control where the audience is. If there was a credible alternative to the centralized services, then maybe more creators would try that. Nebula is one example where some of the more education-focused channels have been posting videos. Not sure if it’s been successful though.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    I keep seeing channels being added to Nebula (feels like every week), so it's not bad. Then again, they have some persisting issues in the app, so it doesn't sound like lots of engineering capacity is available.
  - t-3 4y ago
    I don't buy it. Creators make audiences, and platforms know this. Users have to take what they get, but producers have options. This is why YouTube hosts content for free, makes advertising and monetizing easy, works to lower the barriers to entry and make independence unnattractive. If creators switched to distributing through their own servers or a different CDN or IPFS or bittorrent or whatever, they would have to figure out the fiddly unfun bits on their own.
    - macintux 4y ago
      Abandoning YouTube for any one creator would more likely result in the audience spending their attention on someone with similar content. What seems necessary (to this ignorant observer) is a union to negotiate with Google or move everyone en masse to a different platform.
    - tehwebguy 4y ago
      Tell that to Vessel & Quibi!
      - t-3 4y ago
        Sure, competing platforms will be differentiated by their userbase, unless they're offering very favorable terms or paying for exclusivity. It's not like one platform is going to be all that different from the next. What reason is behind TikTok's rapid rise?
    - brokencode 4y ago
      People open YouTube to feed their hunger for content with whatever they find. If a creator leaves, then they just have to switch to content from one of the 10 other channels that are similar. It’s a low friction, low loyalty world. And from my experience, people overwhelmingly watch YouTube on phones or tablets, and wouldn’t be messing around with anything like BitTorrent. If you think that is a good alternative, then you are not representative of the average YouTube user.
      - t-3 4y ago
        > you are not representative of the average YouTube user. Yeah, probably not, as I never visit the site except through links or if I need a how-to-repair video. There's no reason people can't consume video through torrent or other p2p tech though. Webtorrents, peertube, etc are relatively mainstream and completely painless to use. There also exist torrent clients on Android for maaany years.
    - fredophile 4y ago
      > Creators make audiences How well did creators do when they switched to Mixer from Twitch? Donald Trump had tons of Twitter followers, how many does he have on Truth Social? If you have a two sided marketplace, you need people on both sides for it to succeed.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > creators decided to make themselves ever more dependent Historically some people have decided to sell themselves into slavery, should we respect their freedom of choice?
- DrewADesign 4y ago
  The FOSS community needs to stop getting so defensive about usability criticism and start seriously considering non-technical users if decentralized media platforms will ever stand a chance at being a viable solution. Not just interface layout or visual themes, either— design is a lot more than the way something looks. The whole experience from learning about the platform to becoming a regular user— including for people who don't read man pages on a regular basis— is important. As soon as I need to explain to my parents that "yes, it's all PeerTube but PeerTube is just the server software and my cousin's PeerTube instance they signed up with isn't connected to the PeerTube federated service and so they can't see videos from the the PeerTube for their guitar hobby group" then its all over. There is zero point zero percent chance it will become a viable public service without big changes.

But now it seems like there's more criminal profit potential in extortion, as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. A growth industry!

q-big 4y ago

> as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. as creators decided to make themselves ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services.

lmm 4y ago
As a creator you've got to meet the audience where they are. The problem is the monopoly position of those services, and the anticompetitive practices they're able to follow as a result (e.g. banning creators from broadcasting the same content through multiple channels).
brokencode 4y ago
Creators don’t control where the audience is. If there was a credible alternative to the centralized services, then maybe more creators would try that. Nebula is one example where some of the more education-focused channels have been posting videos. Not sure if it’s been successful though.
- viraptor 4y ago
  I keep seeing channels being added to Nebula (feels like every week), so it's not bad. Then again, they have some persisting issues in the app, so it doesn't sound like lots of engineering capacity is available.
- t-3 4y ago
  I don't buy it. Creators make audiences, and platforms know this. Users have to take what they get, but producers have options. This is why YouTube hosts content for free, makes advertising and monetizing easy, works to lower the barriers to entry and make independence unnattractive. If creators switched to distributing through their own servers or a different CDN or IPFS or bittorrent or whatever, they would have to figure out the fiddly unfun bits on their own.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Abandoning YouTube for any one creator would more likely result in the audience spending their attention on someone with similar content. What seems necessary (to this ignorant observer) is a union to negotiate with Google or move everyone en masse to a different platform.
  - tehwebguy 4y ago
    Tell that to Vessel & Quibi!
    - t-3 4y ago
      Sure, competing platforms will be differentiated by their userbase, unless they're offering very favorable terms or paying for exclusivity. It's not like one platform is going to be all that different from the next. What reason is behind TikTok's rapid rise?
  - brokencode 4y ago
    People open YouTube to feed their hunger for content with whatever they find. If a creator leaves, then they just have to switch to content from one of the 10 other channels that are similar. It’s a low friction, low loyalty world. And from my experience, people overwhelmingly watch YouTube on phones or tablets, and wouldn’t be messing around with anything like BitTorrent. If you think that is a good alternative, then you are not representative of the average YouTube user.
    - t-3 4y ago
      > you are not representative of the average YouTube user. Yeah, probably not, as I never visit the site except through links or if I need a how-to-repair video. There's no reason people can't consume video through torrent or other p2p tech though. Webtorrents, peertube, etc are relatively mainstream and completely painless to use. There also exist torrent clients on Android for maaany years.
  - fredophile 4y ago
    > Creators make audiences How well did creators do when they switched to Mixer from Twitch? Donald Trump had tons of Twitter followers, how many does he have on Truth Social? If you have a two sided marketplace, you need people on both sides for it to succeed.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> creators decided to make themselves ever more dependent Historically some people have decided to sell themselves into slavery, should we respect their freedom of choice?
DrewADesign 4y ago
The FOSS community needs to stop getting so defensive about usability criticism and start seriously considering non-technical users if decentralized media platforms will ever stand a chance at being a viable solution. Not just interface layout or visual themes, either— design is a lot more than the way something looks. The whole experience from learning about the platform to becoming a regular user— including for people who don't read man pages on a regular basis— is important. As soon as I need to explain to my parents that "yes, it's all PeerTube but PeerTube is just the server software and my cousin's PeerTube instance they signed up with isn't connected to the PeerTube federated service and so they can't see videos from the the PeerTube for their guitar hobby group" then its all over. There is zero point zero percent chance it will become a viable public service without big changes.