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I think it's a really, really tough sell to move people off YouTube. The network effects are just too good. I might be projecting my preferences onto the masses

I think it's a really, really tough sell to move people off YouTube. The network effects are just too good. I might be projecting my preferences onto the masses here, but I suspect this is a common feeling. I've been watching quite a few videos from a fairly popular Youtube channel, tldrnews. At the beginning of a lot of their videos, they've been advertising an alternate video platform, Nebula, with exclusive and more in-depth videos. Thing is, even though I might want to watch those videos, I've never been tempted to even click on the link. It's not that Nebula costs money. Even if it were free, I don't really want to be watching videos on other services. I hate the way YouTube is run. I hate ContentID, I hate the copyright strike system, I hate the recommendation algorithm, I hate how difficult it is to get a real human to deal with the issues on the site. But everything's there, and that's what I want most of all. It's a strange position to take, especially when I wish everyone would go back to having their own sites rather than just post on social media, but when it comes to video content, I want it to be like Star Trek. I want to be able to search in one place and be able to find exactly what I'm looking for. I know it's greedy and irrational, but I want everything centralized into one service so I don't have to think about where to go to watch a thing. I want a monopoly, but without the problems that come with a monopoly, and I suspect a large enough percentage of users feel the same way that other platforms just can't get off the ground.

corrral 4y ago
> I know it's greedy and irrational, but I want everything centralized into one service so I don't have to think about where to go to watch a thing. I want a monopoly, but without the problems that come with a monopoly, and I suspect a large enough percentage of users feel the same way that other platforms just can't get off the ground. Podcast model. Client handles discovery and "subscriptions" and all that. Hosting is separate. YouTube's immense control comes from controlling all of that, but there's no reason you have to have a single provider to get the everything's-in-one-place effect—you can instead empower client programs. That kills the "ugh, but I don't want to go to another site..." effect because it's simply not an issue. You click "subscribe" and it's in the same "app" as everything else, regardless of where the videos are hosted.
- StewardMcOy 4y ago
  I really like the podcast model, but compared to the scale of YouTube, I'm not sure it can hold up. It's not just hosting, but search as well, for 500 hours of video per minute.
  - corrral 4y ago
    > I really like the podcast model, but compared to the scale of YouTube, I'm not sure it can hold up. It's not just hosting, but search as well, for 500 hours of video per minute. If only there were some company dedicated to providing search for resources that others host online. Perhaps if they had a mission to make the world's knowledge more accessible. :-) Plus, I'm pretty sure if you excluded stuff that's never likely to be watched by many folks except the odd fluke that gains viral notoriety (think: training videos, home videos that aren't aiming for virality, schools filming sports & activities and posting them, that kind of thing) you could cut that number to 10% or less of that. Most of the content going up isn't intended for a wide audience, I'd bet. An at-least-as-good video-podcast client wouldn't need to index or present the vast majority of what gets uploaded to YouTube. Much of that would be fine over on one of the lesser streaming services (Vimeo, say) now, but only ends up on YouTube because it's synonymous with user-uploaded Web video for most folks.
- Tyr42 4y ago
  Okay, but how would you compete with "free hosting" on YouTube?

corrral 4y ago

> I know it's greedy and irrational, but I want everything centralized into one service so I don't have to think about where to go to watch a thing. I want a monopoly, but without the problems that come with a monopoly, and I suspect a large enough percentage of users feel the same way that other platforms just can't get off the ground. Podcast model. Client handles discovery and "subscriptions" and all that. Hosting is separate. YouTube's immense control comes from controlling all of that, but there's no reason you have to have a single provider to get the everything's-in-one-place effect—you can instead empower client programs. That kills the "ugh, but I don't want to go to another site..." effect because it's simply not an issue. You click "subscribe" and it's in the same "app" as everything else, regardless of where the videos are hosted.

StewardMcOy 4y ago
I really like the podcast model, but compared to the scale of YouTube, I'm not sure it can hold up. It's not just hosting, but search as well, for 500 hours of video per minute.
- corrral 4y ago
  > I really like the podcast model, but compared to the scale of YouTube, I'm not sure it can hold up. It's not just hosting, but search as well, for 500 hours of video per minute. If only there were some company dedicated to providing search for resources that others host online. Perhaps if they had a mission to make the world's knowledge more accessible. :-) Plus, I'm pretty sure if you excluded stuff that's never likely to be watched by many folks except the odd fluke that gains viral notoriety (think: training videos, home videos that aren't aiming for virality, schools filming sports & activities and posting them, that kind of thing) you could cut that number to 10% or less of that. Most of the content going up isn't intended for a wide audience, I'd bet. An at-least-as-good video-podcast client wouldn't need to index or present the vast majority of what gets uploaded to YouTube. Much of that would be fine over on one of the lesser streaming services (Vimeo, say) now, but only ends up on YouTube because it's synonymous with user-uploaded Web video for most folks.
Tyr42 4y ago
Okay, but how would you compete with "free hosting" on YouTube?