4 ms·

You want a YouTube like service but no ads/monetization? I'd love to hear about this business plan.

smoldesu 4y ago
I think it's perfectly realistic for such a service to exist, but I also think Peertube has the wrong idea. IPFS is a little closer to how I'd prefer videos being hosted, but I also prefer the sharding/peering of a Magnet link. Once someone gets all of that under one umbrella, you'd have a service that is ostensibly both faster than YouTube and more distributed/decentralized. Now, can we convince Mr Beast to join this platform? No, but I don't think most people will notice a discernible dip in quality. Most exploitation-tubers would probably scuttle off to Facebook or Instagram, but I think most of the Patron-supported content creators would buy-in to a well made alternative. Key operand being well made though...
vorpalhex 4y ago
Well by definition it's not a business. Maybe it's a bunch of friends just having fun doing good tutorials. Maybe it's a non-profit focused on financial literacy videos for the public.
- upupandup 4y ago
  Who will bear the cost of bandwidth, servers and maintenance? What if it's not just your friends thats mainly using it but millions of people who rely on generous few to keep the lights on? What happens if somebody uses multiple IP addresses to download and drain the bandwidth with other users complaining? Who will handle those tickets?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Well it's peertube so bandwidth is reasonable. Most cheap high bandwidth projects rack machines in datacenters where you pay for the pipe, not the gig. Servers and other fixed costs can be handled by donations or selling merch. Tickets and high bandwidth cases may not be a good fit for the project, or may be on a "as available" basis.
    - upupandup 4y ago
      > Servers and other fixed costs can be handled by donations or selling merch. IF this was true we would already have a Youtube competitor. We don't.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        You are misunderstanding peertube. It's not "Youtube but self hosted". It is peer to peer bittorrent distributed streams. You still need seeds but bandwidth is reduced.
  - contravariant 4y ago
    If big servers were the only ones paying for bandwidth this argument would make sense, but the way the internet works right now is everyone is paying for all the bandwidth they use so there's not a priori a reason to assume the bandwidth is entirely unpaid for. As torrents demonstrate it's not necessarily bandwidth that's a problem, it's mostly durability and discoverability.
    - upupandup 4y ago
      I'm not sure if I follow, who is going to foot the million+ bill?
      - contravariant 4y ago
        The ~million users.
        upupandup 4y ago
        so you think everyone of those million users is going to donate more than $5? even then it wouldn't be be able to handle the traffic or keep the lights on. im sorry but you clearly have not thought this through. its just not sustainable with this donation model.
        contravariant 4y ago
        What donation? I'm paying for every bit that I send or receive!
ghusto 4y ago
Why? This unquestioned given of "where's the monetisation?" is almost everything that's wrong with the internet today. It's seen as "gown up" and realistic, but doesn't even question it's own wisdom. We don't have to speculate with hypotheticals on what an unmonetised service would look like either, it's literally how things used to work before the corporate takeover of the web.
- namlem 4y ago
  How are the content creators supposed to make a living? The advantage of YouTube is that people can do it as their full time job.
  - ghusto 4y ago
    I would very much like it if they didn't, and we went back to people doing it because they just love it. EDIT: Though I'd have to add that there are ways to get paid which don't have the same downsides (changing the content to make it easier to monetise). It's like how people prefer films that keep their integrity, instead apealling to the lowest common denominator.

I think it's perfectly realistic for such a service to exist, but I also think Peertube has the wrong idea. IPFS is a little closer to how I'd prefer videos being hosted, but I also prefer the sharding/peering of a Magnet link. Once someone gets all of that under one umbrella, you'd have a service that is ostensibly both faster than YouTube and more distributed/decentralized. Now, can we convince Mr Beast to join this platform? No, but I don't think most people will notice a discernible dip in quality. Most exploitation-tubers would probably scuttle off to Facebook or Instagram, but I think most of the Patron-supported content creators would buy-in to a well made alternative. Key operand being well made though...

vorpalhex 4y ago

Well by definition it's not a business. Maybe it's a bunch of friends just having fun doing good tutorials. Maybe it's a non-profit focused on financial literacy videos for the public.

upupandup 4y ago
Who will bear the cost of bandwidth, servers and maintenance? What if it's not just your friends thats mainly using it but millions of people who rely on generous few to keep the lights on? What happens if somebody uses multiple IP addresses to download and drain the bandwidth with other users complaining? Who will handle those tickets?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Well it's peertube so bandwidth is reasonable. Most cheap high bandwidth projects rack machines in datacenters where you pay for the pipe, not the gig. Servers and other fixed costs can be handled by donations or selling merch. Tickets and high bandwidth cases may not be a good fit for the project, or may be on a "as available" basis.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    > Servers and other fixed costs can be handled by donations or selling merch. IF this was true we would already have a Youtube competitor. We don't.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      You are misunderstanding peertube. It's not "Youtube but self hosted". It is peer to peer bittorrent distributed streams. You still need seeds but bandwidth is reduced.
- contravariant 4y ago
  If big servers were the only ones paying for bandwidth this argument would make sense, but the way the internet works right now is everyone is paying for all the bandwidth they use so there's not a priori a reason to assume the bandwidth is entirely unpaid for. As torrents demonstrate it's not necessarily bandwidth that's a problem, it's mostly durability and discoverability.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    I'm not sure if I follow, who is going to foot the million+ bill?
    - contravariant 4y ago
      The ~million users.
      - upupandup 4y ago
        so you think everyone of those million users is going to donate more than $5? even then it wouldn't be be able to handle the traffic or keep the lights on. im sorry but you clearly have not thought this through. its just not sustainable with this donation model.
        contravariant 4y ago
        What donation? I'm paying for every bit that I send or receive!

ghusto 4y ago

Why? This unquestioned given of "where's the monetisation?" is almost everything that's wrong with the internet today. It's seen as "gown up" and realistic, but doesn't even question it's own wisdom. We don't have to speculate with hypotheticals on what an unmonetised service would look like either, it's literally how things used to work before the corporate takeover of the web.

namlem 4y ago
How are the content creators supposed to make a living? The advantage of YouTube is that people can do it as their full time job.
- ghusto 4y ago
  I would very much like it if they didn't, and we went back to people doing it because they just love it. EDIT: Though I'd have to add that there are ways to get paid which don't have the same downsides (changing the content to make it easier to monetise). It's like how people prefer films that keep their integrity, instead apealling to the lowest common denominator.