6 ms·

Has nobody learned a thing from Musk's example? Drunk on a stew of free money and ideological hegemony, these behemoths actually believe they've captured somet

by jtode 3y ago

Has nobody learned a thing from Musk's example? Drunk on a stew of free money and ideological hegemony, these behemoths actually believe they've captured something that cannot be replaced. I post my videos on peertube now; others will follow if they go down the same path as Twitter and Reddit. I can't wait to see it happen. I really can't wait for people to realize we can federate AirBnB and Uber too. The Fed has called in the bill on the last thirty years, and all the little MBAs are about to learn, at [last], what a protocol is.

JeremyBanks 3y ago
[dead]
devwastaken 3y ago
Twitter doesn't require the infra YouTube does. YouTube can only exist because of Googles physical infrastructure and it's ad revenue subsidizing youtube. There are no replacements because you require their scale to pull it off.
Shawnj2 3y ago
I think YouTube might be the exception to this because of how expensive video hosting is. Mastodon is actually doing a great job funding itself but it and Lemmy/Kbin are all text based protocols. The only other sites even close to YouTube’s scale that served videos anyone could upload used to be maybe adult video sites, but even then that’s not really true anymore because of the (good) new verification policies that exist now to help curb abuse and also the second category is far more profitable per video than YouTube is. Something like 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every second and I’m not sure if donations would easily cover the costs at that scale.
- COGlory 3y ago
  How much of that video doesn't need to be uploaded to Youtube though? If costs are distributed among hosters and viewers directly, the entire creator-viewer relationship is going to change, and a ton of useless, low quality content is going to disappear.
  - pawptart 3y ago
    That works both ways, though. Content that is high quality but is lacking broad appeal will go away as well. Full disclosure,I don't know what the right answer is here but it certainly isn't as black-and-white as this.
    - COGlory 3y ago
      Will it? If the creator is really passionate, and the few people that consume the content is passionate, it seems like the opposite will happen. Look at Patreon and Floatplane, for instances of that.
    - jtode 3y ago
      It won't go away though, as long as it has a community that wants it. What goes away is things that get entrusted to capital. Netflix will run a show for two months and then remove it from the universe because it saves them taxes or something. The internet has passed around documents containing knowledge since way before the capitalists showed up and built their silos. We are still a society that is half comprised of people who are only capable of thinking of the internet as a better television, with a ruling class willing to do whatever it takes to give them that, but it has never been that and it will never be that. YouTube is just as doomed as the rest of the Free Money Era corporations.
  - Shawnj2 3y ago
    A lot of video uploaded to YouTube is stuff like “Dorothy’s first school play” or “Epic UFO sighting” or “Josh’s 5th birthday” that gets >1000 views, the stuff that you actually see when you browse YouTube as a viewer is in the minority of content actually uploaded to the site. To the people uploading the video and a very small number of people they know having the video on YouTube is very important, but to almost everyone else it doesn’t matter. I think everyone has a few videos that they like for personal reasons that aren’t massively popular so it really depends on your definition on what needs to be uploaded to YouTube and what is quality content. By YouTube’s metrics Mr. Beast videos are of higher quality than the royal institute’s since they make the site more money so quality is also entirely subjective here.
mindslight 3y ago
While I agree with where you're coming from philosophically, I think you've got the dynamic wrong. The popular content creators on Youtube actually like the ads, because ads actually put real money in their pockets. So I don't foresee a mass exodus of Youtube posters due to this. I think the revolutionary spirit is best thought of solely in terms of the viewing side. I personally just use Youtube in a browser because it works well enough. I know for myself, if I ever see some pop up like this I will start using yt-dlp routinely, and it will push me towards solutions like Newpipe for new video discovery.
- hollow-moe 3y ago
  Ads on youtube became irrelevant long ago, there's a reason for the massive increase of sponsored content. Even small creators relies on them now.
- jtode 3y ago
  What % of total posters, though, are "popular content creators" who like the ads, and what percent are Susan Soccermom posting her kids recital? The internet is not a better television.
  - jtode 3y ago
    Follow up: what percentage of the posters who like ads are producing incredibly bad content that works right in the algorithm and blocking people, with Google's help, from reaching quality/relevant videos they want to see? I don't find very much in terms of actual entertainment there, when I look. I follow a few channels, no idea if they make money at it and I don't care because their videos are 100% related to the topic at hand and not why I need a therapist from aiassistedminimum wagetherapy.com
scarface_74 3y ago
If you’re blocking ads and not paying for YouTube Premium, why should Google care if you leave?
- ews 3y ago
  network effects
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And where are people going to go to host their videos for free at scale? It’s not like any little startup can come along and profitably host videos
    - serf 3y ago
      > And where are people going to go to host their videos for free at scale? given that YT has been doing it since 2005, I think it's safe to say that there isn't any technological or copyright 'moat' aside from just sheer scale; I would presume if YT decided to alienate their entire userbase that some 'threads'-like overnight competitor would get spun up to suck the leavers up. I don't think that it's reasonable to assume that there will be some kind of multi-media vacuum formed in the absence of YT. there is a lot of good will to manipulate away from YT should their decision-making process get excessively heavy handed, and I think someone with money or power would jump at the chance to do so.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        > I think it's safe to say that there isn't any technological or copyright 'moat'; Except that whole video costs a lot to deliver at scale and YouTube piggy backs off of Google’s existing infrastructure. Not to mention all of the content-id technology that YouTube has to try to fight copyright infringement.
        jtode 3y ago
        Perhaps scale is actually a non-problem in many cases, and only a critical one in a paradigm where there is a need to have as much traffic as possible on a site for profit reasons. A person who wants a place to talk about their cat doesn't actually need a global scale video platform, unless their cat organically goes viral and the site gets hugged to death. Most cat posters just need a given amount of heart emojis per post, that a rather small group of cat fanciers can actually manage without much problem. Similar dynamics apply to the vast majority of internet content. There might be a place for a big video platform in the post-free-money internet, where creators of (again, organically) viral content can shift network loads for a share of ad revenue or a modest fee. So while your dog is clearly bad mannered and mediocre, my dog is a goddam supermodel and he knows it and he's gonna be a star if I ever put a picture of him up. He would need YouTube for sure. My little songs and rants, nobody outside of a few friends and sidewalk passerby are ever gonna hear them and that's fine, so peertube is gonna do the job for me just fine. I think that one requires a certain kind of exposure-seeking, or else profit-seeking mindset in order to see what YouTube does as crucial. That's my take anyways.

by jtode 3y ago

JeremyBanks 3y ago

[dead]

devwastaken 3y ago

Twitter doesn't require the infra YouTube does. YouTube can only exist because of Googles physical infrastructure and it's ad revenue subsidizing youtube. There are no replacements because you require their scale to pull it off.

Shawnj2 3y ago

I think YouTube might be the exception to this because of how expensive video hosting is. Mastodon is actually doing a great job funding itself but it and Lemmy/Kbin are all text based protocols. The only other sites even close to YouTube’s scale that served videos anyone could upload used to be maybe adult video sites, but even then that’s not really true anymore because of the (good) new verification policies that exist now to help curb abuse and also the second category is far more profitable per video than YouTube is. Something like 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every second and I’m not sure if donations would easily cover the costs at that scale.

COGlory 3y ago
How much of that video doesn't need to be uploaded to Youtube though? If costs are distributed among hosters and viewers directly, the entire creator-viewer relationship is going to change, and a ton of useless, low quality content is going to disappear.
- pawptart 3y ago
  That works both ways, though. Content that is high quality but is lacking broad appeal will go away as well. Full disclosure,I don't know what the right answer is here but it certainly isn't as black-and-white as this.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    Will it? If the creator is really passionate, and the few people that consume the content is passionate, it seems like the opposite will happen. Look at Patreon and Floatplane, for instances of that.
  - jtode 3y ago
    It won't go away though, as long as it has a community that wants it. What goes away is things that get entrusted to capital. Netflix will run a show for two months and then remove it from the universe because it saves them taxes or something. The internet has passed around documents containing knowledge since way before the capitalists showed up and built their silos. We are still a society that is half comprised of people who are only capable of thinking of the internet as a better television, with a ruling class willing to do whatever it takes to give them that, but it has never been that and it will never be that. YouTube is just as doomed as the rest of the Free Money Era corporations.
- Shawnj2 3y ago
  A lot of video uploaded to YouTube is stuff like “Dorothy’s first school play” or “Epic UFO sighting” or “Josh’s 5th birthday” that gets >1000 views, the stuff that you actually see when you browse YouTube as a viewer is in the minority of content actually uploaded to the site. To the people uploading the video and a very small number of people they know having the video on YouTube is very important, but to almost everyone else it doesn’t matter. I think everyone has a few videos that they like for personal reasons that aren’t massively popular so it really depends on your definition on what needs to be uploaded to YouTube and what is quality content. By YouTube’s metrics Mr. Beast videos are of higher quality than the royal institute’s since they make the site more money so quality is also entirely subjective here.

mindslight 3y ago

While I agree with where you're coming from philosophically, I think you've got the dynamic wrong. The popular content creators on Youtube actually like the ads, because ads actually put real money in their pockets. So I don't foresee a mass exodus of Youtube posters due to this. I think the revolutionary spirit is best thought of solely in terms of the viewing side. I personally just use Youtube in a browser because it works well enough. I know for myself, if I ever see some pop up like this I will start using yt-dlp routinely, and it will push me towards solutions like Newpipe for new video discovery.

hollow-moe 3y ago
Ads on youtube became irrelevant long ago, there's a reason for the massive increase of sponsored content. Even small creators relies on them now.
jtode 3y ago
What % of total posters, though, are "popular content creators" who like the ads, and what percent are Susan Soccermom posting her kids recital? The internet is not a better television.
- jtode 3y ago
  Follow up: what percentage of the posters who like ads are producing incredibly bad content that works right in the algorithm and blocking people, with Google's help, from reaching quality/relevant videos they want to see? I don't find very much in terms of actual entertainment there, when I look. I follow a few channels, no idea if they make money at it and I don't care because their videos are 100% related to the topic at hand and not why I need a therapist from aiassistedminimum wagetherapy.com

scarface_74 3y ago

If you’re blocking ads and not paying for YouTube Premium, why should Google care if you leave?

ews 3y ago
network effects
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And where are people going to go to host their videos for free at scale? It’s not like any little startup can come along and profitably host videos
  - serf 3y ago
    > And where are people going to go to host their videos for free at scale? given that YT has been doing it since 2005, I think it's safe to say that there isn't any technological or copyright 'moat' aside from just sheer scale; I would presume if YT decided to alienate their entire userbase that some 'threads'-like overnight competitor would get spun up to suck the leavers up. I don't think that it's reasonable to assume that there will be some kind of multi-media vacuum formed in the absence of YT. there is a lot of good will to manipulate away from YT should their decision-making process get excessively heavy handed, and I think someone with money or power would jump at the chance to do so.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > I think it's safe to say that there isn't any technological or copyright 'moat'; Except that whole video costs a lot to deliver at scale and YouTube piggy backs off of Google’s existing infrastructure. Not to mention all of the content-id technology that YouTube has to try to fight copyright infringement.
      - jtode 3y ago
        Perhaps scale is actually a non-problem in many cases, and only a critical one in a paradigm where there is a need to have as much traffic as possible on a site for profit reasons. A person who wants a place to talk about their cat doesn't actually need a global scale video platform, unless their cat organically goes viral and the site gets hugged to death. Most cat posters just need a given amount of heart emojis per post, that a rather small group of cat fanciers can actually manage without much problem. Similar dynamics apply to the vast majority of internet content. There might be a place for a big video platform in the post-free-money internet, where creators of (again, organically) viral content can shift network loads for a share of ad revenue or a modest fee. So while your dog is clearly bad mannered and mediocre, my dog is a goddam supermodel and he knows it and he's gonna be a star if I ever put a picture of him up. He would need YouTube for sure. My little songs and rants, nobody outside of a few friends and sidewalk passerby are ever gonna hear them and that's fine, so peertube is gonna do the job for me just fine. I think that one requires a certain kind of exposure-seeking, or else profit-seeking mindset in order to see what YouTube does as crucial. That's my take anyways.