3 ms·

YouTube has been such a big boon to the world in helping people learn. The amount of people who have learnt several skills from YouTube enabling them to make a

YouTube has been such a big boon to the world in helping people learn. The amount of people who have learnt several skills from YouTube enabling them to make a living is very very large. I know several people who had non STEM education and taught them CS via YouTube and went on to have good SWE careers. Whole of MIT OCS is hosted on Youtube. All of Khan Academy videos are also hosted on Youtube.

trimethylpurine 3y ago
They could be hosted elsewhere. Why should free education material that is already funded by donations be locked behind ad based hosting? Hosting is not that expensive if you're using only those services. Especially in the countries where it's mostly being used.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  Hosting is very expensive, e.g https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr... That is why almost nobody bothers to do it themselves outside of big tech.
  - meindnoch 3y ago
    No it's not. Just use PeerTube.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      No you don't. There's Bunny CDN though
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    I've personally run servers for several businesses in the streaming education space. And one business that serves over 40,000 concurrent connections. The entire business fits into 1.5 racks at a local DC. The monthly cost is under $5,000 for the service, space, and cooling. There is an initial cost to purchase some servers, switches, etc. I'd be surprised if Khan academy had much more than that many active connections. It's really just not that expensive, no matter how much AWS wants to sell you on that falsehood.
- ketzo 3y ago
  > not that expensive yeah, but it’s hard to overstate how much less expensive “free” is than anything else. I don’t know how you do free video hosting for the entire world without YouTube’s model.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    ipfs or torrents integrated into the browser. The "sharing economy" and p2p were huge back before corporations figured out how to get it under control and corral people back onto centralized, ephemeral streaming platforms. Instead of a "like" people could give a video a pin, and then they'll have their own offline copy as long as they want it, and also help share it.
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      I think the bigger issue with p2p nowadays is the move to portable devices. The majority of people nowadays are on phones if not laptop and tablets. P2P has the user giving up their storage, battery life, and data. It works fine in more niche applications, but it'll never be mainstream. It's probably not even possible on iOS devices because of the limitations in background processes.
      - ndriscoll 3y ago
        My phone is linked to my desktop and can send tabs. No reason it couldn't proxy p2p connections (and pins) though my desktop. Or more generally torrent/ipfs gateways could be a thing people pay for (or ISPs might offer to reduce their own transfer costs by caching popular content), making it easy for mobile users while keeping the fundamental technology distributed. Mobile devices could also pin directly to cloud storage. There's a massive design space here if we didn't already have google dumping on the market. Or if we didn't allow media companies (who don't want p2p) to monopolize providing Internet service. And if government subsidies and spectrum licenses came with an ipv6 mandate so we could ditch NAT.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    If you are talking about educational content for the entire world, I would argue that it's a significantly smaller achievement, than a service where everyone is watching cat videos all night. Free education is a niche market for a niche audience. YouTube is hardly the correct platform for that.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  What do you mean funded by donations? People making educational YouTube videos have their income from YouTube advertising and Premium subscribers. People having utility from their videos should pay for them. I find it incredible that people accept and support enormous amounts of tax money from workers go to pay for worthless schools, while at the same time they are grinding their teeth at the suggestion that they pay a few dollars for incredibly well made educational videos. Why does the screeching teacher or professor deserve a high monthly salary, good job security and a good pension, while the person making educational videos that improve people's lives all over the world deserve to have her videos pirated by hackers?
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    See the post I was replying to. Khan Academy, MIT free courses, etc. Those are in fact funded by donations. If you check the viewership numbers on individual course videos, it is unlikely they are generating a positive revenue from YouTube payouts. As for being upset that people don't want to pay, I think I can help with that. People don't want to pay TWICE. We already donated to Khan or MIT. Why are we also paying YouTube to obfuscate FREE content? Khan should choose a different method of delivery. YouTube is not a proper platform for educational videos.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Those are but two of thousands of channels publishing educational videos. The vast majority of them are dependent on money from YouTube for their income. Would Khan or MIT be able to host and deliver their videos at a price that would make it worthwhile to ditch YouTube, or would that take away donator money from other functions?
      - trimethylpurine 3y ago
        It allows all of those channels to join a competing platform that's better suited for education, rather than piggy backing on a platform built for watching nonstop cat videos. Education and YT are not remotely good for each other. Imagine that college is free, and you're studying to become a doctor. Every seven minutes during your O. Chem lecture, Kanye West jumps in front of the professor to tell you how much he likes Pepsi. It's the wrong platform.

trimethylpurine 3y ago

They could be hosted elsewhere. Why should free education material that is already funded by donations be locked behind ad based hosting? Hosting is not that expensive if you're using only those services. Especially in the countries where it's mostly being used.

crop_rotation 3y ago
Hosting is very expensive, e.g https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-creators-price-increase https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979126/vimeo-patreon-cr... That is why almost nobody bothers to do it themselves outside of big tech.
- meindnoch 3y ago
  No it's not. Just use PeerTube.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    No you don't. There's Bunny CDN though
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  I've personally run servers for several businesses in the streaming education space. And one business that serves over 40,000 concurrent connections. The entire business fits into 1.5 racks at a local DC. The monthly cost is under $5,000 for the service, space, and cooling. There is an initial cost to purchase some servers, switches, etc. I'd be surprised if Khan academy had much more than that many active connections. It's really just not that expensive, no matter how much AWS wants to sell you on that falsehood.
ketzo 3y ago
> not that expensive yeah, but it’s hard to overstate how much less expensive “free” is than anything else. I don’t know how you do free video hosting for the entire world without YouTube’s model.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  ipfs or torrents integrated into the browser. The "sharing economy" and p2p were huge back before corporations figured out how to get it under control and corral people back onto centralized, ephemeral streaming platforms. Instead of a "like" people could give a video a pin, and then they'll have their own offline copy as long as they want it, and also help share it.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    I think the bigger issue with p2p nowadays is the move to portable devices. The majority of people nowadays are on phones if not laptop and tablets. P2P has the user giving up their storage, battery life, and data. It works fine in more niche applications, but it'll never be mainstream. It's probably not even possible on iOS devices because of the limitations in background processes.
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      My phone is linked to my desktop and can send tabs. No reason it couldn't proxy p2p connections (and pins) though my desktop. Or more generally torrent/ipfs gateways could be a thing people pay for (or ISPs might offer to reduce their own transfer costs by caching popular content), making it easy for mobile users while keeping the fundamental technology distributed. Mobile devices could also pin directly to cloud storage. There's a massive design space here if we didn't already have google dumping on the market. Or if we didn't allow media companies (who don't want p2p) to monopolize providing Internet service. And if government subsidies and spectrum licenses came with an ipv6 mandate so we could ditch NAT.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  If you are talking about educational content for the entire world, I would argue that it's a significantly smaller achievement, than a service where everyone is watching cat videos all night. Free education is a niche market for a niche audience. YouTube is hardly the correct platform for that.
carlosjobim 3y ago
What do you mean funded by donations? People making educational YouTube videos have their income from YouTube advertising and Premium subscribers. People having utility from their videos should pay for them. I find it incredible that people accept and support enormous amounts of tax money from workers go to pay for worthless schools, while at the same time they are grinding their teeth at the suggestion that they pay a few dollars for incredibly well made educational videos. Why does the screeching teacher or professor deserve a high monthly salary, good job security and a good pension, while the person making educational videos that improve people's lives all over the world deserve to have her videos pirated by hackers?
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  See the post I was replying to. Khan Academy, MIT free courses, etc. Those are in fact funded by donations. If you check the viewership numbers on individual course videos, it is unlikely they are generating a positive revenue from YouTube payouts. As for being upset that people don't want to pay, I think I can help with that. People don't want to pay TWICE. We already donated to Khan or MIT. Why are we also paying YouTube to obfuscate FREE content? Khan should choose a different method of delivery. YouTube is not a proper platform for educational videos.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Those are but two of thousands of channels publishing educational videos. The vast majority of them are dependent on money from YouTube for their income. Would Khan or MIT be able to host and deliver their videos at a price that would make it worthwhile to ditch YouTube, or would that take away donator money from other functions?
    - trimethylpurine 3y ago
      It allows all of those channels to join a competing platform that's better suited for education, rather than piggy backing on a platform built for watching nonstop cat videos. Education and YT are not remotely good for each other. Imagine that college is free, and you're studying to become a doctor. Every seven minutes during your O. Chem lecture, Kanye West jumps in front of the professor to tell you how much he likes Pepsi. It's the wrong platform.