5 ms·

You have to think of YouTube and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth. If you're a creator it's essential to have your own pl

by kepano 2y ago

You have to think of YouTube and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth. If you're a creator it's essential to have your own place on the web were you can host and publish anything without fear that it will be taken down for any reason — even accidentally. As it becomes cheap to automate both creating takedown requests and processing requests, the volume of spam requests is going to skyrocket and it seems likely there will be more false positives.

bunderbunder 2y ago
This is not just an information preservation problem. It's a problem with the creators who depend on YouTube ad revenue to fund to create content like this suddenly and unpredictably losing that revenue stream.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  You cannot depend on Youtube ad revenue to survive, as it can be taken away at any time.
  - janalsncm 2y ago
    You can’t depend on any particular job to survive either. Does that imply OSHA is useless?
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Are you comparing a federal labor regulatory agency to ad payments that exist at the whim of a commercial entity?
      - janalsncm 2y ago
        This makes it sound like this is an overt decision by YouTube to stop monetizing a 3B1B video rather than an abuse of automated systems. The difference is important. Whether creators should depend on YouTube as a practical matter is different from whether they should be able to. As a practical matter, yes, diversifying is safer. But creators and YouTube probably agree that diversifying shouldn’t be necessary. Of course creators do not know how much money any particular video will make, but the implied social contract has always been that good videos will do well, for some definition of “good”. And no part of that definition of good has anything to do with bots abusing copyright systems.
        toomuchtodo 2y ago
        > This makes it sound like this is an overt decision by YouTube to stop monetizing a 3B1B video rather than an abuse of automated systems. The difference is important. There is no difference. Google's overt decision to continue operating automated systems that enable this abuse is the cause, and that is unlikely to change because Google does not care. It is cheaper to allow abuse than to change their system (more human intervention and effort). "The purpose of the system is what it does." If you as a creator decide to operate on a platform where the owner has no intention of changing their automated systems, and therefore this is a potential outcome, you are playing Russian roulette with your income stream (if any). That is a choice. Your income could disappear at any time with no recourse. There is no social contract at play between creators and Google, only Google optimizing for its shareholders.
  - bunderbunder 2y ago
    Restating that the arrangement is crap doesn't make it not crap.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
This is the way. Channels are channels, you must have a robust web of mechanisms to reach out to your network to maintain it, with no single points of failure.
facialwipe 2y ago
You have to think of YouTube and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth. So the source of truth is just some guy’s long tail GoDaddy-hosted blog?
- kepano 2y ago
  The URL is what should persist, not the host.
encom 2y ago
It only makes it slightly more difficult. People will just ask cloudflare (et al.) to take it down, and they will obey. Keeping anything online in the face of opposition is very very difficult.
janalsncm 2y ago
I agree in principle with diversifying your online presence, but as a practical solution it doesn’t solve the problem. It would be like if someone came to you about a termite problem in their house and you told them the solution was to have multiple houses. At best that is a defense mechanism not a solution.
- kepano 2y ago
  Your analogy doesn't match my statement. I am saying there should be a canonical location for what you create that is on a URL that you own. Everything else is distribution. You built a house on someone else's land, and then they tore it down. Build a house on your own land, as small as that land may be. From there you can create roads, bridges, tunnels to other people's land. On the web land is infinite. You can make your own land.
  - janalsncm 2y ago
    Again, I am not against backups but that doesn’t solve the actual problem. The problem isn’t losing the files, it is losing a reliable source of income. Putting the videos on Vimeo/S3 bucket/some random website doesn’t solve that problem. People create videos as a full-time job, which is only possible because of the traffic YouTube brings. Also I think the analogy is pretty solid because it clearly illustrates the emergent benefits of being on a large centralized platform rather than a random URL. Land might be infinite but attention and clicks are not.
    - kepano 2y ago
      It is certainly helpful to hang up a shingle where all the people are — the mall, the town square, the marketplace — but your patrons should know that a bridge exists to your flagship, your headquarters, your farm, your factory of ideas.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - 2y ago
TZubiri 2y ago
"You have to think of publishers and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth." Replace publisher with newspaper, encyclopedias, etc... They clearly have responsibility for the content they distribute.
globular-toast 2y ago
And if you're a reader/listener/viewer you need to have somewhere to save things you enjoy or find useful. Make a habit of saving everything you want to keep to hardware you own.
NegativeK 2y ago
If a content creator hosts their own videos and then Youtube nukes their channel, they're still going to be hurt by it since Youtube is often the bulk of their audience. The other sharing platforms (even if they aren't video focused) are also going to be able to nuke your distribution channel, so the creator is no better that way. Maybe an email list? Heh. I don't know the last time I actually went to someone's website for video content. Maybe a business, for instructional videos? But those are either inset Youtube videos or are actually annoying to watch. If the advice is for people to not depend on revenue from their content creation, that might be a fair point. But I feel like the effort of saying that might be better aimed at telling the hosting platforms to not be asses. (Then again, I don't believe that large social media platforms can be effectively moderated -- so I'm not much help here either. I have no clue how the content creation industry would fit into that world.)

by kepano 2y ago

bunderbunder 2y ago

This is not just an information preservation problem. It's a problem with the creators who depend on YouTube ad revenue to fund to create content like this suddenly and unpredictably losing that revenue stream.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
You cannot depend on Youtube ad revenue to survive, as it can be taken away at any time.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  You can’t depend on any particular job to survive either. Does that imply OSHA is useless?
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Are you comparing a federal labor regulatory agency to ad payments that exist at the whim of a commercial entity?
    - janalsncm 2y ago
      This makes it sound like this is an overt decision by YouTube to stop monetizing a 3B1B video rather than an abuse of automated systems. The difference is important. Whether creators should depend on YouTube as a practical matter is different from whether they should be able to. As a practical matter, yes, diversifying is safer. But creators and YouTube probably agree that diversifying shouldn’t be necessary. Of course creators do not know how much money any particular video will make, but the implied social contract has always been that good videos will do well, for some definition of “good”. And no part of that definition of good has anything to do with bots abusing copyright systems.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        > This makes it sound like this is an overt decision by YouTube to stop monetizing a 3B1B video rather than an abuse of automated systems. The difference is important. There is no difference. Google's overt decision to continue operating automated systems that enable this abuse is the cause, and that is unlikely to change because Google does not care. It is cheaper to allow abuse than to change their system (more human intervention and effort). "The purpose of the system is what it does." If you as a creator decide to operate on a platform where the owner has no intention of changing their automated systems, and therefore this is a potential outcome, you are playing Russian roulette with your income stream (if any). That is a choice. Your income could disappear at any time with no recourse. There is no social contract at play between creators and Google, only Google optimizing for its shareholders.
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  Restating that the arrangement is crap doesn't make it not crap.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

This is the way. Channels are channels, you must have a robust web of mechanisms to reach out to your network to maintain it, with no single points of failure.

facialwipe 2y ago

You have to think of YouTube and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth. So the source of truth is just some guy’s long tail GoDaddy-hosted blog?

kepano 2y ago
The URL is what should persist, not the host.

encom 2y ago

It only makes it slightly more difficult. People will just ask cloudflare (et al.) to take it down, and they will obey. Keeping anything online in the face of opposition is very very difficult.

janalsncm 2y ago

I agree in principle with diversifying your online presence, but as a practical solution it doesn’t solve the problem. It would be like if someone came to you about a termite problem in their house and you told them the solution was to have multiple houses. At best that is a defense mechanism not a solution.

kepano 2y ago
Your analogy doesn't match my statement. I am saying there should be a canonical location for what you create that is on a URL that you own. Everything else is distribution. You built a house on someone else's land, and then they tore it down. Build a house on your own land, as small as that land may be. From there you can create roads, bridges, tunnels to other people's land. On the web land is infinite. You can make your own land.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  Again, I am not against backups but that doesn’t solve the actual problem. The problem isn’t losing the files, it is losing a reliable source of income. Putting the videos on Vimeo/S3 bucket/some random website doesn’t solve that problem. People create videos as a full-time job, which is only possible because of the traffic YouTube brings. Also I think the analogy is pretty solid because it clearly illustrates the emergent benefits of being on a large centralized platform rather than a random URL. Land might be infinite but attention and clicks are not.
  - kepano 2y ago
    It is certainly helpful to hang up a shingle where all the people are — the mall, the town square, the marketplace — but your patrons should know that a bridge exists to your flagship, your headquarters, your farm, your factory of ideas.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 2y ago

TZubiri 2y ago

"You have to think of publishers and other platforms as a mechanism for distribution, not a source of truth." Replace publisher with newspaper, encyclopedias, etc... They clearly have responsibility for the content they distribute.

globular-toast 2y ago

And if you're a reader/listener/viewer you need to have somewhere to save things you enjoy or find useful. Make a habit of saving everything you want to keep to hardware you own.

NegativeK 2y ago

If a content creator hosts their own videos and then Youtube nukes their channel, they're still going to be hurt by it since Youtube is often the bulk of their audience. The other sharing platforms (even if they aren't video focused) are also going to be able to nuke your distribution channel, so the creator is no better that way. Maybe an email list? Heh. I don't know the last time I actually went to someone's website for video content. Maybe a business, for instructional videos? But those are either inset Youtube videos or are actually annoying to watch. If the advice is for people to not depend on revenue from their content creation, that might be a fair point. But I feel like the effort of saying that might be better aimed at telling the hosting platforms to not be asses. (Then again, I don't believe that large social media platforms can be effectively moderated -- so I'm not much help here either. I have no clue how the content creation industry would fit into that world.)