6 ms·

https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/ solves this quite well.

hnlmorg 1y ago
Same problem applies: That’s another site to read. Another app to download. Another product to discover. I nearly didn’t even open the link because I didn’t want to learn something new before I’d had my morning cup of earl grey. Chances are the average consumer wouldn’t bother — assuming they even discover about this to begin with.
- rglullis 1y ago
  "Hey everyone, I'm Rick Beato. I am tired of dealing with YouTube constantly threatening my livelihood, so now I will be focused on my own channel. I will be posting here as well for whatever they let me, but to get full videos just download the GrayJay app (link in description) and look for my channel (link also in description)." That's all it would take to get a few hundred thousand people to download it, and you'd know that the those who are going through the effort are higher-value subscribers, so it would be even easier to bring better sponsors. I really don't like arguments based on "I am lazy to do that, therefore everyone is". It's at best defeatist cowardice and at worst a malicious way to support the status quo.
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    I’m not being defeatist. I’m literally just pointing out the reality of consumer trends. There is oodles of research into this topic. It isn’t something I’ve just made up. It’s why analytics exist to explore website user journeys and then promoting the most important calls to action in prominent places. It’s why physical store fronts put the doors at the front of the shop rather than on the side (side note: a friend of mine does own a shop and when he had to have the front door closed for repair, he saw a sharp decline in random walk-ins because people didn’t want to use the side door). It’s why Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn etc remaining dominant platforms in their respective domains despite almost universal dislike for those platforms. It’s why supermarkets put their product with the highest margin in the centre of the shelves and the lower margin items at the top and bottom. It’s why being on page 2 of Googles search results are as good as not being in Google at all. I’d actually love it if your idealistic view were true in practice. I don’t want to depend on GitHub, LinkedIn, YouTube. But that’s where the masses are so I need to use it too. I already ditched WhatsApp for Signal, but after several years without WhatsApp, I still haven’t converted all my family. So I miss out on sooo much conversations because of my ideals. What you’re advocating simply doesn’t match the reality of how people shop for content. Be that free stuff on social platforms, nor purchasing physical products in stores. It’s not defeatist to say consumers are lazy. It’s just a sad fact of life. And ignoring that fact doesn’t magically make it untrue.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      You are confusing "optimal" with "feasible" and you are ignoring the fact it can be more profitable to serve a niche (people with a minimum of ethical standards) than to be just yet-another participant in the commodity marketplace.
      - hnlmorg 1y ago
        That already happens. Content creators have merchandise, patron exclusives, fan clubs and so on and so forth. The problem isn’t that other revenue streams don’t exist. It’s that they’re still dependent on the whims of YouTube to get their brand out. And unfortunately, these other revenue streams are only more profitable than YouTube for the smallest percentage of video content creators (baring those who specialise in adult content, but that’s a whole other domain of content creation ;) ).
  - motoxpro 1y ago
    You're assuming a ~5% conversion rate and usage/payment in perpetuity. Those are just unrealistic assumptions, based on my experience in this space. Everything breaks. - Channel makes no money because sponsors don't pay (as much, it's a power law) for 200k subs (being charitable with your 5%. in reality it would be < 50k) - Guest don't come because the channel is small and they don't get distribution for their projects - Platform X doesn't pay out as well as YouTube, so you lose more revenue - The channel can't function because there isn't enough revenue to run the business. Can't hire lawyers when Z Record Label sues you on Platform X. - Other channels on larger platforms take the space that you filled. The market is not static. Slash starts his own YouTube channel, which has more credibility, and David Gilmour goes on that one instead. See the celebrity podcast/YouTube space for arguments that prominent celebrities don't become creators when the market signals there is money/opportunity available. - When subscribers churn, there is no one new on the platform to replace them. Churn in this case means they no longer use the app I made them go to, or they no longer subscribe to or pay me. Creator payment churn is MUCH higher than any typical B2B or B2C churn. Being a creator is like standing up a business on a set of toothpicks. Even if you are Rick Beato (which is why he is so upset)
    - rglullis 1y ago
      I am not saying to completely drop YT. I am saying (a) to run both and keep promoting the alternative and (b) coordinate with other creators to do the same.
      - motoxpro 1y ago
        I guess (a) with what money and (b) with what time. Unless you are Taylor Swift, people wont watch the exact same content on a different platform just becasue you told them to when it exists on the one they like. More importantly (c) why? Instead of building up someone else's business/platform for free (and put yourself in the same position as you already are). This is why people sell a product. Online courses, have their own app, tequila, merch, live shows, signature guitars, etc. As a creator, you don't go to another platform; you have to own something. Unless it's a purely moral argument, in which case, I can respect that, but it's not a good business decision.
bonoboTP 1y ago
YouTube already was built on the "distributed" premise. That You can "broadcast yourself" as the slogan says, you use the platform to make your own presence, users can subscribe to you specifically and the platform merely connects the audience and the video makers. No longer are you beholden to the old ways of cable TV producer filters and gatekeepers. You just find and manage your own audience and the platform gets out of the way. So when grayjay says "Follow Creators, Not Platforms" I'm pretty sure that the minute that regular people on the street know about the existence of "grayjay", they will become essentially also a platform that enshittifies in the same way (cf. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/). It's a common pattern. Be an aggregator first, then slowly introduce exclusives, and become a competitor that climbed up on the backs of the others. Somewhat similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- rglullis 1y ago
  GrayJay is just a client for the different platforms, like a regular web browser. They can't put themselves between and the consumer. > YouTube already was built on the "distributed" premise. What a load of BS.
  - bonoboTP 1y ago
    > They can't put themselves between and the consumer. Of course they can. If they smell money and sell, they can change it to whatever they want. It's just a client for now. It's like arguing for Skype back then based on tech aspects. It's P2P! Yes, P2P until it wasn't. Youtube wasnt distribute in tech, but was in marketing and if you were there around 2007-10, you remember it was much less social-media-ified and felt more direct and raw. Subscribe and get notified. Just a platform. The only way to avoid that same path is by remaining obscure and small. I guess every new generation of tech enthusiasts has to get burned to get sufficiently disillusioned.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      The code is open source and FOSS. They could try a bait-and-switch and they would see a dozen forks 30 minutes after the announcement.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Same problem applies: That’s another site to read. Another app to download. Another product to discover. I nearly didn’t even open the link because I didn’t want to learn something new before I’d had my morning cup of earl grey. Chances are the average consumer wouldn’t bother — assuming they even discover about this to begin with.

rglullis 1y ago
"Hey everyone, I'm Rick Beato. I am tired of dealing with YouTube constantly threatening my livelihood, so now I will be focused on my own channel. I will be posting here as well for whatever they let me, but to get full videos just download the GrayJay app (link in description) and look for my channel (link also in description)." That's all it would take to get a few hundred thousand people to download it, and you'd know that the those who are going through the effort are higher-value subscribers, so it would be even easier to bring better sponsors. I really don't like arguments based on "I am lazy to do that, therefore everyone is". It's at best defeatist cowardice and at worst a malicious way to support the status quo.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  I’m not being defeatist. I’m literally just pointing out the reality of consumer trends. There is oodles of research into this topic. It isn’t something I’ve just made up. It’s why analytics exist to explore website user journeys and then promoting the most important calls to action in prominent places. It’s why physical store fronts put the doors at the front of the shop rather than on the side (side note: a friend of mine does own a shop and when he had to have the front door closed for repair, he saw a sharp decline in random walk-ins because people didn’t want to use the side door). It’s why Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn etc remaining dominant platforms in their respective domains despite almost universal dislike for those platforms. It’s why supermarkets put their product with the highest margin in the centre of the shelves and the lower margin items at the top and bottom. It’s why being on page 2 of Googles search results are as good as not being in Google at all. I’d actually love it if your idealistic view were true in practice. I don’t want to depend on GitHub, LinkedIn, YouTube. But that’s where the masses are so I need to use it too. I already ditched WhatsApp for Signal, but after several years without WhatsApp, I still haven’t converted all my family. So I miss out on sooo much conversations because of my ideals. What you’re advocating simply doesn’t match the reality of how people shop for content. Be that free stuff on social platforms, nor purchasing physical products in stores. It’s not defeatist to say consumers are lazy. It’s just a sad fact of life. And ignoring that fact doesn’t magically make it untrue.
  - rglullis 1y ago
    You are confusing "optimal" with "feasible" and you are ignoring the fact it can be more profitable to serve a niche (people with a minimum of ethical standards) than to be just yet-another participant in the commodity marketplace.
    - hnlmorg 1y ago
      That already happens. Content creators have merchandise, patron exclusives, fan clubs and so on and so forth. The problem isn’t that other revenue streams don’t exist. It’s that they’re still dependent on the whims of YouTube to get their brand out. And unfortunately, these other revenue streams are only more profitable than YouTube for the smallest percentage of video content creators (baring those who specialise in adult content, but that’s a whole other domain of content creation ;) ).
- motoxpro 1y ago
  You're assuming a ~5% conversion rate and usage/payment in perpetuity. Those are just unrealistic assumptions, based on my experience in this space. Everything breaks. - Channel makes no money because sponsors don't pay (as much, it's a power law) for 200k subs (being charitable with your 5%. in reality it would be < 50k) - Guest don't come because the channel is small and they don't get distribution for their projects - Platform X doesn't pay out as well as YouTube, so you lose more revenue - The channel can't function because there isn't enough revenue to run the business. Can't hire lawyers when Z Record Label sues you on Platform X. - Other channels on larger platforms take the space that you filled. The market is not static. Slash starts his own YouTube channel, which has more credibility, and David Gilmour goes on that one instead. See the celebrity podcast/YouTube space for arguments that prominent celebrities don't become creators when the market signals there is money/opportunity available. - When subscribers churn, there is no one new on the platform to replace them. Churn in this case means they no longer use the app I made them go to, or they no longer subscribe to or pay me. Creator payment churn is MUCH higher than any typical B2B or B2C churn. Being a creator is like standing up a business on a set of toothpicks. Even if you are Rick Beato (which is why he is so upset)
  - rglullis 1y ago
    I am not saying to completely drop YT. I am saying (a) to run both and keep promoting the alternative and (b) coordinate with other creators to do the same.
    - motoxpro 1y ago
      I guess (a) with what money and (b) with what time. Unless you are Taylor Swift, people wont watch the exact same content on a different platform just becasue you told them to when it exists on the one they like. More importantly (c) why? Instead of building up someone else's business/platform for free (and put yourself in the same position as you already are). This is why people sell a product. Online courses, have their own app, tequila, merch, live shows, signature guitars, etc. As a creator, you don't go to another platform; you have to own something. Unless it's a purely moral argument, in which case, I can respect that, but it's not a good business decision.

bonoboTP 1y ago

YouTube already was built on the "distributed" premise. That You can "broadcast yourself" as the slogan says, you use the platform to make your own presence, users can subscribe to you specifically and the platform merely connects the audience and the video makers. No longer are you beholden to the old ways of cable TV producer filters and gatekeepers. You just find and manage your own audience and the platform gets out of the way. So when grayjay says "Follow Creators, Not Platforms" I'm pretty sure that the minute that regular people on the street know about the existence of "grayjay", they will become essentially also a platform that enshittifies in the same way (cf. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/). It's a common pattern. Be an aggregator first, then slowly introduce exclusives, and become a competitor that climbed up on the backs of the others. Somewhat similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

rglullis 1y ago
GrayJay is just a client for the different platforms, like a regular web browser. They can't put themselves between and the consumer. > YouTube already was built on the "distributed" premise. What a load of BS.
- bonoboTP 1y ago
  > They can't put themselves between and the consumer. Of course they can. If they smell money and sell, they can change it to whatever they want. It's just a client for now. It's like arguing for Skype back then based on tech aspects. It's P2P! Yes, P2P until it wasn't. Youtube wasnt distribute in tech, but was in marketing and if you were there around 2007-10, you remember it was much less social-media-ified and felt more direct and raw. Subscribe and get notified. Just a platform. The only way to avoid that same path is by remaining obscure and small. I guess every new generation of tech enthusiasts has to get burned to get sufficiently disillusioned.
  - rglullis 1y ago
    The code is open source and FOSS. They could try a bait-and-switch and they would see a dozen forks 30 minutes after the announcement.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]