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Author here. I woke up to a surprising amount of traffic! Some notes based on the discussion. This wasn't coordinated between Jeff Geerling and myself. However

Author here. I woke up to a surprising amount of traffic! Some notes based on the discussion. This wasn't coordinated between Jeff Geerling and myself. However, I did mention the post in the Bluesky thread that Jeff was included in. [0] I concluded the piece with “[t]his space is ripe for disruption”. That was a really poor choice of words. I've since updated the piece to better match what I was trying to say. Diffs are available. [1] On YouTube: as I mention in the piece, I think the service is excellent as a consumer, and I pay for Premium. This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. I wasn't going to write anything until I saw the video from RedLetterMedia that I mentioned in the post. They have a huge following and were blaming something that might be related? Or might not? It's really hard to tell! I'm not a YouTube creator, but I assume having metrics that determine your livelihood shift out from under you as a creator must feel awful. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22h https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22... [1] https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/compare/9c02041e6bdfd7b4ebb93f813a7f2260ec26fa13..master https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/com...

slumberlust 1y ago
Linus Tech Tips has also noticed some really odd view to like ratio stuff happening recently as well. They discuss it in last weeks WAN show. Something is going on.
- shirro 1y ago
  They said an LTT store message directed them to the Brodie Robertson video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s so they did their own investigation which confirmed similar things. It looks like Youtube might be measuring views differently and perhaps getting rid of unmonetizable views which doesn't impact the number of likes or revenue. I think the annoyance is over the lack of transparency and the power Youtube holds over content creators rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc.
  - ncallaway 1y ago
    > rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Apparently there's not a significant loss of revenue _from YouTube_ from the reports of these creators. But some sponsor deals might be structured based on CPM, and so a suddenly decreased view count could have a direct revenue impact from those sponsorship deals.
    - pbronez 1y ago
      I wonder how YouTube thinks about that. They probably would prefer zero third party sponsors, because adding sponsored content dilutes the value of the on-platform ads. Features like “commonly skipped section” and the timeline view intensity histogram reduce the value of sponsorships. But if they eliminated sponsors, creator revenue would drop significantly and so would content production. The nuclear option would be to require all sponsored segments to register with YouTube. That would give YouTube way more control and dramatically reduce creators’ business flexibility (how do you tax a donated 3d printer?).
- bigthymer 1y ago
  May I ask for a link for myself and others who may be interested?
  - shirro 1y ago
    The Wan Show is very long and waffley and strictly for fans. LTT clip segments of the show but the relevant segment is still nearly 40 minutes long https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JJ8dur6unc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JJ8dur6unc
    - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
      [dead]
OgsyedIE 1y ago
Structurally there's only a few ways disruption can happen to a platform that has existing centralized hosting of metadata and centralized hosting of data. Either the disruptor also centralizes both, decentralizes just the data or decentralizes both. The second isn't viable in most real world cases until something changes the huge expense of decentralized CDN fetching. My gut says that the third would be on the losing side of almost every network effect.
Supermancho 1y ago
> On YouTube: as I mention in the piece, I think the service is excellent as a consumer, and I pay for Premium Why? Because the tools that allow them to take almost 50% of the revenue (they say you earn) have low friction? I would say the opposite. There is no customer service. There are endless legal pit traps that allow larger channels and companies to predate on smaller ones alongside the AI channels, which lead to the same end. The entire point of the platform is to push as much advertising as possible, while mutating a user's search habits. Ironically, this leads to videos becoming borderline useless for many use cases, without taking them off youtube. This is not a good platform. I'm sure I feel this way because I don't have a bunch of content I'm afraid of being yanked from the platform. Another "benefit" of having a big youtube presence, is I would be forever worried about implied retaliation.
- bitpush 1y ago
  So .. you dont use YouTube since you detest the service so much?
  - Supermancho 1y ago
    Please don't gaslight. My critique is pointed. I did implicate that Youtube has monopolized the market, allowing a lower bar of service to become the norm. This latest move, seems to make every aspect of youtube's value proposition worse.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    I read it as they're enabled to feel that way--and express it publicly--because their digital life and livelihood is not held hostage to the capricious monopoly.
  - eqvinox 1y ago
    The problem with monopolies is that it's very hard to boycott them.
  - tempfile 1y ago
    > And yet you live in society. Curious!
OhMeadhbh 1y ago
I host videos on my own server and there's Vimeo and Mux. I guess you're saying it's the free-as-in-beer service that has a social network and recommendation network attached to uploaded videos.
- djantje 1y ago
  Vimeo is not working to view random videos in the EU, I saw last week to my surprise. https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/30298226209169-Changes-to-Vimeo-com-in-the-EU-and-UK https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/30298226209169-Chan...
- pbronez 1y ago
  Mux is new to me. Looks like a video-first headless CMS with some neat AI integrations. Vimeo does have monetization tools [1] but they’re focused on direct sales. YouTube is just way ahead… even if you ignore the ads platform, a YouTube premium subscription gives you WAY more ad free content than a Vimeo purchase or Floatplane/Nebula subscription. [1] https://vimeo.com/solutions/video-monetization https://vimeo.com/solutions/video-monetization
  - vcoisne 1y ago
    Mux is more of a video API but they have plugins with Headless CMS such as Strapi https://market.strapi.io/plugins/strapi-plugin-mux-video-uploader https://market.strapi.io/plugins/strapi-plugin-mux-video-upl...
joe_the_user 1y ago
Hmm, One of the things that is notable about Youtube is there was once competition (Vimeo and Daily Motion) but they effectively outdistanced it. A bit like Amazon and Ebay. There are related things semi-competing like Twitch.TV etc, also, of course. I suspect that the situation with the earlier video providers is that they were "bleeding cash" for many years until the process finally reversed - if they were the winner (again like Amazon). I think this long capital investment process is what means that no one wants to or expects to step into the ring with a large, successful player. It took that player a long time to learn to be successful, that player will fight you to keep their relative monopoly and you will have to risk a lot of money. Youtube content creators are effectively Youtube's suppliers. Youtube is squeezing and its "normal" - squeezing suppliers is part of the monopolist's playbook. Its unfortunately convenient for Youtube that people have been willing to make good quality video for nearly nothing since the tools to do so became cheaply available. Why there is "no competition" for Nvidia, Amazon, Youtube, etc. Not that I like the situation but it's not an "unnatural" situation.
hohloma 1y ago
> This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. Well, technically there's lots of user submitted videos posted to p*rn sites... Apparently even started posting educational videos there, like math and neural networks and stuff.
giancarlostoro 1y ago
> This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. I realized this back in 2009 and tried really hard to start using other platforms, but wound up just not watching YouTube as often instead. I hope this changes. The only true competitors are places like TikTok and Instagram, but they don't feel like a true replacement to the rest of us who don't want to be tied to "social media" but YouTube shorts are evidence that it does compete with YouTube directly. I think YouTube even tried to have "IG Stories" at one point iirc.

slumberlust 1y ago

Linus Tech Tips has also noticed some really odd view to like ratio stuff happening recently as well. They discuss it in last weeks WAN show. Something is going on.

shirro 1y ago
They said an LTT store message directed them to the Brodie Robertson video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s so they did their own investigation which confirmed similar things. It looks like Youtube might be measuring views differently and perhaps getting rid of unmonetizable views which doesn't impact the number of likes or revenue. I think the annoyance is over the lack of transparency and the power Youtube holds over content creators rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc.
- ncallaway 1y ago
  > rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Apparently there's not a significant loss of revenue _from YouTube_ from the reports of these creators. But some sponsor deals might be structured based on CPM, and so a suddenly decreased view count could have a direct revenue impact from those sponsorship deals.
  - pbronez 1y ago
    I wonder how YouTube thinks about that. They probably would prefer zero third party sponsors, because adding sponsored content dilutes the value of the on-platform ads. Features like “commonly skipped section” and the timeline view intensity histogram reduce the value of sponsorships. But if they eliminated sponsors, creator revenue would drop significantly and so would content production. The nuclear option would be to require all sponsored segments to register with YouTube. That would give YouTube way more control and dramatically reduce creators’ business flexibility (how do you tax a donated 3d printer?).
bigthymer 1y ago
May I ask for a link for myself and others who may be interested?
- shirro 1y ago
  The Wan Show is very long and waffley and strictly for fans. LTT clip segments of the show but the relevant segment is still nearly 40 minutes long https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JJ8dur6unc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JJ8dur6unc
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]

OgsyedIE 1y ago

Structurally there's only a few ways disruption can happen to a platform that has existing centralized hosting of metadata and centralized hosting of data. Either the disruptor also centralizes both, decentralizes just the data or decentralizes both. The second isn't viable in most real world cases until something changes the huge expense of decentralized CDN fetching. My gut says that the third would be on the losing side of almost every network effect.

Supermancho 1y ago

> On YouTube: as I mention in the piece, I think the service is excellent as a consumer, and I pay for Premium Why? Because the tools that allow them to take almost 50% of the revenue (they say you earn) have low friction? I would say the opposite. There is no customer service. There are endless legal pit traps that allow larger channels and companies to predate on smaller ones alongside the AI channels, which lead to the same end. The entire point of the platform is to push as much advertising as possible, while mutating a user's search habits. Ironically, this leads to videos becoming borderline useless for many use cases, without taking them off youtube. This is not a good platform. I'm sure I feel this way because I don't have a bunch of content I'm afraid of being yanked from the platform. Another "benefit" of having a big youtube presence, is I would be forever worried about implied retaliation.

bitpush 1y ago
So .. you dont use YouTube since you detest the service so much?
- Supermancho 1y ago
  Please don't gaslight. My critique is pointed. I did implicate that Youtube has monopolized the market, allowing a lower bar of service to become the norm. This latest move, seems to make every aspect of youtube's value proposition worse.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  I read it as they're enabled to feel that way--and express it publicly--because their digital life and livelihood is not held hostage to the capricious monopoly.
- eqvinox 1y ago
  The problem with monopolies is that it's very hard to boycott them.
- tempfile 1y ago
  > And yet you live in society. Curious!

OhMeadhbh 1y ago

I host videos on my own server and there's Vimeo and Mux. I guess you're saying it's the free-as-in-beer service that has a social network and recommendation network attached to uploaded videos.

djantje 1y ago
Vimeo is not working to view random videos in the EU, I saw last week to my surprise. https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/30298226209169-Changes-to-Vimeo-com-in-the-EU-and-UK https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/30298226209169-Chan...
pbronez 1y ago
Mux is new to me. Looks like a video-first headless CMS with some neat AI integrations. Vimeo does have monetization tools [1] but they’re focused on direct sales. YouTube is just way ahead… even if you ignore the ads platform, a YouTube premium subscription gives you WAY more ad free content than a Vimeo purchase or Floatplane/Nebula subscription. [1] https://vimeo.com/solutions/video-monetization https://vimeo.com/solutions/video-monetization
- vcoisne 1y ago
  Mux is more of a video API but they have plugins with Headless CMS such as Strapi https://market.strapi.io/plugins/strapi-plugin-mux-video-uploader https://market.strapi.io/plugins/strapi-plugin-mux-video-upl...

joe_the_user 1y ago

Hmm, One of the things that is notable about Youtube is there was once competition (Vimeo and Daily Motion) but they effectively outdistanced it. A bit like Amazon and Ebay. There are related things semi-competing like Twitch.TV etc, also, of course. I suspect that the situation with the earlier video providers is that they were "bleeding cash" for many years until the process finally reversed - if they were the winner (again like Amazon). I think this long capital investment process is what means that no one wants to or expects to step into the ring with a large, successful player. It took that player a long time to learn to be successful, that player will fight you to keep their relative monopoly and you will have to risk a lot of money. Youtube content creators are effectively Youtube's suppliers. Youtube is squeezing and its "normal" - squeezing suppliers is part of the monopolist's playbook. Its unfortunately convenient for Youtube that people have been willing to make good quality video for nearly nothing since the tools to do so became cheaply available. Why there is "no competition" for Nvidia, Amazon, Youtube, etc. Not that I like the situation but it's not an "unnatural" situation.

hohloma 1y ago

> This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. Well, technically there's lots of user submitted videos posted to p*rn sites... Apparently even started posting educational videos there, like math and neural networks and stuff.

giancarlostoro 1y ago

> This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. I realized this back in 2009 and tried really hard to start using other platforms, but wound up just not watching YouTube as often instead. I hope this changes. The only true competitors are places like TikTok and Instagram, but they don't feel like a true replacement to the rest of us who don't want to be tied to "social media" but YouTube shorts are evidence that it does compete with YouTube directly. I think YouTube even tried to have "IG Stories" at one point iirc.