this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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In my opinion anything that is just a frontend for Youtube is just a bandaid, and if they get to much attention Google will make using them increasingly untenable.
The real answer is moving to competing platforms outside of Googles control.
That's not possible though. There simply is no content on other platforms and they generally aren't as good as YouTube and probably never will be.
The only platform I could see to rival YouTube in the future is Twitch
Lemmy users are just delusional in that regard. You can't just switch away from Google, its not the tech that makes in great, its the content. It's the same with messengers, if your friends arent there how useful is that foss messenger really?
Thankfully the only creator I regularly watch that does non-educational videos uploads them on their own website. For everything else nebula actually is an alternative, although I'm not subscribed to it at the moment
Maybe it's unlikely for this to happen, but I wonder if it'd be possible for yt to go down like reddit did. Yt makes a series of bad decisions, so a lot of people move from there to similar platforms. The other services don't have much content right now, but from what I here, neither did Lemmy before the "exodus."
I get that reddit and youtube are very different types of platforms and that the whole reddit thing happened because of pretty specific circumstances, but idk, maybe something vaguely similar could happen.
"go down like Reddit did" ... But did Reddit "go down"? It definitely lost users and content quality dropped, but still, everyone I talk to (that isn't a total nerd like us lemmings) still uses Reddit and has no idea what Lemmy is.
I was going to try and contradict you, but I guess most of the people I know well IRL are also total nerds
Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn't use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn't seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.
You should refer her to Cory Doctorow's writing, namely his concept of enshittification. He's one of the most effective political communicators alive today. If anyone can get her to understand the import of the issues surrounding Reddit's Simple Jack routine, it's him.
I know the term enshitification, so maybe I've already read his stuff. I'm going to check it out more. Thanks!
Y'know, good point. I haven't actually been on reddit since the blackout, so I probably shouldn't be confidently basing any theories on just what I've heard about now-reddit from other people, lol. Thanks for the correction.
I guess my idea of how much reddit "fell" and how much Lemmy/Mastodon grew is a bit inflated, probably because I spend all my internet time here now.
(copy/pasted my response to another comment)
Yeah. I introduced my wife to Reddit (she knew of it but didn't use it until I kinda showed her how great it is (was)). Now her family and friends use it too. They all heard about the drama but didn't seem to care or understand and they all still use Reddit.
It's not like it's making any bad decisions right now. Pretty calculated, I'd say - they feel safe market-wise, so they can increase amount of ads/fight ad-blockers/push people to buy subscription.
Oh yeah I don't disagree. The wording was unclear, but I meant that more in the future/hypothetical tense. It just seems like that's what all the big social media sites have been doing lately, so I was assuming that yt's quality will take a nosedive sooner or later, but I guess it's unfair (and hopefully wrong) to assume that. Thx for the correction
I get where you are coming from, however it's important to remember that big players are not equal - they have really, really different people in the leadership. Elmo is just a too-big-to-fall clown with insane ego, spez is a manchild who took VC money like there's no tomorrow and in the end had no idea how to provide ROI, but youtube is ran by very competent people with solid track record and deep pockets.
Maybe they are not too innovative business-wise recently... but they are good at catching up (except live streaming - screen layout is dogshit and nobody wants to get hyped in their tiny chatbox from a fucking google account with family photo as an avatar) and at leveraging what they already have, which is quite a lot, tbh.
First reddit didn't go down, despite having an user base which had some kind of a brain.
While YouTube has everyone as users. Even like the most normie, boomer, zoomer users that think YouTube is the internet. No way they are going to switch for ideological reasons, unless the app just stops working.
This is so difficult. How many people would be willing to switch to Signal or Wickr for one friend? And then what if none of their friends don't want to switch? And then the friends of those people, etc. Trying to switch workgroups, family, friends and all of their friends as well is a lost cause, it would never happen.
that's why what we really need is guaranteed service interoperability!
https://pca.st/episode/d79ca535-186c-4ee0-b658-165a148dcca5
The alternative exists, but it costs money. Most big YouTuber accounts (at least the ones I'm subscribed to) post on either Nebula, Patreon or some platform like that. It would cost quite a lot to subscribe to them all, but still less than YouTube premium in my country. So in the worst case scenario where YouTube really blocks all ad free interfaces except paid use, that's my answer. I don't like it as I think a lot of the content is overpriced for what it is, but it's better than having $$$ swallowed up by some mega corporation that is just interested in screwing authors and viewers over as much as possible.
YouTube is insanely large in size and scope but…
The key is just a platform that actually pays creators.
Nebula is one I expect to succeed for its niche.
Something like Floatplane with direct subscriptions is an option too.
Yeah haven't thought of that, but they aren't really YouTube alternatives. You don't use them instead of YouTube, but as an addition.
there is odysee and peertube that I know are direct alternatives, the only thing is every competitor has the same problem of becoming an alt right echo chamber
They aren't as good as YouTube though and that's the problem. YouTube isn't great. It's just the best platform like this that we have.
youtube... "good?"..??? odysee is actually pretty good besides the right wing stuff
You've never uploaded a video to YouTube have you? Their creator tools are actually incredible and their stats are a good way to tune their videos. Of course you shouldn't completely rely on them.
Also it isn't just the content. I rather use YouTube over Odysse, even if it's the same content. It's such a better experience, especially on mobile. Odysee is on the level YouTube was 10 years ago.
Also making a free video streaming site isn't really profitable. I don't know if YouTube still isn't profitable, but I've read reports from 2015 that it still wasn't profitable.
It makes sense that they now try to push things that make them money. They wouldn't push ads so hard if they weren't desperate.
never cared about any of it, only talking about the viewing experience anyway
But most people aren't you.
most people aren't uploading videos and even using those special tools, most people are watching
Most people want a great discovering experience and viewing experience and a good looking and smooth UI.
Odysee feels laggy as hell.
Nebula at least for educational content
Nebula has about 10.000 videos, from only select creators. Youtube has around 1 billion videos, and everyone can upload. Nebula is not actually a Youtube alternative unless you're in one of two specific target audiences:
I don't see Nebula opening up their site to everyone and letting anyone upload content any time soon, and for that reason I don't see them as a Youtube competitor at all. They've found their niche with curated quality over quantity.
Fun fact: The difference between 10.000 and 1 billion is... around 1 billion.
I wouldn't really mind a smaller pool of videos, if it's guaranteed to have a standard of quality.
I'd even pay for YouTube if they offered such a service, where they curate their creators. E.g. I sometimes like to watch repair channels where someone tinkers with something. I have a handful of channels that I like for that... but what if there are many more that I just can't find?
Currently that is quite hard, because despite YouTube being an utterly insane business model it has prevailed so far.
I would love for an alternative, I personally really like PeerTube and the Fediverse in general, but mass adoption ain't there yet :(