Technology

I feel the need to point out that most of the "problems" you stated about YouTube are due to scale. If any YouTube competitor had to deal with the sheer amount of content YouTube does they would have the exact same problems.

Difference between YouTube and Reddit is that YouTube is a content based platform, where as Reddit is a community based platform. In YouTube, people who post videos literally get paid based on their views, so it’s extremely hard for them to move to a different platform where they would not get paid as much. You don’t have that aspect in Reddit. There is no incentive to stay on Reddit if you could do the same thing elsewhere.

YouTube is much harder to replace because the hosting costs of videos are so much higher than something like reddit.

I honestly had never heard of it. They could probably stand to do a little marketing.

My biggest worry about alternate video providers is their longevity at scale.

Since you're here to talk about them why don't you tell us a little about them? Are they free do they have pay options how are the ads? Do they have limits on length and quality? I actually wouldn't mind having an alternative to YouTube while I'm pulling stuff out of Reddit video to post here.

I've only heard of Odysee when consipracy theorists and white supremacists get banned on YT and migrate there... I'm not saying that's all there is there because I have no idea. But because of this negative biais, if I was looking for an alternative to YT, my first instinct wouldn't be to head over to Odysee.

I really liked Odysee until I start to really see it for what it was. A place where right-wing extremists can peddle their bullshit without the threat of being shut down for their vile rhetoric.

What ultimately clued me into this was when I decided to see how Odysee was doing and I noticed on the front page was a featured creator, the one and only Lauren Southern. If you don't know who she is, I don't really know how to describe other than right wing grifter.

I then started to see some other creators and what they were doing. Conspiracy theorists and bigots, lots and lots of bigots.

I didn't like how it was setup either because Odysee rewards groupthink and echo chambers. You have to have credits to post videos and there are some free ways to get these credits but like everything with crypto, you can buy the credits and these credits allow you to post videos.

If people like your videos, they might throw some credits your way but watching the video itself is helpful. So your own videos end up being a financial investment that you need a return on. Time and effort might not see a return so you're encouraged to put together low-effort drivel that you know will make a return. The best way is to make videos that cater to your audience. If your audience is right-wingers, guess what your videos will be about. If you diversify or change your views, your audience won't like that and they won't watch it so you don't get paid.

I think it is going to take a while and be a slow process for these alternatives to take over. As more people join there will be more people to help with the codebase to make it better which will make it easier for other people to join. One way to help both Odysee and Lemmy would be to start uploading videos to Odysee and using it to share videos on Lemmy. Maybe eventually there could be some integration between the two.

I still prefer PeerTube.

(it's part of the Fediverse. We're also part of the Fediverse here on Kbin and Lemmy.)

The only person I ever saw promoting Odysee was a literal fucking nazi, and them allowing that kind of content really puts people off, y'know?

a lot of people are probably turned off by odysee because it's based around a crypto ponzi scam and most of the content creators there are hardcore conservatives. No thank you lol

So if I stick here long enough there's a chance I could see Peertube vids pop up on my feed?

@TGRush

Regarding Odysee/LBRY, I believe "content" video platforms can align with crypto if the video can make a tangible claim to be "on-chain", which LBRY does: the reason why this might be the case is because it creates a potential positive feedback loop between securing the chain, securing the content, the market value of the layer 1, and the self-interest of viewers and creators.

The main challenge to overcome is that the incentive structure can't center "watch to earn" or anything like that. When you try for those direct incentives you harm the value of the content by making it a speculation game, and I think that is people's main issue with platforms like LBRY or, for another example, Steemit(a "blockchain Reddit" which is karma-to-earn, achieving the typical Web3 result of "people in impoverished countries go out of their way farming it to get a few dollars").

There has to be a notion of collective space, collective good, just a hint of moderation or norms-based gatekeeping, and a largely undisturbed viewing experience. And that's a "tortoise" strategy, because it doesn't create big results for anyone right away, but the logic is sound: a chain storing more valuable information is more valuable to keep alive than its peers, and in time transforms itself into a historical archive. I do believe LBRY is gradually finding its way down this path - every time I look back at the Oddysee site the experience and the kinds of content I'm seeing posted has improved a little bit more.

Video content, at least the high end stuff that is now common on Youtube, remains expensive enough that it does have to fit in the mode of industrial production and earning its way in some respect - Youtube's staying power is a debt-driven phenomenon, and the platform remains unsustainable despite having so much on it. So to me it's just a question of whether we'll align around crypto in the near term or stay more in the mode of, say, Nebula, and focus on premium subscriptions.

Content creators mostly want to focus on what is here right now, within the short time frame of "my next project". You can call that short-sighted, but it's often motivated by financing and career incentives, with a dash of trendiness and clout-chasing: you want to be where the big audience is, so you'll run whatever rat race is there.

The problem with YouTube is that free alternatives don't pay content creators. In Twitch's case for example, they are seeing a real threat because Kick is offering tons of money to popular streamers to bring them to their platform.

Reddit doesn't pay to content creators and mods, this makes it easier for competition to take some of their audience compared to YouTube, which to some, is their only source of income.

Decentralized places like this only need to worry about making the joining process much more simplified, there is no need to overthrow Reddit, just make it a viable alternative when users get fed up with their shitty practices down the line.

Lol went and checked it out and after about three minutes found out that it's a block chain crypto bullshit website. No thanks.

On the other hand, I think the Reddit migration has a lot better chance of succeeding than any attempts at Twitter or YouTube or Twitch migration.

On the three other sites I mentioned, you’re following specific people. If those people don’t make the jump to a new platform, there’s little reason for you to make the jump either - you’re not going to see the content you want on the new site. Reddit and kbin and lemmy, on the other hand, are community based. I can talk about movies and woodworking and programming memes here just as well as I can on Reddit. The content is the discussion, and anywhere you can find groups of like-minded people, you’ll get that content.

Other people have mentioned the monetization angle for content creators, which is another factor that doesn’t apply to community-based sites. Hell, a large part of the complaints against Reddit is that they are relying on free content and free moderation. So that barrier isn’t holding people back here.

Last point, at least for YouTube and Twitch, is that video hosting and streaming is expensive - any competitor, if they want to gain serious traction, is going to need a lot of money behind it.

The thing with Odyssee/LBRY and Peertube like projects is that they need to make good monetising structure before they can be fully adopted. I've in the past recommended both to multiple creators and mostly answer is money and they don't want to cross post for some reason even they know it's generally for smaller audience. LBRY has their tokens but it's too hard to take out and insignificant that it's not worth it as of now for creators.

I would love for a youtube alternative to take off, but there is definitely more challenges to that than creating a reddit alternative.

The reason you go to youtube is to watch videos by your favorite creators, which are on the platform in the first places because they are getting payed. And there in lies the problem of a decentralized video platform. There is no central way of monetizing creations, hence alternate ways of monetization such as patronizing and sponsorships would be a must. But then even after all that, there actually has to be an audience to make it worth the creator's while. There's no creators cause there's no audience, and there is no audience cause there are no creators.

Secondly, as it stands now, most youtube alternatives have bad reputations. It's either youtube but shittier, youtube but right wing conspiracies, or youtube but all scams and all crypto. A lot of creators don't go off youtube unless they have to, which usually means they got banned. Hence they will go to a platform that will tolerate their behavior, or that is completely unregulated.

We may see a youtube alternative take off, but I think we might sooner see a decentralized Tik Tok or Vine gain traction faster due to the lower barrier of entry of those platforms. Long form videos can cost money to produce which weeds out most hobbyists, but any teenager with a phone can make a tik tok.

Odysee is a garbage platform with awful reputation for hosting many far-right content, I wonder why

Why would anybody move to Odysee? There's no content there.
Why would any creator move to Odysee? There's no audience there.

What exactly makes Odysee a better YouTube alternative than Peertube?

Bitchutes right wing cesspit . Odyssee also(from what ive heard) garbage platform , gonna be hard convincing creators to switch due to its reputation

Unless theres mass exodus of creators (super unlikely) , youtube alternatives pretty much hav no chance , peops aren't gonna leave youtube . Same with any platform really , peopes go wherever the creators go

Might be a hot take but... I don't think Odysee is a failure by any means? They did establish themselves somewhat. A very good number of FOSS creators already synced their content over or even made Odysee their primary platform, Mental Outlaw was probably the most famous one. They also got their weird LBRY nonsense sorted out so there was at least some type of monetization.

The thing was... Odysee seems to be catering very much towards the right-end of the political spectrum, so that might end up deterring a lot of ppl. Wouldn't assume some people who just want to watch cat memes to like getting a bunch of conspiracy theory and stuff thrown at their face... PSA The Linux Experiment (TLE) is very much aware of Odysee and explicitly avoided the platform because of that reason

There's also Peertube as an alternative, but if Odysee suffers from bad marketing/bad monetization then... lol. Not to name names here but there is a prominent content creator (who is also on Nebula and on Mastodon) who mentioned that they don't want to deal with Peertube with all the extra hassles for potentially just some freeloaders to watch their content for free.

I just learned about Odysee from this post. Making an account now