Lol. Yeah. I read that several times in there and was like... well yeah- they aren’t “Save the Aardvarks” or something where their mission statement implies they should care about Aardvarks or something above all- and even “save the aardvarks” would probably prioritize money since that pays employee wages and money is a necessity of saving aardvarks. “The degree you put money before your users is disgusting” or something like that might work better for the argument.
Question- I see lots of people upset over YouTube- but I don’t see many people starting their own (or banding together to start a) community forward free video hosting platform. Follow up question for those who believe in self regulating markets- using this as an example- hows that whole self regulating market working out here?
People don’t look for new sites they want to “fix” the site that’s there. I’m sure creators who make ad revenue wouldn’t want to move to a new site because there wouldn’t be as large a reach. There’s definitely community in YouTube. If a YouTuber decided to leave and go somewhere else I’d definitely follow just to keep watching their content. But... not if there was a paywall. And that’s where other hosting sites may lose my interest. I don’t like ads but I also know that’s what I have to deal with IF I want to watch creators that want to earn money from their content and I don’t want to pay in money for it.
Fuck there’s a lot to talk about from adpocalypses to claim strike abuse to that coppa thing that I haven’t updated my self on.
Im assuming your first question is “why hadn’t there been a major effort to make a FREE YouTube 2.0” my answer would be that content creators would be hesitant to make it if the community would be hard to transfer. And others would be hesitant to...
A well thought out and stated reply- and appreciated. The question itself was less a genuine curiosity and more of a thought exercise however- and your answer serves both purposes well.
It would be quite an undertaking to create a new “YouTube.” Imagine all the work involved- money of course. All sorts of costs including the obvious need for servers and internet service to handle the data being uploaded and downloaded from the server. But passion, time, energy. Finding content that wasn’t already someone else’s IP, but would draw viewers- getting creators or creating your own “seed” channels and videos to draw users. Emails and lunches and meetings trying to convince key people to join or support your new service. Imagine the labor if you and your closest friends designed and coded and admin’d this site. You don’t likely have sophisticated policing algorithms sitting around and content would probably be slow at first so it would probably have to be a combo of human policing and community self policing to start.
You’d have to hunt for ads and sponsors of course. Find ways to at least make enough to run the site- and given that keeping it running could be a full time job- probably pay yourself and others to work on it. Of course... content creators might not want to leave YouTube where they are upset over policies and the amounts they make per video because it’s still better than what you can provide in money and exposure- and most people with the skills to code, run, and create this mythical beast probably aren’t going to want to do it for free and espouse full time lucrative work using their skills elsewhere just on the principal that a video sharing site could be better.
But say you DID create this beautiful YouTube replacement. Now you’re competing with YouTube and all these other guys. You’re a threat. You’ll need to grow. You’ll need money for slumps and for acquisitions and expansions. You may grow in size and need to pay more employees to run the thing, get more servers, get an actual office for all these folks. You’ll need insurance and payroll taxes and you’ll have a skilled staff that could go to Facebook or YouTube etc- and you’ll need to pay competitive wages and benefits and keep them happy. You’ll need money for the lawyers that will come after you eventually over copy write or content issues- the kid that watches a non affiliated video about making home made fireworks or something and loses an eye- his moms coming. You’ll likely go public at some point. You’ll need more lawyers and accountants and all sorts of things for audit compliance.
And for all the INSANE work you’d put into it to create and nurture such a thing to a point where it could fly on its own wings- you might decide that the company you made that makes millions a day should maybe pay you more than the $30k or $0k a year draw you took when things started. Perhaps- being the head of this massive entity- you might say “maybe I deserve a salary closer to what a CEO makes- or at least one where my 100’s of hours of work a week aren’t at minimum wage!” And you’ll need to stay competitive with YouTube and other companies. You’ll want to stay ahead of them if you don’t want to fall victim to a hostile take over or have other giants gunning for your market share beat you out of existence.
So in the end- of your hosting site manages to get anywhere near YouTube levels.... it will probably stop being “YouTube 2.0” and end up just being... YouTube. Maybe a LITTLE better from the user perspective but a little smaller as far as its reach and base- but ultimately the line goes that you die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain.
But we look and as you say- YouTube content creators don’t see a place to go where even with the mistreatment they feel by YouTube, they could do better. Users get upset that YouTube doesn’t listen to them and abuses them and their creators- but they see nowhere else to go that is better- or as you say- they are comfortable there and have a community. So from YouTube’s perspective- people can complain all they like- they’ve already shown they aren’t going anywhere- or if they do- it ultimately doesn’t hurt them.
Tl:dr- YouTube doesn’t sell us out. We sell our own dignity for what they offer. If you give a dog a treat for learning to do complex math, but also give it treats whenever it shits on the rug- what is the dog going to learn is the easiest way to get a treat? Companies SHOULD just want to do “good” but what is their motivation? We are all children without adults to tell us not to eat candy for breakfast- then we blame the guys who make the candy when we get sick or unhealthy. Capitalism gets flack because it is a mirror of ourselves. We drive the market- we feed the beast because the beast feeds us candy even if it shits on the rug. It isn’t quite so simple- the game is rigged. Freedom is tricky and we may not REALLY have as much as we think in a practical sense while still being “part of society,” but we at the least have some control over our choices. Don’t take the candy from the monster in the white van.
Fuck there’s a lot to talk about from adpocalypses to claim strike abuse to that coppa thing that I haven’t updated my self on.
Im assuming your first question is “why hadn’t there been a major effort to make a FREE YouTube 2.0” my answer would be that content creators would be hesitant to make it if the community would be hard to transfer. And others would be hesitant to...