[HN Gopher] Popular YouTubers who are building their own sites
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Popular YouTubers who are building their own sites
        
       Author : mikesabbagh
       Score  : 157 points
       Date   : 2021-03-07 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | aninuth wrote:
       | Here I thought it was because of Squarespace...
        
         | benbristow wrote:
         | Was expecting that as well haha
        
       | jcims wrote:
       | it wasn't that long ago that it would be unusual for somebody to
       | publish all of their videos on YouTube rather than their own
       | site, And when he did it was to save money/performance, not for
       | the network effects of the platform.
        
       | john11johng wrote:
       | I don't really see what they've done that Patreon/Vimeo do.
       | Youtubers will still be reliant
        
       | GNU_James wrote:
       | >linking to bbc without using archive.is Son...
        
       | madprops wrote:
       | Peertube would work nicely for high traffic videos, since the
       | data transfer can be shared among viewers
       | https://joinpeertube.org/
        
       | dalbasal wrote:
       | This article is a little on the surface level, but it's true.
       | 
       | People were screaming about where platforms and digital
       | sharecropping was headed all along... and we're here now.
       | Youtube, which is basically digital free-to-air is even more
       | centralised than old free to air.
       | 
       | Youtube really is an extreme situation. They really dominate a
       | whole medium single handedly and youtubers have shockingly little
       | power in the whole thing. There either needs to be some
       | neutrality, competition or youtubers need to organize somehow...
       | unionize even. Trying to have a relationship with audiences that
       | doesn't run through youtube won't work for most channels... even
       | ones with millions of views.
       | 
       | I always expected a porn company to come in and compete with
       | youtube at some point. They have the infrastructure. I've also
       | been surprised at how restricted youtube manage to be, and still
       | succeed... just the skin censorship if nothing else.
        
         | um_ya wrote:
         | There needs to be "content as a protocol" in the same way email
         | is.
         | 
         | If I don't like one email provider, I can always move to a
         | different provider without losing access to all the user's that
         | remain there.
         | 
         | If I could make a Facebook post and have it's content propagate
         | to other providers, websites would act more like UI filters
         | rather than gatekeepers.
        
           | kiwidrew wrote:
           | That content protocol is called HTTP and the service
           | discovery protocol is called DNS. I know that it's a bit
           | cliche to say that these days, but acquiring a domain name
           | (either directly from a TLD registrar or indirectly through
           | e.g. a DynDNS provider) and pointing it at a webhost is what
           | allows content publishers to "mint" their very own globally
           | unique URLs. Any consumers that are equipped with a suitable
           | user agent can then plug that URL into their browser and view
           | that publisher's content.
           | 
           | Now let's be serious, there are numerous barriers that stand
           | in the way of "normal" users that want to escape the evil
           | platforms. Why not direct our ire at the _real_ problem: Why
           | Johnny Still Can 't Host a Website!
           | 
           | And if we fix that, perhaps we can move on to Why Johnny
           | Can't Get Any Visitors (Because Google Won't Index It) and
           | Why Johnny's Visitors Don't Receive His Updates (Because
           | Google and Mozilla Killed RSS).
        
           | dfcowell wrote:
           | This sounds like ActivityPub?
        
         | simias wrote:
         | It's just incredibly hard to compete with Youtube. In a way
         | that's Google's greatest achievement: they convinced everybody
         | that they're entitled to host and stream 4K videos forever not
         | only for free, but the creators get a share of the ad revenue
         | despite fronting none of the hosting costs. It's an incredibly
         | good deal. The amount of infrastructure and human resources
         | required to merely keep a system like Youtube running is mind
         | boggling.
         | 
         | That makes people reasonably annoyed when Youtube decides to
         | semi-arbitrarily pull the plug on a channel, but it also means
         | that competition is very hard. If a competitor decides to start
         | charging for hosting or streaming, they're doomed to be niche.
        
           | vl wrote:
           | And this is why Google needs to be split up. No other
           | enterprise can burn so many billions of dollars for so many
           | years to corner the market.
           | 
           | Google uses profits from search to napalm everything remotely
           | looking like a threat.
        
             | random5634 wrote:
             | Does google make or lose money on youtube? Based on the
             | number of ads I see, I'd imagine they break even?
        
       | matheusmoreira wrote:
       | Because they are finally learning that existing on someone else's
       | platform sucks. Much better to get your own domain which is
       | actually property registered to your name and can't be taken away
       | from you because you offended some advertiser.
        
         | walshemj wrote:
         | Its normal for podcasters (which youtubers are) to have a site
         | that can host at least a show page if not a merch store
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | The difference is that podcasters are typically hosting their
           | own files anyway, handling their own advertising (possibly
           | through networks), and the platforms are just discovery
           | mechanisms. Whereas YouTube is taking care of the more
           | expensive hosting, the advertising, and the discovery--for
           | better or worse.
        
             | walshemj wrote:
             | Not normally your hosting on libsyn and syndicating and
             | audio shows and video are just different types of show.
             | 
             | What strikes me as do that people still use twitch with its
             | disappearing content and crap discovery - and these are
             | shows who have major sponsors FFS.
        
         | cma wrote:
         | >But Google-owned YouTube gets most episodes of Linus Tech Tips
         | a week late.
         | 
         | Twitch set things up so to monetize as a partner you have to
         | give them 24 hour exclusivity, giving some extra teeth to their
         | platform lockin through discovery.
         | 
         | This isn't like exclusive to big Twitch celebrities either, its
         | anyone big enough to want any level of monetization.
        
         | celticninja wrote:
         | Could you still use YouTube for hosting with embedded videos
         | and then switch to self hosted if YouTube kicked you off? Would
         | embedding videos mean you can't monetise them?
        
         | Blikkentrekker wrote:
         | Discoverability provided by someone else's platform is a very
         | big boon, however.
         | 
         | Having one's own website is a luxury for the big man, the
         | little man aspiring to be big one day has no choice but to
         | kneel for "what he calls his "benevolent overlord"".
        
         | bawolff wrote:
         | Although if your goal is to actually make money, offending
         | advertisers on your own domaim isnt going to work out well for
         | you.
        
         | jasode wrote:
         | _> Because they are finally learning that existing on someone
         | else's platform sucks. Much better to get your own domain
         | [...]_
         | 
         | A lot of people already know they're the less powerful economic
         | actor on Youtube platform. Regardless, people upload videos to
         | Youtube instead of their own domain because of _tradeoffs_.
         | 
         | For unknown creators with no audience, Youtube doesn't suck (in
         | comparison to hosting videos on personal domain) because:
         | 
         | (1) you don't have the money to pay for variable hosting
         | bandwidth costs
         | 
         | (2) you don't have any business relationships with advertisers
         | to monetize which helps with (1)
         | 
         | (3) you have no network effect platform recommending your
         | videos (e.g. repair smartphones and drones) to audiences of
         | like-minded channels such as Linus Tech Tips -- which helps
         | with (2)
         | 
         | There is a _timeline_ that creators can 't avoid to build
         | financial/platform independence and leverage. _Today_ , Linus
         | can realistically host videos on his Floatplane alternative
         | because he _already used Youtube_ to build his 13 million
         | subscribers. He also already built his own advertiser
         | relationships to embed _native ads with him as spokesperson_
         | outside of Youtube pre-roll and mid-rolls. In contrast, it 's
         | quite a different challenge for him to start in 2008 with his
         | own Floatplane.com domain and build an audience of 13 million
         | outside of Youtube.
        
           | PartiallyTyped wrote:
           | Besides FloatPlane, other streaming websites that educational
           | channels upload content to are nebula [1] and I think
           | curiosity stream [2].
           | 
           | [1] https://watchnebula.com/
           | 
           | [2] https://curiositystream.com/
        
             | TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
             | Nebula and CuriosityStream have some sort of cross-
             | promotion sponsorship deal going on but I think they're
             | completely separate services and it's only Nebula that has
             | like, youtubers on it.
        
             | loudmax wrote:
             | I got a subscription to Curiosity Stream with Nebula
             | bundled in. While Curiosity Stream has original content, as
             | far as I can tell all of the Nebula stuff is also available
             | on YouTube. So as a Nebula customer the only real benefit
             | is watching content without ads. This is well and good, but
             | ads aside, Youtube is simply a more convenient platform.
             | There's less outright garbage on Nebula, and that's a good
             | thing because the search function and categories are hit
             | and miss. Compared to Youtube, the keyboard controls are
             | janky and there are no comments (arguably more of a feature
             | than a shortcoming), so no real way to engage with the
             | content creators.
             | 
             | Having said that I think I paid under $20 for a year's
             | subscription for the bundle. At this rate it's cheap enough
             | to be worthwhile even if you only watch a few hours of
             | content per month. And I do hope these folks can make
             | Nebula's business model work, there's some worthwhile stuff
             | in there.
        
         | MangoCoffee wrote:
         | yeah, like so many ISVs build their software on top of Windows
         | and slowly losing market share when Microsoft decided to get
         | into their space like the Office suite.
         | 
         | i remember using Lotus 123 on my dad's laptop. Lotus was the
         | king at the time and Microsoft kill them slowly. if i'm not
         | mistaking Microsoft with hold Win32 api or something that make
         | Microsoft's own Office software run faster.
        
           | matheusmoreira wrote:
           | Reminds me of these articles.
           | 
           | http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html
           | 
           | https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-
           | lost...
           | 
           | > If you want to write desktop software now you do it on
           | Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around
           | their buggy OS.
           | 
           | > And if you manage to write something that takes off, you
           | may find that you were merely doing market research for
           | Microsoft.
           | 
           | I simply don't understand why anyone would ever choose to put
           | themselves in such a disadvantageous position.
        
             | celticninja wrote:
             | This is what Amazon is doing now, find a product that sells
             | well and they will start selling it, cheaper than you and
             | probably prioritising their own product listing over yours.
             | 
             | Apple have been doing it with Apps since the iPhone
             | started, first it was jailbreak apps and then any app
             | became fairgame.
        
         | gist wrote:
         | > they are finally learning that existing on someone else's
         | platform sucks
         | 
         | Suttons Law applies 'because that's where the money (ie
         | audience) is'.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Sutton
        
       | guerrilla wrote:
       | If they don't want to end up on islands that nobody ever visits
       | then they better start thinking about getting together and
       | starting cooperatives or non-profits to host and list themselves.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | All: please let's try to avoid repeating the generic discussion
       | about how being on someone else's platform leaves you vulnerable
       | to someone else. It's not wrong, of course, but it's been
       | repeated for many years and won't lead to fresh conversation.
       | 
       | The goal on HN is curious conversation. Curiosity likes diffs
       | [1], not generics [2, 3]. Try to comment in a way that leads to a
       | new place rather than an old place.
       | 
       | The easiest way to do this is to respond to the specific new
       | information in an article. As a nudge in that direction, I've
       | swapped a different interrogative pronoun into the title, and
       | have downweighted the generic subthreads which were rising to the
       | top like bloated balloons and crowding out more interesting
       | discussion (as typically happens in these cases).
       | 
       | You don't only have to react to the specific new information in
       | an article. Whimsical tangents and reactions are also ok. Just
       | ask yourself if it's expected or unexpected [4]. Prefer the
       | unexpected.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
       | 
       | [3]
       | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
       | 
       | [4]
       | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
        
       | christkv wrote:
       | Now let's bring back RSS so we can subscribe.
        
       | simias wrote:
       | I think that's a great decision. Many people like to complain
       | about Youtube and its policies and its algorithms but it's simply
       | very hard to compete with it. Its offering is really
       | unparalleled.
       | 
       | Hopefully these creators will manage to carve enough of a niche
       | to create healthy competition, especially with a business model
       | that doesn't rely entirely on ad revenue. It's going to be very
       | hard though, making money from video hosting is a very difficult
       | thing to do.
        
       | a_hard_time wrote:
       | This is a lesson that YouTubers need to learn far earlier. I know
       | a number of creators with relatively small audiences (under
       | 50,000 subscribers on YouTube) who earn six figure incomes
       | because they properly monetise. Even with the massive pay-outs
       | from sponsor spots in videos, content creators fail to recognise
       | the true value of their relationship with their audience.
       | 
       | It is easier than ever to accept payment directly from an
       | audience in exchange for access to premium content or products.
       | It isn't for everyone - but if their goal is to make a business
       | out of their content, it should be one of the first steps taken.
        
       | g42gregory wrote:
       | I did not even know that Linus had his own site. Fantastic. I
       | won't be watching his videos on Youtube anymore! Hopefully,
       | everyone I watch will have their own websites, so that I don't
       | have to visit Youtube.
        
         | simongr3dal wrote:
         | If only there was some kind of really simple syndication so I
         | didn't have to visit 40 different sites to check if my favorite
         | video creators have released anything new.
        
           | heavyset_go wrote:
           | Fun fact for those who watch videos by creators who haven't
           | moved off of YouTube yet: YouTube channels expose RSS feeds
           | of uploads and you can watch videos directly without ads via
           | youtube-dl automatically using MPV[1].
           | 
           | [1] https://mpv.io/installation/
        
             | crocodiletears wrote:
             | Youtube will restrict your IP if you do this enough. I
             | can't say I lost too much value when it happened, but it's
             | been obnoxious having to go to the main site on my mobile
             | to answer a battery of captchas every time I want to watch
             | a video.
        
           | 1000mA wrote:
           | RSS feed for videos?
        
           | Franciscouzo wrote:
           | Is this sarcasm? RSS has been a thing for years.
        
             | sodality2 wrote:
             | RSS stands for really simple syndication, so yes, sarcasm
        
         | simias wrote:
         | You comment made me realize that if it becomes reality RSS
         | might finally make a much needed comeback. You'll just poll
         | various decentralized website to find updates for content you
         | actually want. Aaaah, now you got my hopes up.
         | 
         | If you had told me in 2005 that'd I'd become nostalgic for
         | Flash-ridden, PHP backed, IE6-compatibilized internet I
         | wouldn't have believed you, and yet here we are.
        
       | graeme wrote:
       | I follow CGP Grey's stuff and it's been interesting and
       | instructive to see how he diversified.
       | 
       | * His Youtube channel is his main platform
       | 
       | * However, the money mostly comes from patreon subscribers, and
       | you can also have videos delivered there
       | 
       | * He also earns income from a podcast, Cortex
       | 
       | * The Podcast has its own brand of sellable things, currently
       | journals and Tshirts
       | 
       | * He had a second podcast, hello internet, currently on hiatus.
       | If ever something went catastrophically wrong with youtube this
       | could be reactivated via the feed
       | 
       | * He has a large email list which he uses to reach people
       | directly and drive traffic to videos if people request these
       | updates
       | 
       | * He is also prominent on twitter etc and maintains secondary
       | youtube channels, useful if main one taken down
       | 
       | * He runs a large subreddit for his following
       | 
       | So it is layers and layers of redundancy, built on a mix of other
       | platforms and also two he controls directly (email and rss)
       | 
       | Still faces a youtube risk but it would take a an earthquake
       | across platforms to truly wreck his income streams.
       | 
       | As someone who runs an online business and follows him it's been
       | impressive to watch how diversified he has made his comms
       | channels.
        
         | vl wrote:
         | CGP Grey is strange, so to say. He effectively abandoned Hello
         | Internet. They once mentioned that they have 900K subs. Grey
         | fully controlled HI, and it was way more popular than Cortex.
         | If he wants to diversify so much abandoning project like this
         | just doesn't make sense.
         | 
         | Also he has no basic decency to announce cancelation and left
         | Tims hanging, for many of whom it was the podcast.
        
         | verve_rat wrote:
         | Also he has a channel on Nebula, a streaming service set up as
         | a clear hedge against YouTube doing bad things.
         | 
         | He was one of the driving forces behind Nebula, but I believe
         | he is no longer involved in running it.
        
         | simias wrote:
         | > However, the money mostly comes from patreon subscribers, and
         | you can also have videos delivered there
         | 
         | Did he break that down publicly or do you get your info from
         | elsewhere? I've always been curious to know what a typical high
         | profile youtuber income flow looks like, and how much they're
         | really tied to Youtube.
        
       | macspoofing wrote:
       | Why wouldn't you? It's becoming increasingly clear that you
       | cannot trust your web presence (and by extension, your business)
       | to one or two social media companies ... though that should have
       | been obvious in hindsight.
       | 
       | And I don't want to hear anything about any startup 'disrupting'
       | decentralized tech like the web, RSS (and by extension Podcasts),
       | or email.
        
         | TeMPOraL wrote:
         | > _And I don 't want to hear anything about any startup
         | 'disrupting' decentralized tech like the web, RSS (and by
         | extension Podcasts), or email._
         | 
         | My take is this: whenever I see a startup being described as
         | "disrupting" some market, I interpret it in the other sense of
         | the word: disruption, as in the effect of a disruptor, a
         | fictional energy weapon used predominantly by the main villains
         | of Star Trek franchise, Klingons and Romulans.
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | >"We refuse to be an accidental vehicle for right-wing, neo-Nazi
       | propaganda. And it's really easy for fringe platforms to turn
       | into that if you leave the doors open," he says.
       | 
       | Kudos where it's due for fighting fascism and all that jazz, but
       | it does raise a pretty large concern: where do people draw the
       | line for this stuff? A private platform like that can ultimately
       | decide which videos they want to accept and which they want to
       | reject, which really defeats the purpose of making your own
       | platform in the first place. It doesn't matter if there's no
       | content aggregation algos, since everyone consumes a homogeneous
       | slurry of videos. Instead of preventing gatekeeping in the first
       | place, they just changed who can open the gate.
       | 
       | I don't think I'll ever be very interested in a platform like
       | Nebula, and I'm really only tangentially interested in
       | Floatplane. YouTube will always be a dominant market because it's
       | free and offers a functional user experience. Even if half of the
       | people watching YouTube videos got a Nebula subscription, they're
       | still going to be using YouTube alongside it. As long as that
       | YouTube audience exists, people will continue to capitalize it.
       | As long as the two platforms compete, they'll be in a constant
       | struggle for power over their viewers. It's the definition of a
       | lose-lose situation.
        
       | marshmallow_12 wrote:
       | so now what? Instead of millions of channels competing on one
       | very good and easily accessible site, designed to show videos,
       | they will compete on a much larger scale, with far bulkier
       | channels on a site that displays other things as well. The
       | punchline is that both sites are controlled by the same company.
       | I can predict that exactly nothing will be gained by this, except
       | the flooding of internet by many more videos.
        
         | imwillofficial wrote:
         | Define "very good" You mean we get more websites? Oh my god!
         | What if the internet has too many websites! Whatever will we
         | do?! If only we had a way to crawl websites and make them into
         | some kind of list for searching, like some kind of engine for
         | search.
        
           | marshmallow_12 wrote:
           | you misunderstood me. a quick google search reveals that
           | YouTube uses 15% of internet traffic. You suggest getting rid
           | of YouTube and putting 15% extra workload onto google. you
           | think that won't be an issue?
           | 
           | as for the "very good" part, yes, youtube is extremely
           | successful at aggregating and displaying useful videos. It is
           | also extremely good at searching through its library and
           | displaying individual users useful videos. Google is far less
           | effective at this, of course. Also, replacing channels with
           | individual websites will vastly increase the internet
           | traffic, not just a minor surge.
        
             | imwillofficial wrote:
             | Thanks for the clarification!
             | 
             | I disagree on youtube being very good at its job, however
             | that is a very subjective assessment.
             | 
             | I think as it stands now, you are correct, but I believe
             | these sites will give rise to more decentralized video
             | sharing infrastructure as people slowly see the need to
             | control their own destinies.
        
       | sjg007 wrote:
       | I think the question us hackers should think about is not about
       | how do you beat youtube? But how do you make it irrelevant.
       | Twitch was one answer. TikTok is another.
        
       | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
       | Because they are finally learning that all it takes to destroy
       | their business is an algorithm glitch, or having 'wrong'
       | political views, or just falling on the wrong side of an
       | overzealous moderator.
       | 
       | When you use someone else's platform you are completely dependent
       | on the owner of the platform, and being dependent on something
       | you don't control is a huge business risk.
        
         | devoutsalsa wrote:
         | Even if you keep up with what's politically correct, your old
         | content can become increasingly unfavorable. You can get
         | railroaded for something you said 10 years ago that was
         | seemingly alright at the time. I cringe at myself 10 years ago.
        
           | xyst wrote:
           | thankfully I never recorded my cod:black ops sessions :)
        
           | hobofan wrote:
           | And how is that different on any other platform?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | sithlord wrote:
             | Youtube could easily just obliterate a channel today, for
             | some video posted 10 years ago if they deem it bad enough.
             | Doubt if you had your own platform you'd delete yourself
             | for something cringe you said 10 years ago
        
               | hobofan wrote:
               | The general "danger" of old videos comes more from people
               | digging up what was said and causing a shitstorm because
               | of it, rather than Youtube themselves going out of their
               | way to delete channels because of old videos. If people
               | want to dig through your old videos and want to cause a
               | shitstorm, self-hosting isn't going to protect you.
        
               | katsura wrote:
               | Yes, but most people don't build their own server farms,
               | don't have their own internet cable, so basically there
               | is always some company in the middle that could easily
               | cancel you.
        
               | gsich wrote:
               | It's much harder if you have actual humans on the other
               | side.
        
               | dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
               | > don't have their own internet cable
               | 
               | Owning cable doesn't help much as this cable sooner or
               | later needs to be connected to some router that doesn't
               | belong to you. A better solution is to host in a country
               | where political correctness is much weaker than in the
               | West.
        
         | user-the-name wrote:
         | What "wrong" political views are those?
        
           | gsich wrote:
           | Youtube disabled monetization on COVID-19 videos last year.
           | (has been reenabled) This lead some Youtubers to using
           | alternate words for that because the automated system could
           | target your video.
        
           | konjin wrote:
           | All of them.
        
           | Covzire wrote:
           | Curiously, virtually all "legal speech" bans and
           | demonetization happen to be for opinions or content that
           | disagree with whatever talking points the DNC and/or the CCP
           | are pushing.
           | 
           | I know this will get down votes but that's literally the
           | truth. Opposing the CCP is marginally safer but not at all
           | when they encroach on DNC statements.
        
           | fallingknife wrote:
           | Apparently, in the case of Parler, believing that you should
           | allow users to post any legal content without moderation. (I
           | know they didn't lose their domain, but the effect of being
           | denied hosting is functionally the same.)
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | celticninja wrote:
             | The problem, as I understand it was not the posting of
             | legal content but the fact it wasn't moderated meant there
             | was borderline stuff, calls for specific people to be
             | killed etc, that were the key factor in them losing
             | hosting.
        
               | kebman wrote:
               | And there aren't such things on Facebook or Twitter, that
               | in fact never get taken down despite multiple complaints?
        
               | celticninja wrote:
               | I think they have an active policy of taking them down,
               | even if it is inefficient. Not that it should let them
               | off the hook for that content being left up. However
               | Parler could solve their hosting problem the same way
               | Facebook do, which is to own their own hardware.
        
             | bawolff wrote:
             | Isn't AWS's claim that parlar was hosting illegal content?
             | 
             | Regardless, they signed a contract detailing what they
             | could and could not host on aws. They broke it. Its not
             | like they were unaware of the requirements. Moral of the
             | story, if you promise X, dont promise someone else Y if X
             | and Y conflict. You are going to be breaking your word ine
             | way or another.
        
               | _-david-_ wrote:
               | If strictly hosting illegal content / being slow to
               | remove it means you should be booted from AWS then how on
               | earth is Twitter still using AWS?
        
           | mandelbrotwurst wrote:
           | Whichever the platform operator disapproves of.
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | *at this time. Dr Seuss was totally OK just a few weeks
             | ago.
             | 
             | Btw, is "OK" still OK??!
        
           | celticninja wrote:
           | Generally extreme ones. You can be politically on the right
           | and espouse views such as "lower taxes, smaller government,
           | less regulation" but spilling over into racism is what would
           | be termed "wrong". The right are not at risk of being
           | deplatformed,the racist right is.
        
             | nomdep wrote:
             | Even not working for free for someone "against racism"
             | (and/or beign a little religious) is enough these days,
             | like when some people try to cancel Chris Pratt for not
             | doing a fundraising for Biden.
             | 
             | https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/10/19/21523754/chris-
             | pr...
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | That is a very narrow view. Take, for example, transgenders
             | in women's sport. Do they have an unfair biological
             | advantage over natural women? Are you a transphobe if you
             | think so? Should you be cancelled and deplatformed if you
             | think so?
             | 
             | With so many potentially offensible groups, and with
             | offense definition shifting so often, are you sure that
             | something totally ok now won't deplatform you in 5 years?
        
               | cmeacham98 wrote:
               | I have never seen somebody cancelled for an opinion
               | similar to "Transgender women have an inherent advantage
               | in women's sports due to the biological advantage of
               | their body producing testosterone." I have seen people
               | disagree with this opinion, but never call it immoral or
               | transphobic.
               | 
               | What I _have_ seen people get (correctly) called a
               | transphobe for is the opinion "Transgender women should
               | not be in women's sports _because they are men._ "
        
               | roenxi wrote:
               | > What I _have_ seen people get (correctly) called a
               | transphobe for is the opinion "Transgender women should
               | not be in women's sports because they are men."
               | 
               | Arguing that women should be excluded from women's sport
               | is untenable. The respectful position isn't "trans women
               | are a special type of women where they get the pronoun
               | but none of the privileges". It is "you're a woman".
        
               | tux1968 wrote:
               | > I have never seen somebody cancelled for an opinion
               | similar to "Transgender women have an inherent advantage
               | in women's sports due to the biological advantage of
               | their body producing testosterone."
               | 
               | So should a human born as a woman who happens to
               | naturally have higher testosterone than is typical in
               | other women, be excluded from women's sport? Of course
               | not.
               | 
               | > "Transgender women should not be in women's sports
               | because they are men."
               | 
               | Really? That's offensive? The reason they have higher
               | testosterone is because they are men. That doesn't mean
               | we should stand in their way of living however they want,
               | or demean them in any way. But we should not have to lie
               | about their biological constitution as being the reason
               | we deem it unfair. It's not their level of testosterone
               | that makes it unfair, it's because they come by that
               | level of testosterone by way of being a man... if a woman
               | naturally has the same level of testosterone, it would be
               | fair and she shouldn't be excluded.
               | 
               | Maybe the answer is just doing away with all gender based
               | distinctions, have no sports leagues separated on the
               | basis of gender at all. Of course, that has its own
               | problems.
        
               | cmeacham98 wrote:
               | > Really? That's offensive?
               | 
               | Yes, intentionally misgendering a trans person is
               | offensive and transphobic???
               | 
               | > The reason they have higher testosterone is because
               | they are men.
               | 
               | This is needlessyly pedantic. My comment doesn't include
               | the detail of _why_ they have increased testortorone
               | because it is obvious.
               | 
               | Really, what I meant to express was something like
               | "because their biological sex is male" but writing that
               | is awkward and the most obvious/common interpretation of
               | "because they are men" is transphobic.
        
               | tux1968 wrote:
               | > "because their biological sex is male" but writing that
               | is awkward and the most obvious/common interpretation of
               | "because they are men" is transphobic.
               | 
               | This is needlessyly pedantic.
        
               | celticninja wrote:
               | I guess with that specific statement it would depend on
               | context. In a civil discussion it would be fine, however
               | if you posted it on a trans athletes forum it would be
               | offensive. You have sought out someone who would likely
               | be offended in order to make that statement. As part of a
               | debate etc it is a perfectly fine statement to
               | debate/discuss.
        
               | tux1968 wrote:
               | These are thorny issues, and for the record I do want
               | everyone to live a happy and productive life as free from
               | injustice as possible. But from my perspective the
               | accusations of racism, transphobia, and sexism are thrown
               | around way too loosely today, without the attention to
               | context that you recommend. Even when the context is
               | inappropriate and the language is inflammatory, it may
               | just be socially inept rather than hate filled malice.
        
               | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
               | The narrow view is the intention I think. They want to
               | "allow right wing views" as long as they are the milk
               | toast _"well we just disagree about how much money the
               | government should get, the acceptable options are A LOT
               | and MORE"._ When it really gets into it, totally
               | reasonable positions that one side just doesn't want to
               | hear suddenly become "racist" or "extreme".
               | 
               | And to the latter part - no. No one ever thinks their
               | views will be the wrong ones. This lack of foresight
               | seems to be a recent thing in my opinion.
        
               | celticninja wrote:
               | I understand your point. I am not for or against here, I
               | am providing context.
               | 
               | Yes it is a slippery slope argument, however it is almost
               | unique to the United States due to free speech being
               | enshrined in the constitution. Elsewhere free speech come
               | with the caveat "don't be a dick", so you can say what
               | you want e.g trans women should not compete in women's
               | sport, but abusing trans women athletes is not
               | acceptable.and yes societies views could change and even
               | your inoccous statement could become a problem, but if
               | social views have changed shouldn't you reasses your own
               | views?
               | 
               | Also good internet hygiene would resolve this issue.
               | delete your tweets every so often, comments etc. Nothing
               | good ever came from resurrecting a 5year old tweet.
        
           | golemotron wrote:
           | That's backward. The people who can best answer that question
           | are the ones who have been de-platformed.
        
           | daniellarusso wrote:
           | This was controversial:
           | 
           | 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
        
             | Kye wrote:
             | That's not the best example. Every attempt to shut it down
             | just made it spread further.
        
         | Aunche wrote:
         | No matter what type of small business you are, relying on a
         | single source of revenue is always a massive risk. Youtube is
         | no different in that regard. It's a good idea to diversify if
         | you can.
        
         | xienze wrote:
         | > When you use someone else's platform you are completely
         | dependent on the owner of the platform, and being dependent on
         | something you don't control is a huge business risk.
         | 
         | Being off of YouTube doesn't make you immune to this. You can
         | still be deplatformed by your host, domain registrar, payment
         | processor, etc.
        
           | flyinglizard wrote:
           | All of the examples you listed are easily recovered from and
           | don't cause a complete disconnect from your audience in the
           | same way YouTube deplatforming does.
           | 
           | From Amazon sellers to YouTubers to high ranking apps to
           | prominent social media profiles, I'm in awe of how much value
           | sits at the whim of some platform which usually won't even
           | have a person to talk with on the other end.
        
           | mdavidn wrote:
           | Unlike YouTube, a business can replace many of these services
           | transparently from the perspective of their customers.
        
           | matheusmoreira wrote:
           | There are hosts out there which will host you as long as
           | you're not breaking any laws. This is actually how things
           | should work.
           | 
           | Registrars won't take away your domain just because they
           | don't like your site. Companies will delete your personal
           | account on their platforms without even talking to you. I
           | can't think of any case where a domain was seized without a
           | court order.
           | 
           | Circumventing payment processor censorship is one of the many
           | purposes of cryptocurrency technology. All you have to do is
           | accept Monero as payment. The more people that do this, the
           | more legitimate and popular and well supported it will be.
        
             | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
             | > There are hosts out there which will host you as long as
             | you're not breaking any laws.
             | 
             | Yea? Or must mean those "alt right hosts". Because the
             | second someone ACTUALLY practices this, they're themselves
             | labeled as AltRight. See the problem?
             | 
             | > Registrars won't take away your domain just because they
             | don't like your site. Has a domain ever been seized without
             | a court order?
             | 
             | Ar15.com went down without warning, provocation, or cause
             | because one day around the election GoDaddy made a decision
             | to cancel them.
             | 
             | > Circumventing payment processor censorship is one of the
             | many purposes of cryptocurrency technology.
             | 
             | That's one option... OR... we give equal protections to
             | anyone not breaking the law?
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | > Yea? Or must mean those "alt right hosts".
               | 
               | No, I mean hosts like Nearly Free Speech which has been
               | operating since 2002. I've seen this one posted many
               | times on HN and it seems great.
               | 
               | https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
               | 
               | I understand what you mean though. Since they are usually
               | smaller hosts, they aren't used by big name companies and
               | eventually acquire a reputation for hosting _only_
               | offensive content.
               | 
               | > one day around the election GoDaddy made a decision to
               | cancel them
               | 
               | Huh. How could they just do that? It eventually went back
               | up right?
               | 
               | Do you have more examples?
               | 
               | > we give equal protections to anyone not breaking the
               | law?
               | 
               | What do you mean?
        
               | ttt0 wrote:
               | >> one day around the election GoDaddy made a decision to
               | cancel them
               | 
               | > Huh. How could they just do that? It eventually went
               | back up right?
               | 
               | > Do you have more examples?
               | 
               | The first big deplatforming case was probably Cloudflare
               | pulling The Daily Stormer. This is what Cloudflare CEO
               | said:
               | 
               | > "Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone
               | shouldn't be allowed on the Internet. No one should have
               | that power."
               | 
               | Seems like even he agrees that they shouldn't be allowed
               | to do that.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | Wow that's extremely fucked up. He's right, nobody should
               | have that power. If they do have that power, we should
               | take it away from them.
        
             | jcrites wrote:
             | Yes. There was an example on Hacker News of someone whose
             | blog hosted by .in was shut down/seized because some
             | freelance-style security project that detects malicious
             | sites or botnets or something claimed it was evil. No
             | notification or due process. I can't recall enough of the
             | details to provide a link, but the individual posted on HN
             | asking for help getting his site back, and eventually did.
             | But what stuck out at me is that the (1) accuser was some
             | kind of NGO (2) the site was directly taken down by the
             | registrar (it may have been above the registrar) (3) there
             | was no due process involved.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | That's really screwed up. Do you have more details? More
               | examples?
        
         | vkou wrote:
         | The same can be said for anyone working in the offline
         | entertainment sector. People get blacklisted from Hollywood for
         | upsetting powerful individuals (Weinstein destroyed a lot of
         | careers this way, for a most recent example, before he was sent
         | to prison.)
         | 
         | Generally speaking, any industry where your revenue relies on
         | marketing, promotion, or access to exclusive collaboration and
         | distribution networks is going to have this property.
         | 
         | If you've made it really big, you can try to mitigate risk by
         | doing your own marketing, or owning your own share of the
         | distribution channel. For all the B-list actors, though, the
         | economics of that aren't very favourable.
        
           | monadic8 wrote:
           | Yes, these platforms primarily exist to drain revenue from
           | the long tail of unappreciated content. I don't think that's
           | a positive thing.
        
       | scrose wrote:
       | I can't help but wonder why services like Vimeo don't come up
       | more often when getting off of YouTube? It seems like Vimeo
       | offers similar functionality already. Is there something about it
       | that I'm missing / is it just not cool for content creators?
        
         | imwillofficial wrote:
         | What does Vimeo offer that YouTube doesn't do better? What
         | reduction in risk does Vimeo offer that is any different than
         | YouTube?
        
           | erk__ wrote:
           | DRM Free movie downloads, also it supports better quality
           | video. Though those are things that work because they do not
           | have the same kind of customers/creators as YouTube in
           | general.
        
             | imwillofficial wrote:
             | You're right, but that misses the point of the exodus from
             | Youtube, people aren't leaving over DRM or video quality.
             | They are leaving because the precarious relationship with a
             | capricious overlord. Their livelyhoods are in somebody
             | elses hands.
        
         | fakedang wrote:
         | Community, moderation, UX, and that's not where all the
         | creators are....
        
         | Raed667 wrote:
         | What Vimeo and Dailymotion lack is audience. People still post
         | on Youtube because they still get the most views there.
        
         | teh_klev wrote:
         | I think the problem is that once you get to a certain volume of
         | content it becomes eye wateringly expensive on Vimeo. Louis
         | Rossmann explained this in a couple of his videos (I never
         | bookmarked them). Even if he were to push just his repair
         | videos (i.e. not including his opinion pieces) he'd fall into
         | into a whole other universe of cost.
        
       | dblooman wrote:
       | Floatplane as explained by Linus doesn't make sense, you support
       | a creator by getting videos a little earlier. The cost of
       | building and maintaining a platform like that must be large and
       | seems unnecessary for what is essentially video Patreon.
       | 
       | What is sad is that you see youtubers talking in code on videos,
       | not saying words, self censoring because youtube's detection is
       | so good, videos get demonetised instantly. This is also why most
       | people have seen an Ad in a video for PIA or surfshark or worse,
       | raid shadow legends.
        
         | regnerba wrote:
         | > Floatplane as explained by Linus doesn't make sense, you
         | support a creator by getting videos a little earlier.
         | 
         | You support creators by giving them money. In return for
         | supporting a creator you get video content in return.
         | Floatplane as a platform for the most part doesn't dictate what
         | that content is other than it being in the format of a video.
         | 
         | LTT themselves have actually been moving away from pushing
         | videos early to Floatplane and more towards giving unique video
         | content on Floatplane such as behind the scenes videos.
         | 
         | You run into issues with promising videos early to only part of
         | your community. For example when you have review embargos and
         | want to make drop a video at the same time as every other
         | YouTuber,
         | 
         | > The cost of building and maintaining a platform like that
         | must be large
         | 
         | It isn't that crazy really. Unlike YouTube which streams most
         | of it's video for free and has to recover that cost via ads,
         | every person streaming on Floatplane has paid money to stream
         | that content.
         | 
         | Floatplane has been scaling slowly which has allowed them to
         | stay on baremetal instead of going to the cloud. They don't
         | need a lot of the advantages the cloud has, such as the ability
         | to scale on demand. This isn't your normal unicorn startup from
         | silicon valley that needs hyper growth to attract more
         | investors for an eventual IPO or buyout.
         | 
         | Linus and Luke are putting their own money into it because they
         | want to have a fallback incase YouTube pulls the plug on them.
         | They are not taking lots of investment to try and build a
         | YouTube competitor.
         | 
         | Their costs are actually really reasonable. They have a much
         | better profit sharing model with other creators than YouTube
         | does. They recognize that they have a base line cost for a
         | given creator, that is the cost of storing the video and
         | processing it for example. Then they have a cost per user of
         | that content. This may have changed but their model was recover
         | that base line cost from the subscriptions and then take a much
         | lower cut afterwards. So from a creators point of view you get
         | more value as your scale the number of users from your
         | community on the site.
         | 
         | > seems unnecessary for what is essentially video Patreon.
         | 
         | Eh, maybe. It does however let them focus very much on that
         | video aspect and provide users with a solid experience
         | dedicated to videos. I imagine over time they will add more
         | features to Floatplane that help differentiate it.
         | 
         | One example of that is live streams. If you want to live stream
         | to your Patreon members they suggest you use Crowdcast,
         | something you have to pay for separately
         | (https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-
         | us/articles/115002973506-M...).
         | 
         | Floatplane supports live streaming.
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I wonder if there could be a good business in building
       | "deplatforming" type content websites for people with large
       | audiences who want to decouple from centralized platforms.
        
       | GermanDude wrote:
       | You should always try to have your personal website, as it's
       | almost the only internet asset that you can actually own.
        
         | slezyr wrote:
         | You don't own its domain, however. It can be revoked at any
         | time.
        
           | michaelbuckbee wrote:
           | Yes. But if you consider it in terms of "potential to be
           | messed with" - the surface area is much less.
        
           | quonn wrote:
           | Not if you have a trademark.
        
             | zchrykng wrote:
             | Tell that to the people who have be completely de-
             | platformed over the last few years.
             | 
             | Everyone agrees that most, if not all, of them are horrible
             | people, but it is totally possible to lose your domain name
             | if no one will provide registrations and such services to
             | you.
        
               | viraptor wrote:
               | I can't remember any of them losing domain registration.
               | They lost hosting providers and DNS hosting. Did I miss
               | someone?
        
           | judge2020 wrote:
           | Technically you do own the domain, although the registry and
           | most registrars retain the right to revoke it based on their
           | abuse policies; There are enterprise-grade registrars that
           | have contracts without these provisions (like CSC Global[0],
           | which Disney uses[1]) if you'd like to remove this risk.
           | 
           | 0: http://corporatedomains.com
           | 
           | 1: https://who.is/whois/disney.com
        
           | tux1968 wrote:
           | It's impossible to be completely impervious to all threats,
           | but for your domain name there are some options that may
           | help. For instance there are domains sold outside the reach
           | of specific jurisdictions[1] and there are blockchain dns
           | efforts as well[2].
           | 
           | [1] https://bulletproofhosting.org/bulletproof-domains/
           | 
           | [2] https://blockchain-dns.info/
        
           | pizza wrote:
           | Technically your IP address could too
        
         | nicbou wrote:
         | Even then, you're at Google's mercy, since they control search
         | traffic.
         | 
         | I run my own website, but 85% of my traffic comes from Google.
         | It's pretty much like getting 85% of your income from a single
         | client.
        
           | daniellarusso wrote:
           | There are many ways to have inbound traffic visit your site.
           | 
           | If you are reliant on search terms, I can understand, but
           | otherwise, Google does not have control over your domain name
           | resolving to your server's IP address.
        
           | jimbob45 wrote:
           | More Cloudflare's right? Because they can drop your DDOS
           | protection or just block you from their DNS lookups, right?
           | Like they did to 4chan/8chan.
        
             | Jenk wrote:
             | If you own a site that has systemic issues with child
             | pornography sharing and other illegal material, you
             | probably deserve it.
        
               | Blikkentrekker wrote:
               | It didn't have such an issue.
               | 
               |  _8chan_ being dropped showed well how cancel culture
               | works, and how in the court of public opinion one is
               | found guilty not on evidence, but on sensationalist news
               | articles that outright lie, sitting free from the pains
               | of perjury and cross-examination.
               | 
               | I have not once in my life seen this child pornography or
               | far-right content on _8chan_ that these news articles
               | claimed infested it; one would have to be very lucky for
               | the former to see it before a moderator removed it, and
               | for the latter one would have to specifically browse
               | niche boards that have very little activity compared to
               | the big boards, which are simply about video games,
               | lolcat image macros, and dating advice.
               | 
               | Have you ever seen child pornography on _8chan_ or
               | _4chan_? have you ever browsed them?
        
               | Stevvo wrote:
               | 8chan had the infamous /loli/ , it was dedicated entirely
               | to child pornography. The only rule was it had to be 3D
               | rendered or drawn/painted as opposed to
               | photographic/video.
        
               | Blikkentrekker wrote:
               | So not child pornography by the legal definition of
               | U.S.A. law and most other jurisdictions.
               | 
               | By your definition of child pornography, i.r.c., and
               | _Mangadex_ also feature child pornography, as well as
               | _Google_ search results and most mainstream pornography
               | websites.
        
               | Jenk wrote:
               | yes, and yes.
        
               | jimbob45 wrote:
               | I'm not saying that they deserve it or not. I'm just
               | saying the method by which they were brought offline was
               | effective.
        
               | throwaway45349 wrote:
               | 4chan is a shady place, but it is definitely not a
               | bastion of child porn. The owners do not allow anything
               | like that.
        
               | claudiawerner wrote:
               | GP was probably referring to some part of 8chan, not
               | 4chan.
        
               | gsich wrote:
               | I don't think they allow that there either.
        
               | throwaway35i2 wrote:
               | I run a 4chan archive, fireden.net, I don't archive /b/
               | and my #1 reason I need to take down things is because of
               | child porn, to the point that I honestly think about why
               | i still run it anymore.
        
               | ttt0 wrote:
               | I suspect you'd have a similar problem if you decided to
               | run a twitter archive.
        
               | Jenk wrote:
               | /b/ has been an epicentre for decades.
        
               | cbozeman wrote:
               | That is total horseshit.
               | 
               | Yes, there are points in time when posters have attempted
               | to post child pornography there, but it gets taken down
               | _swiftly_ and gets reported to moderators as swiftly as
               | its posted.
               | 
               | Your "epicentre" of child pornography on the Internet is
               | Facebook, not 4chan.[1]
               | 
               | [1]: https://samharris.org/subscriber-extras/213-worst-
               | epidemic/
        
               | Jenk wrote:
               | _an_ epicentre, not _the_ epicentre.
        
               | gsich wrote:
               | Epicentre implies singular.
        
               | offby37years wrote:
               | Any site that allows unfettered user contributions will
               | eventually be plagued with such. That includes Apple,
               | Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
        
           | bryan_w wrote:
           | You could run an ad in a newspaper.
        
             | VBprogrammer wrote:
             | Are you being sarcastic? Conversation rates from newspapers
             | are pretty much nonexistent (and difficult to measure).
        
           | Blikkentrekker wrote:
           | I feel there should be a legal principle that services as
           | large as _Google_ , that essentially have a monopoly in such
           | a field could be legally ruled a service of public interest,
           | and held to certain standards and essentially be told by
           | governments how they be run.
           | 
           | How to escape this fate? Do not become a big monopoly.
           | 
           | We live in an age where various resources that are
           | essentially indispensable public resources are provided by
           | private, for-profit companies at their own whims and the law
           | should recognize that.
           | 
           | Even non-profit services such as _Wikipedia_ of course have
           | the power to influence and steer the world to a degree that
           | no non-democratically elected organization should have.
        
             | XorNot wrote:
             | I'm going to need you to think very carefully about how
             | much you trust the government to protect the public
             | interest when it comes to dictating how a media platform
             | operates.
             | 
             | The government is unlikely to be able to dictate algorithm
             | changes, but reacting to and forcing favorable behaviors to
             | the current regime to be preserved is certainly within
             | their power.
        
               | wffurr wrote:
               | What third avenue for protecting the public interest do
               | you recommend between corporate control and government
               | regulation?
               | 
               | In a democracy, government is theoretically the mechanism
               | by which public concerns are aired and addressed.
        
             | v7p1Qbt1im wrote:
             | You need bigger systemic change for that. Under neoliberal
             | capitalism the optimal theoretical end state of any (for
             | profit) corporation is to own absolutely everything and be
             | the last one standing. It's just the nature of a
             | corporation.
             | 
             | Hyperbole, yes. But you get the point.
             | 
             | It just so happens that big tech firms have a shot of
             | actually achieving it.
        
         | Barrin92 wrote:
         | This isn't just about a personal website though. This is Linus
         | Tech Tips (with a staff of about 20 people) building his own
         | platform for delivering content as the article points out.
         | 
         | That's a considerable development effort and probably out of
         | reach for youtube creators who are large enough to make a
         | living and depend on youtube, but not large enough to justify
         | that kind of investment.
        
           | piplikoc wrote:
           | Linus Media Group has 32 employees [1] with 7 massive YouTube
           | channels. As the article pointed out they also have other
           | tech YouTubers releasing content of Floatplane, not just
           | their own channels.
           | 
           | [1] https://linusmediagroup.com/our-team
        
           | fakedang wrote:
           | Exactly. I doubt even the big ones like Pewdiepie can even
           | retain a following with their own website, much less a s
           | small independent creator.
        
           | a_hard_time wrote:
           | > That's a considerable development effort and probably out
           | of reach for youtube creators who are large enough to make a
           | living and depend on youtube, but not large enough to justify
           | that kind of investment.
           | 
           | YouTube revolves around free content - this places creators
           | on the platform at an immediate and significant disadvantage
           | in terms of monetising their audience. Many YouTubers who are
           | stuck in that rut of being dependent on YouTube, despite
           | having a fairly large audience, would likely make a lot more
           | money if they started producing content on platforms which
           | offer better options for monetisation (ideally, their own).
           | 
           | A great example of this is Twitch. Direct monetisation of the
           | audience is a fundamental part of the culture on Twitch. The
           | site is optimised for it. Even before the Amazon Prime
           | subscriptions, Twitch was FAR more profitable than YouTube
           | for creators with audiences of comparable size.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dghughes wrote:
         | Your comment for some reason reminds me of the early days of
         | the Internet. Personal websites were a given there was a major
         | urge to have your own website. Whether you had your own domain
         | name or a Geocities type of page you just had to have one.
         | 
         | On dialup people tended to be more independent you jumped on
         | the Internet then jumped off to preserve your precious 60
         | hours/month (and to allow your landline phone to get calls).
         | That time offline was used learning about things and you
         | couldn't Google every little thing.
         | 
         | I was much more into the fundamentals of the computer itself
         | more than the stuff you could see on it. Making boot disks,
         | adjusting settings in Windows, discovering Linux, learning
         | HTML, sending lots of email, some IRC. The Internet grew in
         | complexity and usefulness, and always on cable got cheaper but
         | early on the computer itself was my main focus.
         | 
         | Now it seems as if a computer is simply a conduit to watch
         | YouTube videos. It seems like people are realizing they need to
         | be more independent.
        
           | antoniuschan99 wrote:
           | The first video I tried to download was the first South Park
           | Short on dialup. It took around 6 or 8 hours. This was in
           | 1997/98. The next year I got cable and it was super fast like
           | a couple of minutes.
           | 
           | Now it takes a few seconds!
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T_RZOoVlzc
        
       | FpUser wrote:
       | Because when you have business that brings money you do not let
       | the somebody else control it to the point that they can kill it
       | next day just because they can.
       | 
       | One of the reasons why my backends are based on self sufficient
       | architecture that I can move to any arbitrary VM / dedicated
       | server in no time. There is no cloudy dependent stuff in my stack
       | at all.
        
       | Swizec wrote:
       | Youtube is fantastic top of funnel. 2nd or 3rd biggest search
       | engine online. Google also loves promoting it on search results.
       | 
       | But YouTube isn't where you should keep the rest of your
       | business.
        
         | duxup wrote:
         | Honestly I find them sometimes not promoting it enough.
         | 
         | Granted, they probably shouldn't give it any favoritism... but
         | often I'll google for a video clip and have to refine search to
         | just show me youtube results as i don't want to deal with some
         | beast of another site.
        
       | swlkr wrote:
       | The ideal platform for something like youtube would be to
       | separate discovery from content.
       | 
       | You host the content, and you can pick from UIs/algorithms for
       | the discovery.
        
       | lifeisstillgood wrote:
       | We are still a very long way from distributed discovery.
       | 
       | Back in the day at Demon Internet (well known 90s UK ISP) every
       | customer got a free 10MB of webspace - barely any of them used
       | it.
       | 
       | But it _should_ have been how we all hosted our blogs and our
       | videos. And it would solve a multitude of social media issues.
       | 
       | If Facebook and youtube did not host its hard to see how they
       | could compile trustable usage stats (#) and so hard to see how we
       | could all find out we must watch Gangnam Style. Similar problems
       | seem to hover over crypto-currencies.
       | 
       | Edit: some random thoughts
       | 
       | - DNS: In a world of individual producers, curated aggregation
       | still has value as it provides a quality / interest gate. A TV
       | channel implies curation, a review guide the same. Perhaps it is
       | no coincidence Marvel has found its footing in a world where
       | choice is infinite and curation zero. Every TV show hopes to land
       | a few million dedicated fans.
       | 
       | - Social media companies basically have zero curation (this is
       | weirdly tending towards including Amazon who are dumbing down
       | curation in marketplace)
       | 
       | - Our natural curation signals are usually based around proximity
       | (geography, recommendation, similarity). These fall apart where
       | the same DNS hosts nazis and nannies. Especially where
       | recommendations are controlled by (one?) algorithm.
       | 
       | - If enough viewing moves off YouTube (not merely the bits over
       | pipes, it off the influence of the algorithm) then these other
       | effects might start to show through.
       | 
       | - But even if we could gather reliable distributed usage stats
       | (book publishers managed it for decades), distributed discovery
       | becomes a strange animal. A dumb algorithm that recommends what
       | is the most watched video in the world, followed by the second,
       | would have some strange chaotic behaviour but would at least have
       | twin virtues of _simple_ and _transparent_. Start adding in
       | anything else (here is my past history, make a recommendation, or
       | here is my aspirational set of people (my twitter follow list is
       | watching) or just show me what Barry Norman recommends, all of
       | these can be made transparent - and open to a cottage industry of
       | discovery algorithms.
       | 
       | - This cottage industry fascinates me - it's like the other
       | industries I expected to exist but don't (decent job search, dis-
       | intermediated real estate). Duck Duck Go seems the model here -
       | there is likely to be a (regulated?) split in discovery - much
       | like railways or phone lines - where the underlying monopoly bit
       | (we scraping) gets hived off and everyone can access it at common
       | fees - and the add on bits, the start of distributed discovery -
       | appears as a more competitive market. And one hopes a less
       | behaviour driven one (I am still wanting to know the revenue
       | difference between Google storing my every move and returning
       | what it thinks I want and Duck Duck Go just using the context of
       | my query - and returning what I asked for.
       | 
       | - But hopefully after a Cambrian explosion of companies offering
       | discovery - not just search or for videos and entertainment but
       | even shopping (as Amazon hits the same split the Google
       | inevitably will), after all that, we are still a long way from
       | where I hope we can get.
       | 
       | - Everything online should treat me as a citizen, as even a
       | patient - where do no harm is the first principle. If we live in
       | an internet where my individual best interests are the legal and
       | cultural norm, as professions are supposed to be, then we enter a
       | totally different equation. We are all exploited online now, and
       | the discussions are about harm reduction. But that's not the real
       | end goal. Making sure quacks don't charge too much for the snake
       | oil is not what made medicine work.
       | 
       | (#) ignoring facebook lying to advertisers etc etc
        
         | jjbinx007 wrote:
         | I was just thinking the other day that a lot of us in the 90s
         | chose our ISPs based on how much web space was provided by the
         | ISP, how many news groups the ISP gave access to, number of
         | included email addresses, etc.
         | 
         | Even the first broadband providers I used offered web space. I
         | can't remember when it stopped being a thing.
        
       | trinovantes wrote:
       | Seeing how many channels are randomly getting nuked by false
       | copyright strikes, shadowbans, account termations, it makes sense
       | that they want to move off YouTube. However as a consumer,
       | there's just so many services/websites competing for my limited
       | attention that if they're completely off YouTube, I doubt I'd
       | ever watch them again -- especially if there's a paywall -- I'd
       | just watch someone else the YT algorithm recommends.
        
       | gerash wrote:
       | This is the same as centralized app stores where the only
       | difference is that here you do have an alternative.
        
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