Ask HN: Can there be a YouTube with the Wikipedia model?

1 point·holaboyperu··6 comments

I was wondering about all those awesome channels in Youtube like CPG Grey and Veratasium, Crash Course, Smarter-Everyday. Sometimes I feel like those channels get buried, among all the other Youtube garbage.

I was wondering if there can be video platform like Youtube that doesn't run on ads, but donations? Or would that be too expensive? Is there a platform like that already?

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To run a centralized video platform you need lots bandwidth and storage [1]. Paying for this will be a challenge if you rely only on donations.

If you run a peer-to-peer video platform you are competing with other peer-to-peer video platforms, most of which are not very well-known [2].

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/cheaper-bandwidth-or-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-Peer_Assisted_Streamin...

Do you think not even Wikipedia could pull this off? Maybe is content was limited for Scientific channels? Maybe if Wikipedia buys Subbable, and uses VP9 to reduce some bandwidth costs?

Why would changing the revenue model change the problem of discoverability of these channels, unless the problem is that these channels don't get enough money to pay for advertisement or increase their production values?

Well, I was thinking more in terms of discoverability. Like if we treat Wikipedia for answers about facts, we should have a place like that for videos. If there was a video about science, and people are looking for that content. My main struggle with Youtube it's discovery page, and content creators having to do certain things to compete with mediocre content.

How would running on donations help discovery of those channels?

I was thinking maybe in terms of editorial content, regulated by a few of smarty pants. Less about views or likes.

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