Comment by thr0waway1239 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thr0waway1239 | Hacker News Reader

These creators are very smart and very good at what they do. But they lack the most basic understanding of why it is such a bad idea to create an entire business around something you cannot control.

Yes, there is that risk with anything you do (including your own website and your own email list), but surely by now they have heard enough people complain online that it is very unwise to build a tall building on a shaky foundation.

Aside: why don't they use competitors such as Vimeo and post the videos on Vimeo [1] first, and then post those same videos on YouTube after two weeks? If their audience is really that engaged, shouldn't they be following them to Vimeo also? It would be a two in one deal - the creators create competition between two online video services (which is usually good for them), and if more creators move away from YouTube the consumer also benefits from greater choice and is more likely to go check out Vimeo, leading to a possible virtuous cycle. A third and unexpected side benefit - less data collection about your online practices by an internet behemoth.

[1] From what I can see, Vimeo also has options to monetize your videos. https://vimeo.com/blog/post/learn-how-vimeo-on-demand-helps-...

Easy to say you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, and who would disagree with you? But I think it is not saying very much. E.g. someone loses their job: "see, I told you it would have been better to work 2-3 jobs. You relied too much on your only job."

At some point you spread yourself too thin and it's better to concentrate on an ecosystem with a critical mass that actually cares about your content.

Do I feel bad about someone who built up a ghost hunting video empire on YouTube see their castle crumble as advertisering industry pivots on standards? Abstractly, no. But just compare the trending content on YouTube to Vimeo and try to imagine the likelyhood of the majority of your users inconveniencing themselves by introducing a rift in their YouTube subscription consumption flow. It's a stretch.

There are certainly other baskets, but none have been as nice and profitable, with as large a user base, as YouTube. So to say they should be using other platforms is great in theory, in reality they would just lose their followers. There are other platforms just as technically competent as YouTube. But I don't believe there is a replacement for the community and the brand YouTube has just yet.

It also stands to reason that if there were competition, and say half the users used one platform and half the other, that you would get half the viewers on each, the possibility for massive growth on either is smaller as more channels compete over fewer users. Even if you were on both, it would be harder. This is one of those situations where as a creator and a user, it would be nice if one monolithic platform just worked out well for everyone.

Remember when the major studios pulled out of their Netflix streaming contracts at the first possible opportunity? After all, they could have just stayed on Netflix, and it might have been this nice monolithic platform which could have worked well for everyone. At that time, their decision seemed not just stupid, but Netflix certainly tried to milk it by portraying the studios as being very evil. A few years down the line, you now have more choice, Netflix has improved without raising prices, and in general online video streaming has become a significant threat to another entrenched beast - cable TV.

People may not diversify their streams of income for a lot of reasons, but if you are a YouTube star, you already have some advantages which are extremely valuable:

1. You have already shown that you can wait for the months/years it takes to get to the point of becoming a star. That is time you could have instead invested (at least a portion of) in other platforms. 2. You are obviously tech savvy - or atleast savvy enough to get someone who is tech savvy to do the work for you 3. You are already in possession of a very valuable commodity - the attention of people who actually like you. Why don't you get people into your email list from your channel? Why don't you give them special incentives to take them out of YouTube (over which you have no control) into your website (where you have so much more control)?

>> Even if you were on both, it would be harder.

Derisking any business is hard. If anything, YouTube stars, who usually do not have additional constraints such as employee payroll, unsold inventory, a board to answer to, stock prices to take care of etc. should be able to add this derisking if they actually want a business.

Otherwise it is just a hobby. Then why complain?

> A few years down the line, you now have more choice, Netflix has improved without raising prices,

Netflix has raised prices[1]. They raised it from $8.99 to $9.99 (+11%) - they even scrapped the previously grandfathered $7.99 subscription from early adopters.

1. http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/19/technology/netflix-prices/

> E.g. someone loses their job: "see, I told you it would have been better to work 2-3 jobs. You relied too much on your only job."

It is a bad idea to rely too much on your job. You should have investments and multiple streams of income as soon as possible if you want anything resembling security.

The bottom line is that the platform is often stronger than the personality[1]. There are TV personalities/pundits etc who are fired from whatever network they were on for some misconduct, and even though they were a very popular draw on that network (i.e. platform), they often can't recreate that success elsewhere because they were dependent on ingrained user habits. Yes users care about differentiated content sometimes, but oftentimes the lowest friction thing wins out if it's "good enough".

If my user behavior habit is "go to youtube and check out what new videos are available from my subs", I'd only visit a non-youtube site if I'm really into that non-youtube content. Otherwise whatever comes up in the queue in a low friction manner is "good enough".

Some exceptions exist of course. Conan O'Brien would be a good example.

Because Vimeo sucks for the end user. Unless you're in a major metropolitan area, it's much slower than YouTube. Last time I checked it didn't remember the position in the video. With YouTube, I can start watching a video on my desktop and switch to my phone at some point - it would simply continue playing at the same point in the video and I don't have to wait (seek and time-before-playback-starts is awful with Vimeo).

YouTube is technically superior product and it's much easier to use. If Vimeo wants to attract users, they first need to get on par with YT.

I live in a city, and Youtube messes up much more frequently for me

Posting to another site first is very common, many are just using Patreon instead of Vimeo.

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