Goodbye for now

I am very sad to see Vidme go. I loved the honesty of this blog post, it really shows that they are aware of the independent video scene and why it is almost impossible to compete with the giants (YouTube, and now to my knowledge, instagram).

I always wanted them to succeed, but there was always something telling me that success would be unlikely. YouTube is Google's big loss leader; they seem to exist to keep Google's large internet presence and to keep people connected to the Google ecosystem. If Google can't make YouTube profitable, it seems highly unlikely that a startup would be able to.

It's interesting how Vimeo is still in the game during all of this. They exist because they have a foothold onto the creative/indie/premium video scene. I'm sure vidme was looking for a similar foothold; an niche audience that YouTube/instagram/vimeo had not captured.

I hope the best for their new project. Also kudos to them for advertising those they are not taking onto the new project.

Damnit, I liked Vidme and thought it could potentially become a decent competitor to YouTube.

However, with the business troubles related to a video site, I suspect there are only three plausible ways to compete here:

1. Have the video sharing site treated as a loss making venture run purely out of a love for the community. This is unlikely to happen when a corporation is involved (unless the CEO is a deeply religious/political individual who thinks it helps their spiritual/social goals), but could happen if you had an extremely dedicated, semi wealthy individual whose entire life revolved around running a video sharing site for fun.

2. Run the video site as a niche version, which is only open to a certain community and focuses heavily on a certain type of video. This was how Twitch took off, as well as how Discord originally marketed their chat service.

3. Somehow make the service decentralised so no one pays all the costs. This is how BitChute functions.

Either way, it's unlikely a startup or general business venture is going to be what topples YouTube here.