YouTube says it has ‘no obligation’ to host anyone’s video
theverge.com
theverge.com
Or could this be a prelude to a culling of videos starting in the first quarter of next year? I would say that now is the time for a wannabe competitor to YouTube to get ready to step into the breech but if I'm not mistaken, YouTube has never made money despite YouTube's attempts to sell advertising content. I could see a future where it's going to cost (not much, but more than zero) to host and serve videos on YouTube.
Yes, but how does the new upstart try to get traction from under an avalanche of useful shills that will start to smear them as "NaziTube"?
Edit/Addendum: Do you honestly think a new upstart would enjoy an "understanding press" in their "growing-pains years" like our current incumbents did?
I suspect the "NaziTube" nicknames (did this happen somewhere? Or is it more of a hypothetical example) are because upstarts don't have the resources to ensure Nazi videos are blocked. Thus, they become a breeding ground for that pernicious type of scum that has been evicted from the larger, better resourced, systems.
The environment has changed a lot, and it might not be a prerequisite to copy YT's growth model.
It's a vicious cycle.
Folding Ideas (on YouTube) had a solid video about VidMe, which is a case study in how NOT to do this:
It's hard to compete with YouTube if your revenue model is ads and your content is "The stuff that YouTube wouldn't touch." Most of the ad industry doesn't want to associate with that content; that's part of the reason YouTube doesn't want to touch it. So a competitor going the road of trying to host that content would probably need to find a revenue model that isn't ad-based, for starters. That's gonna be a challenge (subscription-based model for Nazi-sympathetic content? ;) ).
Um, there is an established industry that manages this just fine.
But porn sites generally aren't going to be hosting pro-Nazi garbage because their advertisers also don't want to be associated with it. Reduces to the same problem. It does, perhaps, point to a possibility; much as the porn sites gain on the fact that YT filters both the content and the advertising it allows on the network, one could imagine a hyper-niche site that is combining content YT kicks off with another (non-porn) category of advertisers YT kicks off.
Gun manufacturers come to mind.
But yeah, not much else.
Certainly no one's gonna pay for the usual suspects' videos.
I remember in those early days how TechCrunch (under Arrington) did a great job easing concerns and guiding the narrative to be favorable for those startups, which I just don't see happening today... but then I guess he got stock options for some of that xD
Unfortunately the sources are in French (see for instance https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/faq/23970-refus-d...).
From that source:
> Le refus de vente à un particulier est prohibé par la législation. Cette interdiction est posée par l'article L121-11 du Code de la consommation. Elle s'applique aussi bien aux ventes de produits qu'aux prestations de services.
This loosely means that not accepting a sale to a individual is forbidden. The law covers goods and services (article L121-11 of a code for "consumption" (includes sales)).
There are "special cases" when a seller can refuse to sell and they were specified by courts. Some examples:
- no more items in stock (one cannot force a seller to get more stocks of a given product)
- enormous amounts of a given good
- customer who poses a danger to the seller (violence, insults)
- customer who is known to be unable to pay
- customer who would like to buy illegal goods in his context (e.g. alcohol for underage customers)
Generally speaking, there must be a very, very good reason to decline a sale. "No shirt, no shoes, no service" is not one of them (to take your example - because walking without shoes or shirt is allowed in France)
(EDIT: clarity)
That is a hard position to be in, because they were effectively platforming targeted harassment. In addition to that, videos stating that Omar married her brother are still upon YT, as are flat earth explanations. One is a "harmless" conspiracy theory that ends up as a gateway into absurd things like Pizzagate, while the other is libelously spreading lies about a member of congress.
Where's the line? Because it doesn't appear as if there's one we all agree on.
Because what do they gain from leaving this stuff up? It hurts people. If their stated goal is to be a bastion of free speech, that's one thing. But they're not doing that. They're providing a service. Passively hosting and platforming harassment definitely doesn't fit in with their initial "don't be evil" ethos.
I think it would be fine to say "as long as it isn't illegal (harassment, CP, copyright violation, etc. are not legal, so it falls under the umbrella), then let it be".
If it is something that isn't entirely clear (e.g., CP is pretty clear-cut, but harassment might not be), let the courts decide and make a decision based on what the courts say.
It sounds painfully obvious and simple, but I have a feeling I am definitely missing something important here, because that sounds way too easy.
I could make a video and state that Sandy Hook was a false flag and these parents are crisis actors. I don't have followers and influence, so my video wouldn't get many views and likely wouldn't instigate a call to harassment or violence.
But someone like Jones with a following did do that, and those families have gone through extended hell because of it.
The same is true with trying to spread lies about Omar marrying her brother. This is still commonly repeated across all mediums. Is it not an issue because she's a public figure? She receives death threats due to these types of veiled racism.
Should I be allowed to host a video openly slandering and lying about someone simply because I don't have enough people who follow me or because I'm not directly saying "attack this person"?
I feel like there's a lot to consider with their position. What do they gain by platforming hate speech and conspiracy theories? It affects their reputation (to some degree), but they still make some money off of the advertising.
For the record, I don't think Google should be policing content. But there are slippery ways to get around TOS. The "I'm just asking questions" defense muddies things, and people like Jones know that.
"Slander" is a legal term, and if someone feels like they were slandered through a youtube video, they are welcome to go through that legal channel, just like if they were slandered by someone on the street or through phone or elsewhere. That's the kind of matter that courts were designed for, so it would make sense to keep that issue there. We don't need bajillion private "courts" to dish out their own "totally not self-serving" flavors of justice, we should be using the one we pay taxes for and that has grounds in the federal judicial system.
This should increase the friction to the point where we don't have as many takedowns of videos that are not doing anything wrong, while still allowing for offenders like Alex Jones to get the justice they deserve and get their videos removed.
When it breaks established law, then that's the line.
You would think most people understand this. However there is a political movement in America to force social networks to host people's vulgar or derogatory opinions in the name of the "first amendment," which technically never applied to privately funded social networks in the first place.
Lots of people would never think of walking into a Target and posting illiterate political meme's on the wall. But that's almost exactly what you're doing by making Facebook and YouTube spread your hate.
Beside that, a lot of people talk to media about first amendment they often then go to court raising anti-discrimination laws. Those laws are much more broader and can be applied to private funded companies. When it comes to international companies there is also free speech as defined by the EU and that one do not make a distinction between company and state in the same way as the first amendment. The distinction between free speech (US first amendment), free speech (EU human rights) and free speech (US anti-discrimination) are all fine legal technicallities, but limitation in one does not give private funded social networks free range to do whatever they want.
You agreed that your posts would be moderated when you signed up. Should Facebook be eternally available to host people's timeline? Who pays for that? Why should I innovate the next big thing if someone in a different country is going to hold me legally responsible to support it forever?
And the ruling doesn't mean Twitter has to host Trump's Tweets forever or guarantee service. If he breaks their TOS they will ban him. They have a right too.
What the ruling means is that the government has a responsibility to archive his Twitter posts and that he himself cannot restrict access to it, as president.
Any YouTube alternative needs to take one of these niche areas and pick at it.
You will accomplish exactly nothing.
The pressures that make youtube act the way it does aren't going to be significantly different for another provider.
How do we get there? Assuming users still don't want to pay for cat videos.
> How do we get there? Assuming users still don't want to pay for cat videos.
Peer-to-peer torrent-like distribution. Of course, then you'll have the problem where the system will be full of pirated content, illegal content, etc, and you'll get to enjoy attention from police and regulators.
Of course, it doesn't have an ad or patronage model built in.
No, that self-hosting option doesn't replace Youtube. A lot of techies seem to have a blind spot as to the real value Youtube provides to content creators and video uploaders: $0 hosting costs for unlimited audience.
No self-hosted tech stack or home-based network appliance to stream videos can offer that same financial deal.
Techies seem to only see the technical stack and the protocol to host a video. The intimate knowledge computers is actually misdirecting you away from the real strengths of Youtube. Instead, look at Youtube the same way a non-techie content creator would. My previous comments trying to explain this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488484
However people making money on youtube are a significant minority. Most uses are not that use.
So in terms of non-commercial sharing - I already pay for my internet connection and fibre 'upload' speeds ( from home-out ) are very under-utilized.
Also usage isn't metered - the limit is maxbandwidth X time.
So the only risk here is being too popular - which is frankly unlikely!
If you wanted to scale - p2p is an option - the issues around illegal content etc - that can be fixed if you have identity and permissions built in - the people who share are identifiable and you only choose to peer people/content you approve.
Imagine it being like a retweet - with just the same legal consequences, but with just the same potential to reach millions - but without a single company in control...
In the last few days all of the iPads at the school I work at have begun showing the following error when attempting to open YouTube links in safari:
"Sorry for the interruption.
You are seeing this message because your current network has been identified as using non-authorized applications to access YouTube."
The only way I've found around it is to use their app, or solve the reCAPTCHA puzzle every time.
Some actual competition in this space would be wonderful.
I said this about Twitter during the days of ubiquitous fail whale pages. The problems are branding and money. One needs to create a brand, and market it effectively. It needs funding to pay for hosting and traffic.
So how does one disrupt YouTube?
I'm also very close to making some sort of self-hosted Twitch type thing. A lot of streamers are getting caught up in Twitch's bullshit policies. Someone I follow wore their workout clothes on stream after they finished a workout and wanted to make their normal stream time. Twitch banned her for 30 days because that's supposedly inappropriate. I think it's time to cut them out of the loop and make streaming decentralized. The type of bandwidth and compute power you need to distribute 5Mbps video to a couple thousand viewers is easily in the reach of individuals now. (10Gbps connections to the Internet can be had on the order of $1000.)
All you need is some software to run it all and a standard way of paying the streamers across the decentralized network. Probably a good application for cryptocurrency. People are crazy about their favorite streamers, and would probably be willing to learn how to use something other than a credit card to subscribe. Emotes are already decentralized with things like BTTV and FFZ. So it could work. I just don't see how I would personally make any money, so I haven't pursued it much. But the days of requiring some megacorp like Google or Amazon to be able to distribute video are over -- this area is ripe for disruption.
But I think as much as content creators love to hate on their platform, they do love the free audience. A lot of people got their start when "the algorithm" finally recognized them, and they turned their hobby into a day job. I'm not sure it could ever work with a centralized gateway that collects metadata and suggests new creators to users. But maybe it's OK if we put the money and the servers in the hands of the creators, and let discovery be an additional bonus. And maybe running that could be profitable; you get a $1 commission for sending a new subscriber their way.
I dunno, just some random thoughts... but this all sounds more and more reasonable every day. People lost access to their email for chatting in a streamer's chat. That's CRAZY.
Here is a summary of the situation: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/overwatch-streamer-hit...
I don't think Fareeha was out of line. I've watched people stream Overwatch from their pool, and Twitch didn't mind at all even though the (male) streamer was completely topless.
It's very arbitrary and unfair.
I stopped reading here because you're clearly out of touch.
I'm happy to give you a phone number to call to get your 10Gbps transit circuit set up at that price, even though I don't work there anymore.
Unless of course you mean "$1000/mo, after several million in upfront costs".
I'd only imagine someone like Netflix, who has existing infrastructure, to actually create a profitable video site.
You either vastly underestimate the size of their library, or vastly overestimate the maximum amount of RAM a single server can hold.
To be a viable long-term alternative, a competitor will have to break at least one of those fundamental constraints.
If you're worried about the power tech companies have gained, and you're using that as the sole reason to build a new community, it's not going to become something better. If you want to compete with Youtube, You have to have something that is fundamentally more appealing on a mainstream level than their product.
People who think that this policy change is going to lead to some kind of exodus to a YouTube competitor are fooling themselves. There's no one else in the game and there never will be; it's economically impossible.
It's worse than that. What you've listed is what the viewers want.
What the content creators want is all of the above, but to also get paid money, and to receive free marketing for their content.
Search on the other hand is high IOPs.
As you scale out your HDD storage fleet its great to have the benefit of putting a Low IOPs high storage with a High IOPs low storage.
Every few years a new image host pops up since the incumbents are getting so terrible, they promise the world and get popular until one day they need to start paying for the service and introduce ads, then they stop hotlinking, offer pro accounts, and need to manage takedowns and illegal content.
Soon they look the same as the service they were meant to replace. And then like clockwork, someone comes along who thinks they can do it better, and it all starts over.
I can easily see this playing out with video, but much slower due to everything being bigger, and due to the network effects that at least YouTube currently has.
Of course monetization by video creators is left to out-of-band mechanisms, such as crowdfunding via the likes of Kickstarter and Patreon.
And of course the focus on video downloads and away from typical VOD streaming might also be described as making the website "not very easy to use", at least compared to YT. But it also functions to align user behavior, e.g. by heavily discouraging the pointless filler and "high production values" (HD, 4K, HDR etc.) that are rampant on YT itself.
Most people complaining about YouTube's hosting policies don't actually have a problem with YouTube's hosting policies.
You can upload almost anything you want - as long as it's not illegal, infringes on copyright, or violates the most serious cultural taboos (nudity, etc). YouTube's hosting policies are fairly lax, and allows a lot of borderline content.
However, a lot of content exists on the gray edges of those borderlines. And YouTube allows you to upload things in that gray area. What it won't do, is drive audiences towards them, and it won't pay you for uploading it.
When people complain about YouTube being unfair to them, what they are actually complaining about, is that YouTube isn't paying them money, or driving audiences to them.
If those people were willing to wait for audiences to find them, or weren't motivated by profit, they wouldn't be complaining.
I'd be willing to bet if you self-hosted a video blog your only viewers would be bots crawling it, anyone you directly shared a link with, and anyone they shared the link with. And those "share chains" peter out really fast if the content is not broadly applicable / viral worthy. It needs to get "likes" on social media to spread. That severely limits the kinds of material you can even try to make if you want anyone to actually see it, even if there might be millions of people in the world interested in the subject.
With that in mind, can someone at Netflix please figure out a way to enable user created content?
Your customer base is ready for this. You don't need to focus exclusively on creating your own content. You've got the tech in place to support it. Many popular channels on Youtube would be right at home on Netflix. Take a note from Amazon, you don't need to be a book store when you can do much more.
With the same privacy protections that come with checking out a book from the library, the concept of it running at a cost, and the first amendment protecting the content of the website.
I mean we pay for Netflix, for HBO, for HULU... why not for YouTube? I would rather pay for the service then see/hear about all the creators backlash from their policies. Policies that seem to be derived from the fact that YouTube needs to make money, just a thought anyhow.
If there's a creator I really like, I'd rather support them directly on Patreon, anyway. Why should I pay Youtube and give Google a hefty cut of that revenue?
I wish this also meant that it avoided the content producer in-video ads. It would be nice if there was a way for content producers to have their own inserted ads (that could be avoided by paying them), so they would stop having in-video ads.