Show HN: Video monetization platform for YouTubers (and other creators)

Hi HN – we’re Ben & Callum from Infstream. We’ve always been heavy users of YouTube but towards the end of last year we saw more and more horror stories of YouTubers losing their livelihood to the ad algorithm.

We decided to build a content-first video platform, which aims to reduce issues by removing advertisers from the equation. Instead, we charge for the content you watch – bold, I know.

Instead of paying in advertising and data, users on Infstream build their own streaming package, a channel at a time. Anyone can start a channel (US & UK now, Europe soon) and earn directly from their subscribers.

Subscribers pay $1 per month per channel, of which the channel receives $0.75. This all begins from the first subscriber, there are no minimums to start monetization.

Channels have total control, and can publish on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule – whatever is working for them and their subscribers. They’re free to keep publishing on other sites (we recommend it), and can promote exclusive content to their existing audience, quickly growing an ad-independent revenue stream.

We’re getting ready to launch, and are inviting creators to sign up beforehand to get their channel ready. If you or a connection has had issues with publishing on YouTube we’d love to hear from you, and learn some more about the pain points.

The platform is stocked with demo content, it would be great to get some feedback.

https://infstream.com/?code=HN

This was also my first production project using Hasura (super positive), so can share my experience if you’re considering trying it.

Stack:

- Hasura (GraphQL)

- Lambda + S3

- Mux

- Cube.js

- Stripe Connect / Atlas

- Vue 2

Callum and I will be hanging out in the comments to answer any questions. Feel free to drop me an email at ben@infstream.com if you’ve got questions or want to chat.

Full disclosure, we submitted this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get much traction. Since then, we've completely revamped our landing page and copy – hope this qualifies enough for a new submission.