Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

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A lot of people see the usefulness of PeerTube but don't move because the creators they watch are on YouTube. It's the same for the creators, though - they can't move off of YouTube entirely, because none of their viewers will go to a PeerTube instance just to watch that one creator. Thus nobody moves to PT unless there are other factors (like extremist creators moving because their videos keep getting removed by YT).

Another major problem that prevents creators from hosting on PeerTube is that there are no ads - many see direct-from-YouTube revenue driven by Premium views/Ad views generate a significant portion of their income. Even Linus Tech Tips, with their audience of gamers who mostly running an ad blocker, sees YouTube generate 26% of their profit[0], almost exactly as much as they get from sponsors spots in their videos. If everyone were to move to PT, we'd either need an intermediary for ads, or only creators with audiences that could afford to personally finance them (via Patreon or similar) would be able to survive and make a living off of running their channel.

0: https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4?t=391

This is my big pet peeve with people who describe Youtube's demonetization policies as "censorship" and propose Peertube as a replacement. I'm not going to get entangled in the question of what responsibility big social media has and what it should or shouldn't do about giving people platforms, but I will say that if you believe demonetization and being de-prioritized in youtube's discovery algorithms is being deplatformed/censored, moving to a service that doesn't really have monetization or youtube-style content discovery isn't the solution.

If you move your content to PeerTube and want both an audience and to be paid, you'll need a combination of third party services and other social media, and will likely end up with similar problems re: advertisers cutting out "unacceptable content".

I do think it'd probably be better if the content provider was divested from this layer and focused on only providing media, but Peertube doesn't really solve these social/economic problems people complain about with Youtube.

One way people could start is by uploading content on both, Youtube and a PeerTube instance and mention their PeerTube content in YouTube videos. This way they also create a kind of online backup, in case YouTube's algorithms decide to take them down.

If I am remembering right from linus tech tips, they are not allowed to try get viewers to go to an other platform. The are some ways one can indirect reference other platforms, but videos intended to get people off youtube is basically not allowed.

Oh my, I did not even know that. That's so toxic. Shouldn't that fall under some kind of monopoly law?

There are a number of prominent YouTubers who advertise their own alternative platforms fairly regularly, if "indirectly". There are also videos about LTT's own video service Floatplane on YouTube [0]

I'm guessing that either there's some clause in the YouTube partner/adsense program saying you can't just redirect your viewers elsewhere or you can't upload videos with the sole purpose of saying "go here for more videos".

That said, I'd be interested to see the details of what GP was talking about, because I believe it exists, I just wonder what the exacts are.

[0] https://youtu.be/oOOOfZWXPu4

I was going to say that digging through wan shows to find a reference was too hard but then duckduckgo gave me a hit of a HN post I made that referenced the twitter post.

https://twitter.com/linustech/status/1008752236027973632?lan...

And here is the wan show discussing it (thanks to a comment on HN): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKtJY6soCds&t=698s

Linus and co founded Floatplane, which is explicitly another platform competing with YouTube. It isn't very successful, but they certainly did it.

https://www.floatplane.com/

Wasnt't that Twitch? They talk about Floatplane on YT often enough.

The only restriction YouTube has is that you can’t create videos that purely say “go check us out on this other platform”, which is what they used to do for WAN show when it was only streamed on Twitch but announced on YT.

Yeah, I've seen several creators mention "extended" or "uncensored" versions of their content on another platform. Off the top of my head, Corridor Digital is one example that advertises their alternative content pretty heavily.

I think when certain very talented creators get "demonetized" and they have a bad experience with customer service trying to understand why, and maybe suspect the criteria changed without they're knowing, it's relatively understandable to over-react and say their hard work was censored, even if knowing it doesn't meet the legal standard. I wouldn't let it bother you so much.

"It's the same for the creators, though - they can't move off of YouTube entirely, because none of their viewers will go to a PeerTube instance just to watch that one creator."

Is it so hard to be on both? Something I like about YouTube compared to some other platforms is they never (to the best of my knowledge) engage in exclusives or impose exclusivity conditions. And even when they develop new features, I've rarely seen Google try to restrict those.

just upload same videos to both platforms, people will come slowly.

Only folks that can sustain themselves, like forgotten weapons, are patreon supported. But you would have to create a channel from the beginning to be patreon supported.

It's not that you have to create the channel from the beginning to be Patreon supported, but that you have to be willing to forego the additional YouTube revenue even if Patreon payment s become enough to support you.

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