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> Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos.

Counterpoint: Channels with Patreons with uncensored and pre-release content.

Youtube can't be unseated as the main platform, but you're wildly wrong about the order of operations for what to do beyond your lead audience. No, you want to post on other platforms first, at a premium, and on youtube second. And should Youtube somehow magically evaporate, you just unlock your past premium content so people can find it and you have some degree of word of mouth as content that survived the apocalypse, as a lifeline.

> Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos

Unfortunately, I agree. It's not the algorithm for me, though. Rather, it's the capabilities of the platform. I use the cast feature almost exclusively. I rarely watch a video on a computer screen and never on a mobile device. YouTube's casting feature is constantly broken, but it's the only thing that even barely works. I have no idea how many others see it this way, but I don't think I'm particularly distinct.

I've been following https://github.com/futo-org/fcast for a bit, but it doesn't really have a viable receiver implementation that I know of.

> Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market.

People have been following this strategy of creating their own mini-brands for years and have their own following. YT doesn't even have all of the their content, and YT is just one lead gen channel. Frankly, Ad Revenue from YT is pitiful, and it's an open secret the real money is made as I've described (although it is a long term play).

I don't disagree with you about PeerTube and the like, but it is a two-sided marketplace and you need to prime both sides of that pump (content creators and viewers).

Nebula is invite only, as far as I can tell, for creators.

Nebula's value proposition for invited creators is dubious at best, too.

They also require an off-YouTube exclusivity contract, which was especially no bueno for me.

Isn't it possible for creators to release on YouTube some time after the Nebula release?

I know of a couple channels that do that, though it seems like there's a requirement to add a little extra bit on the end for the Nebula side.

I’ve seen both “Nebula first, YouTube later” and “bonus/longer content on Nebula only” as a common pattern.

Examples: Adam Neely, Tom Scott

Jet Lag videos release on YT one week after they premiere on Nebula.

A bootstrap problem. No one goes until there's enough content and no one posts because there are no viewers.

What is needed is a way to ingest YouTube video through peertube or through a client that treats peertube as a primary destination and YT as a fallback.

This client then gives multihosting a single UI and blurs YT branding.

Maybe?

Do people go looking for videos?

I think I go to YouTube because it has interesting content, and the fact it's in video form isn't particularly relevant. Some content must be in video form but not all of it. I also follow several blogs, and Hacker News. I used to use Reddit when it was less enshittified, the way I use YouTube now. I don't know why I don't follow Nebula - I have a subscription because I want to support more independent platforms.