Would you support a paid YouTube alternative?

[Arnox]

As in, video uploaders pay monthly and they get access to YouTube-grade download speeds plus a huge host of tools to manage their videos and they don't ever have to worry about their videos randomly getting taken down.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

whos paying? me, the creator or me, the viewer?
If its the former, no-one would partake simply due to cost. If its the later, people wont partake because they like "free" content, and youtube already tried that with youtube Red

 

[Gauche]

Isn't that just Vimeo? Even they will delete your videos regardless of $. They can even just delete your account entirely.
Also, if you stop paying the videos get deleted too.

 

[Battousai]

Not a sustainable model, if the creators have to pay to use it they simply won't because its costly and counterproductive. Not to mention that if the video hoster starts deleting content over every little dumb thing that they consider a breach of rules because of stuff like copyright because a minor part of a song was there for example. Not gonna pay to have my videos deleted over every little thing.

And on the side of the viewers it's once again not ideal, too many streaming sites already trying to get you to pay for exclusive content. Not gonna start paying a monthly subscription to watch random stuff like dumb cat videos, old cartoon intros or small videos of secrets in video games. The advertising model may be annoying sometimes but paying for these kind of videos is a massive turnoff for the public. Youtube Red tried this and failed, and they keep trying to get you to try that shit out, no one wants it.

 

[bluegate]

As in, video uploaders pay monthly and they get access to YouTube-grade download speeds plus a huge host of tools to manage their videos and they don't ever have to worry about their videos randomly getting taken down.

Claims you would never ever be able to uphold.

As soon as people start uploading copy righted materials you'll have lawyers knocking on your door to take that shit offline.

YouTube generally doesn't delete or demonetize videos for mere shits and giggles

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Paying to upload/download vids wouldn't work.

Claims you would never ever be able to uphold.

As soon as people start uploading copy righted materials you'll have lawyers knocking on your door to take that shit offline.

YouTube generally doesn't delete or demonetize videos for mere shits and giggles

Youtube might not take down vids for "shits and giggles"..depending on your view..but they sure as hell take down vids for more than just copyright reasons..

 

[Arnox]

Hm. Okay.

So, I want you guys to consider just how abysmal YouTube really is at simply maintaining a video's existence on their platform. At any moment, someone can get a copyright strike and get a video delisted. At any time, YouTube can and will just up and delete your entire channel. And they have recently done this too. See the LeafyIsHere controversy that's going on right now.

But ultimately, that's not why I bring up a paid solution. Now consider that YouTube's monetization model not only makes them completely beholden to advertisers, but also makes them hostile to creators and viewers alike, albeit for different reasons. And finally, it makes them demand a higher cut of the advertising revenue that could normally go right to the content producers just so they can sustain the site. As it so stands, YouTube's current model is unstable at best. The issue though is that YouTube has trained us to nowadays expect entirely free, unlimited, and high-quality video hosting even though it's easily one of the most expensive things to host simply due to all the storage space required.

Now consider that we don't expect businesses like Rackspace Hosting or Leaseweb to host sites or content for free. And they too have just as much say over whether or not the site can even be hosted on their platform as YouTube has for videos. Why is that seen as acceptable, but a paid solution to host videos is not? As to Vimeo, I think they have certain problems and they're overcharging for the features they provide, but I can't say for sure.

 

[Battousai]

Because it is not a solution at all, you are just adding a cost to people who are creating content and a cost to people just looking for something to watch. This is not a streaming service where you are looking at licensed films or series or in house productions where a cost to the content is understandable.

What we have is a video hosting site that is mainly used by regular people to upload a myriad of random content, if you tell someone that just wants to upload videos of their cats for other people to see that they have to pay a monthly subscription for that they are just gonna skip it altogether. On the other hand if you tell another person that just wanted to see a video of some random cute cats on the internet that they have to pay a subscription to watch footage of some pets they are just gonna find them someplace else. This is all just the majority of people who use these sites, I'm not taking into account actual specific content creators yet, this is just your random every day people.

On the hand of actual content creators you are giving them additional costs on top of the costs they already have to produce their content, and taking into account how most of these sites work their content would be taken down for something very small that could be considered a breach of the terms of service. Given that this would be a paid service that is just a massive turn down for anyone trying to distribute their content, why would I even think of uploading to this place when I am paying them for the service and they take my stuff down? I'm not gonna get the money I spent on the hosting back and I won't be making money off the video, on top of the costs I already incurred by making said video.

Could the paid model work eventually? Maybe, but it is not something that independent content creators or regular people can or are willing to pay for as of the current state of most video sites. Youtube is far from perfect, and their monetization scheme is downright crooked, but making a new video site and telling everyone that they have pay to use it and still be beholden by similar terms of use like those in Youtube is just off putting, not to mention that they would still have ad revenue in some form because like it or not that stuff brings a lot of money for those platforms.

 

[Arnox]

Because it is not a solution at all, you are just adding a cost to people who are creating content and a cost to people just looking for something to watch. This is not a streaming service where you are looking at licensed films or series or in house productions where a cost to the content is understandable.

What we have is a video hosting site that is mainly used by regular people to upload a myriad of random content, if you tell someone that just wants to upload videos of their cats for other people to see that they have to pay a monthly subscription for that they are just gonna skip it altogether. On the other hand if you tell another person that just wanted to see a video of some random cute cats on the internet that they have to pay a subscription to watch footage of some pets they are just gonna find them someplace else. This is all just the majority of people who use these sites, I'm not taking into account actual specific content creators yet, this is just your random every day people.

On the hand of actual content creators you are giving them additional costs on top of the costs they already have to produce their content, and taking into account how most of these sites work their content would be taken down for something very small that could be considered a breach of the terms of service. Given that this would be a paid service that is just a massive turn down for anyone trying to distribute their content, why would I even think of uploading to this place when I am paying them for the service and they take my stuff down? I'm not gonna get the money I spent on the hosting back and I won't be making money off the video, on top of the costs I already incurred by making said video.

Could the paid model work eventually? Maybe, but it is not something that independent content creators or regular people can or are willing to pay for as of the current state of most video sites. Youtube is far from perfect, and their monetization scheme is downright crooked, but making a new video site and telling everyone that they have pay to use it and still be beholden by similar terms of use like those in Youtube is just off putting, not to mention that they would still have ad revenue in some form because like it or not that stuff brings a lot of money for those platforms.

I think I should have been more clear in how this hypothetical site would operate. So, first of all, viewers don't have to pay. Only creators. Secondly, there might be a system possible that even though a creator stops paying the fee, the video can still be kept hosted, albeit at probably a sacrificed quality. Thirdly, since the site doesn't have to play by advertiser's rules just to keep videos up, the rules can be much more lax and much less schizophrenic. Fourthly, we don't need to replace YouTube. If people are willing to sacrifice a bunch to have their videos hosted for free, then YouTube is for them, but this site would be the premium version of YouTube that works directly for and with creators because they are the ones the site team would be beholden to now, not random advertisers and execs. Fifthly, you can still have advertising on the videos, which means even though creators are paying a monthly fee, with ad monetization, they may not even need to pay it and in fact, could earn even more money then on YouTube since the cut they receive is higher. There's also other possible ways content creators can pay for the service like giving machine resources over to mine cryptocurrency, should they choose to do so.

I do agree 100% that subscription services are getting out of hand, but we may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater here in our haste to deny the shitty ones of money. For some things, a sub is not only deserved, but needed. But if, for this particular service that actually needs a sub, if people can get past that, then I firmly believe a lot of good things can come from that. I truly think that someday, we will have to accept that if we don't want to get dicked around with constantly, then we need to start paying for hosting videos.

 

[Houseman]

What would cause this hypothetical site to succeed where BitChute hasn't?

 

[bluegate]

How would creators paying to upload material protect them from copyright lawyers taking down that hypothetical site, exactly?

Because to create a video website is to create a pirate's haven. And to create a pirate's haven is to seek government's wrath.

Or would you become the content curator, deciding what content can and can't legally be hosted?

 

[Arnox]

What would cause this hypothetical site to succeed where BitChute hasn't?

This kind of implies that BitChute has succeeded, which it really hasn't. At least not from a technical standpoint at all. I do admire what they're trying to accomplish, but I went back there just last night to test it out again, and even putting aside the 14 minutes it took to upload the 1 GB file, the 1+ hours to initially process the file, and the fact that the video got compressed to shit, it still completely failed to load the only video I uploaded to the site in the past. And if all that still wasn't enough for you to close the book on BitChute, the fact that they need to rely on gathering $30,000 every month in donations just to sustain the site at a minimal level is sad. The goal of the site is way too big to rely on donations. And the donations needed is only going to go up as more and more videos are uploaded. As I said before, video hosting is expensive as hell.

A paid solution is the only way forward.

How would creators paying to upload material protect them from copyright lawyers taking down that hypothetical site, exactly?

Because to create a video website is to create a pirate's haven. And to create a pirate's haven is to seek government's wrath.

Or would you become the content curator, deciding what content can and can't legally be hosted?

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider

Now obviously, the site would get copyright takedown requests, but there's no need to overcomplicate this. This isn't a pirate site, so if a DMCA request is legitimate, then the offending video gets taken down or contested. Now here's the thing. YouTube's system does not require a legitimate DMCA takedown request, so people and corporations can just hand them out like candy with no legal repercussions whatsoever for false takedown requests.

 

[Houseman]

This kind of implies that BitChute has succeeded, which it really hasn't. At least not from a technical standpoint at all. I do admire what they're trying to accomplish, but I went back there just last night to test it out again, and even putting aside the 14 minutes it took to upload the 1 GB file, the 1+ hours to initially process the file, and the fact that the video got compressed to shit, it still completely failed to load the only video I uploaded to the site in the past. And if all that still wasn't enough for you to close the book on BitChute, the fact that they need to rely on gathering $30,000 every month in donations just to sustain the site at a minimal level is sad. The goal of the site is way too big to rely on donations. And the donations needed is only going to go up as more and more videos are uploaded. As I said before, video hosting is expensive as hell.

A paid solution is the only way forward.

I meant that BitChute is dead. Why would your site not also be dead?

Would it be enough to to have fast upload speeds, fast processing speeds, less compression on the processed video, and videos that consistently load, combined with the "we don't meddle" promise?

 

[Arnox]

I meant that BitChute is dead. Why would your site not also be dead?

Would it be enough to to have fast upload speeds, fast processing speeds, less compression on the processed video, and videos that consistently load, combined with the "we don't meddle" promise?

Better tools as well. Better customer support. Better integration with sites and client machines. Integration of YouTube search results and other search results from other video hosting solutions. Enterprise tools to manage and deliver videos as well if users wish to pay more.

There could be some other things that I'm not thinking of, but I think that's a solid list.