We all hate google and youtube, but overall as a community we’re all simultaneously lukewarm and non-committal about pushing towards using an alternative. I admittedly cling to invidious frontends for dear life.
It seems like whenever somebody asks for an alternative to youtube, they’re offered Odysee and Peertube, but inevitably many others chime in about the shortcomings of both of those platforms.
Can we as a community come to a consensus as to which of these platforms should be pushed forward?
I don’t even think it needs to be a binary choice. Obviously youtube cannot be immediately replaced for it’s archival of educational and tutorial videos, but we can at least push newcomers towards using invidious frontends for those instances.
Maybe Odysee is better for some type of content over Peertube. Let’s discuss which platform works best for what and try to be more active about sharing and promoting them not just to viewers but potential creators as well.
If you go to share a youtube link, try to see if that video exists on an alternate platform first and share that link instead. I think that’s a good first step towards getting away from youtube in the privacy community.
But youtube alternatives are still very much on the fringe and I’m hoping this post will at least inspire some discussion about changing that.
I think one of the biggest challenges is alternate choices for creators. If everybody posted their content to YT plus another platform, things would naturally start shifting.
If a channel I follow posts to Odysee then I watch it there. I follow multiple channels that also post to Nebula, so I try to watch it there.
But there’s no clear standard for what platforms are good for what. There’s also a paywall issue with some (like aforementioned Nebula) that not everybody will be able to pay. I’ve also tried Curiosity Stream, and never watched it because there was no content I found worth it.
Then there’s the technical issues. I can’t believe that I am paying for Nubula when their app sucks so badly. (I will probably cancel but haven’t yet). Odysee is so much better than when it launched but it’s still a pile of dung. PeerTube I never felt worked well at all, so much so that maybe I’m missing something. But while I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed if I can’t figure it out then its a bad platform.
So in all reality, there isn’t a replacement for YT. I wish there was, but there isn’t. There should be, but there isn’t. Yes, we should try to post alternate links and such, but that’s not going to make much of a difference in the end.
And sorry, this all came out significantly negative sounding. I don’t mean to be crapping on the post or the idea. I just mean to point out that the issue is much deeper than user interactions. There’s an infrastructure problem first (we need a viable working alternative), then a content problem second (we need to convince creators to move there), and only last is there a user interaction issue (which this post is discussing).
Every day is the right time to switch away…
I think piracy is the answer. If a creator is not on odysee, make a channel of the same name an re-upload all their content, everyone can do it basically for free. If you run a peertube instance, pick a few youtube channels you like and mirror them to your instance and keep them updated with something like ChannelTube or TubeSync.
What about Nebula? It’s paid subscription but you can pay for once off lifetime subscription for $300, and the content creators even encourage users to opt for the latter. Edit: wording
Nebula is terrific!
It does take some time to find everything. It’s not (much of) an algorithm, so I just had to explore and start subscribing to things.
Is the video catalog larger for paid customers?
I searched for my topics of interest and hobbies but barely got any hit.
Sucks they don’t have a trial period.
I searched for my topics of interest and hobbies but barely got any hit.
Oh yeah, it is worth noting that Nebula doesn’t have as many options as in YouTube, I’m afraid. That is the limitation of platform. New content creators do come in to Nebula but not as often as it would be on YouTube.
Personally, I love nebula because it does have the topics I am interested in, which is mainly history, news, video games and politics. There are also long form video essays on variety of topics. I would say that Nebula is more like nerdy because of prevalence of those topics. I haven’t come across Nebula videos that are more niche like, let’s say, woodworking or metalworking etc. I do photography but I think there is only one Nebula content creator that does photography.
Nebula fucks, I had been putting off the lifetime sub for ages and finally bit the bullet one day and I’ve been using it more than YouTube. Feels good knowing the creators get more stake in it and are literal stakeholders without all the alrogithm nonsense.
They’ve made it seem like the lifetime sub won’t be around forever though, worth noting.
I didn’t know that was a payment option. That’s really cool.
No consensus. We should never look for that, because we need diversity in options and usage.
Discussion is peachy tho.
So. Some unfortunate news here. There was never a time to be on YouTube in the first place.
I am trying to - there’s no direct replacement, but I’ve removed the YouTube app from my phone at least. Also signed up for both Nebula and Dropout, which both do some sort of direct profit sharing with creators.
Nebula might be worth the $5/month. The platform is run by the creators, so that money goes to them. DM me if you’re interested. I can gift you a free week.
Nebula is great.
It’s pretty funny to watch a quick “check out our extended content on Nebula” video exit, then just immediately watch the extended content roll along with a thank you message. (Many creators simply add the Nebula exclusive bits directly to the end of the video, on Nebula.)
It makes me feel like a fancy rich person.
“Thanks for watching on Nebula” 😎
Nebula is great. Lots of original content, varied catalog and you get to see lots of stuff before it comes out on YouTube (if it even does, as there’s also extended Nebula-only videos)
I’ve really enjoyed nebula, would reccomend.
I support and enjoy Nebula. Definitely worth the cost in my opinion.
Nothing can compare yet to YouTube.
The main reason is: YouTube is not only a distribution channel. It is also its own promotion channel tied to a search engine which magnifies that promotion.
You open YouTube and it offers similar videos tho what you’ve been watching. You search for something and there is probably a video (or many( matching what you are searching.
Other platforms are currently only distribution channels. You upload the video and promote it through other channels. Whether your own website or posts somewhere else.
Si, if you are a content producer and want to share, the current fediverse solutions are great, however it will need critical mass to attract content consumers.
And without content consumers, it will be hard to attract content providers who want a broad distribution and exposure.
So, let’s start moving out own content to the fediverse and use other channels to promote them. Let’s create a snowball effect. We could even post to several and see where the content consumers gravitate to.
however it will need critical mass to attract content consumers.
My guess is that that’s the reason why OP wants to focus on one platform. Pick a winner and bring the traffic.
I like the idea of PeerTube, but I tried running an instance and was unable to sustain the experiment for too long. I made it very open and it got quickly flooded by pirated TV series and spammy and heavy content.
After that, I had a difficult time at some point finding an instance to host some videos I wanted to upload - and, having had that failed experiment before hand, I can see why the instances that do survive are often those with more stringent filters and less generous with resources.
So, I am sorry to “chime in about the shortcomings”, but hosting a PeerTube instance can be a demotivating experience. You set up the infrastructure expecting to contribute to a space reminiscent of the old youtube, and you see it filled with spam. The signal-to-noise ratio is just awful and it is expensive. To avoid this, you can be an aggressive gate keeper - but this makes the platform less friendly to people who are looking to find a space to share their original content. Gate keeping is also an additional effort that you need to make. In the end I chose to just shut it off as it was more of a hassle than fun. By comparison, hosting a Lemmy instance is fun, much much cheaper, and little hassle.
I still haven’t given up on the idea of Peertube, though… I have some video ideas, and when I finally get to making them I plan to make another instance to host only my channel. Then, I would be able to host my own channel using my own infrastructure via a federated network. This use case would work very well for me, and it can probably work for many others. So that is one way of building the Peertube network.
General permissive video uploads is something that makes YouTube such a powerful platform though, and that is very difficult to replicate.
You pretty much summed up the problems with Peertube and why I feel it’s the weakest amongst the fediverse platforms. it is SO hard to find a decent instance unlike Mastodon, Piefed, lemmy, etc. And some of the decent Peertube instances you wouldn’t even know are Peertube with the way they’re branded.
I mean I still can’t find a good peertube instance. I’ve considered setting up my own much like I have my own Akkoma/Mastodon instance but I don’t want to bog down my server with it. And I think that might be the root of the problem overall for Peertube.
The very platform you’re clinging to is on Death’s Door and they’re actively breaking YouTube’s terms of service while still using the service.
None of the other platforms are even close to replacing YouTube. They can’t handle the scale or the features. And none of them are heading towards being able to accomplish this.
YouTube is a capitalist utopia funded with more money than God. They provide unlimited free storage and transmission of all videos sent to their platform. They fleece videos for copyright and legal impingements. They gather corporations willing to spend on advertisements and link them directly to end users uploading data, and when they reach a threshold, they pay them.These funds pay for the unlimited amounts of storage at levels that no other platform could handle.
The other platforms that are open to us don’t make enough money to do any of those things. We’re relying on the funding, development, and administration of a couple of generous strangers.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, but IMO it’s not the whole story.
You’re correct that youtube is not going to be dethroned in the foreseeable future. The thing is, I don’t want an open platform to replace youtube, I just want some content to be available on that open platform.
There are a couple of peertube servers that aren’t horrible. TILVids is particularly decent.
But until somebody works out monetization for these people, it’s probably going to be Slim Pickings.
At a minimum, peertube is going to need to support private videos for Patreon to have proper effect.
This. I’ll leave YouTube when I can have a similar experience and support all of my favorite content creators somewhere else. Until then, everything else is just a lame video hosting site I’m not interested in.
I mean if peertube was based on torrents…would that work?
I’m not sure how Peertube works, but from my current knowledge, torrents seem like a great (and obvious?) option, especially from an archival pov.
Not sure that streaming them is great (mostly for skipping around), but theres a lot of streaming players out now, maybe it’s good now with well seeded torrents.
If I’m being naive, I would love to know in which ways.
My sister has been using the torrentio addon for the stremio app for months, almost finished chowder.
Let’s be clear : how YouTubers will survive without ads money on another platform ?
Isn’t most of their incomes from sponsorship? What YouTube offers is a large audience that makes sponsorship valuable to advertisers.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Sponsorships, merch, patreon and ad revenue usually all play a significant part of medium sized channels and bigger.
Some people have managed to diversify their income, but a hefty chunk still comes from ad money. That income is also wildly unpredictable, so it really makes economic sense to diversify. Being entirely dependent on a single source puts your business in a very precarious position. If your company fails as a result, it’s just bad strategy. On the other hand, you could also blame YT for being unpredictable, wild and turbulent.
The way I see it, the core of the problem is economic. Making videos takes money. Storage and bandwidth cost something too, so doing this on a small scale won’t make much sense.
There are a few medium scale platforms like Nebula, and they seem to be doing just fine. IMO those platforms are the way to go.
Probably like most opensource developers begging for donations and having a regular job somewhere.
Yes, maybe. Or certainly sticking to YT where the money is, and that’s a bit sad.
To play devil’s advocate, I could argue the monetization of YouTube has lead to all of the quirks of the platform people like us hate.
- Shilling scams and shitty products
- Biased reviews
- Corporate pressured censorship
- Age restriction
- Algorithm optimized content
- The general corporatization of YT (see YouTube Rewind feature Will Smith and a bunch if other celebrities)
The list goes on.
Although I agree there should at least be some way for creators to recoup the expenses they put towards producing videos. An ad-free patreon style donation system seems the most practical and balanced from what Ive experienced.
It’s kind of wild to me that the alternatives to YT aren’t… better. I mean, it’s not as if YT is brand new.
The PeerTube iOS app is just a mess. And I’m not sure, but I think the Odysee app hasn’t been updated since the Second World War.
Holy crap, my entire response sounds like a whiny kid. Maybe instead of me complaining, I should throw up a PT instance and do something meaningful.
I mean I did throw up a PT instance and publish my videos exclusively on it, and I’m getting decent views if the topic is interesting and I promote it on hacker news, I’m getting several thousands of views. But that does not fix the PeerTube mobile app, nor the fact that finding content is practically impossible and the subscribe mechanism constantly randomly stops working, there is no app for my TV (like SmartTube) etc.
I’m all in with PeerTube as a creator, but as a user it’s a terrible experience.
Can you make money on peertube like you can on YouTube?
Not like on YouTube, but differently.
How so?
Sponsors, paywall, using it to advertise or support your business, etc.
Do you mind sharing your channel? EDIT: Nvm found it. Added the new hyprland video to my watch list.
And can I ask how you find other interesting channels?
I’m sure you weighed the pros and cons of Peertube vs Odysee. What made you choose peertube?
Oh and finding new content is kind of impossible, I wish PeerTube was set up more like Lemmy with communities which you subsribe to instead of channels people need to follow explicitly.
SepiaSearch is the best I’ve found for finding content on peertube.
I have it build in into my instance and while it is the best, doesn’t mean it is usable.
I can’t run my own Odysee instance to be independent of third parties which might moderate away my content if they don’t like it. My content my rules.
There are browser extensions that automatically switch from YouTube to an alternative platform if video is available on both.
Watch on Odysee Firefox LINK
PeerTube Companion
Firefox LINK
I’m honestly not sure why PeerTube isn’t bigger than it is, aside from a few things.
I would love to have PT as a nice, open competitor to YouTube, like Mastodon is to X and Bluesky (I know Mastodon is much smaller, but you get my meaning). I’d love to see, say, bands throwing their music videos there.
If nothing else, having people yoink YT content and chuck it onto PT. I know they probably can’t, but still.
Yeah but peertube is being developed by just one guy from backend to frontend and they have done great work. It will get better ig but still its very very difficult to make users and creators change platform.
edit: typo
Storing and serving 4/8k 60 fps video is extremely expensive. It’s not like twitter where you could run it of a phone if you wanted to.
Fair point. I’m sure many would disagree with me, but for web video anything more than HD is pointless except for very niche content. But even HD streaming at scale is taxing and expensive.
Airlines make the majority of their money from a small percentage of flyers paying business and 1st class. I think there’s a world where this principal can be applied to something like peertube hosting in some form.
That’s true, I didn’t even think about that. Having a mastodon instance can be super cheap. But it’s also not usually storing high quality media.
They may be better than YT was when it was the same age. IIRC, Youtube used to use flashplayer, and most videos were something like 480p.
So you can get actual YouTube content without the ads? Does it include an ad blocker or is it inherently resistant to ads?
That’s a trap. It keeps the powerusers on Youtube instead of motivating them to seed a new platform.
I get 0 ads with uBlock Origin on Firefox. But that’s mostly for desktop/laptop style computing, not on mobile. For that I use New pipe, though rarely.
This is precisely what I do. Works flawless (on PC and mobile)
I have my own instance of this, and it’s become my only front end for YouTube content. The last political shooting (and subsequent firings of commenters of said shooting) made sure of that. I imported my subscriptions, scrubbed all my data, and haven’t looked back since.
