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Boycott US

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I'm writing to my favourite YouTubers to politely ask them to consider uploading to YouTube alternatives (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by brianpeiris@lemmy.ca to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca

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I'm boycotting YouTube primarily because of their recent human right censorship against Palestine. But I'd generally like to reduce YouTube's dominance in the streaming space, even if it means supporting a few alternative US-based platforms like Nebula, though obviously PeerTube would be ideal.

Edit: The comments here mention that it would be good to tie the email to monetization, so I'll also be mentioning my support on Patreon in future emails.

Here's the kind of email I'm sending to my favourite creators. You can usually find their email in their channel bio.

Subject: Please consider alternative video platforms

Hello <First Name/Channel Name>,

I'm writing to ask you to please consider uploading your videos to alternative streaming platforms, in addition to, not instead of, YouTube.

I've personally started to move away from YouTube because . Here's another creator who also recently wrote about their reasons for moving off the platform: https://joshgriffiths.site/youtube-is-awful-im-not-posting-there-anymore/

I'm currently consuming video content on instead of YouTube.

<INSERT reasons I'm a fan>. I would love to continue watching your content on any other platform, and I'm sure others would appreciate the option to do so as well.

Cheers,

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[–] cabbage@piefed.social 33 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The problem is monetization. YouTube is brilliant in that people work their asses off to produce content for it with the hope that some day they will be able to make money off it, so that effectively a bunch of people end up working for YouTube for free. Even if they don't make meaningful money yet they're not going to shift platforms to somewhere where monetization is simply not going to happen.

The only solution I could think of is to suggest setting up a patreon or liberapay or something, and to start uploading videos there if certain funding goals are met. Offer them an alternative to making money off ads.

[–] allen@rail.chat 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

@cabbage @cecilkorik @brianpeiris There's an initiative in the works to try and answer these questions, forming a co-operative structure dedicated to hosting video platform(s) in a way that can support the needs of creators, viewers and supporters. Focused on Canadian content but hoping to create a widely replicable model. It's polling for names and other feedback right now, have your say:

https://atomicpoet.org/notice/B0eL2wd3n3aWsnL756

[–] brianpeiris@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Cool what about the bandwidth? Even a federated solution for video would be hard if it becomes popular.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

That's something about Peertube. It works on torrenting technology if I understand correctly, could I help my instance by constantly seeding my own videos? Even if Imnot hosting my own instance, could I help shoulder the load?

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wonder if some kind of pledge system would work. Similar to Patreon, but instead of paying immediately or paying monthly, you simply make a pledge that if such-and-such creator starts uploading content to such-and-such free platform, then your pledge for $x amount goes through (either monthly or one-time). There's no actual money changing hands or any actual commitment to do so, until and unless the creator in question comes onboard. Sort of like a bug bounty, multiple people could make individual pledges to build up a pot of money, that the creator could then cash in. I can see some avenues for potential abuse, and of course people can just cancel once "mission accomplished", and you've got to expect some level of that happening but assuming creators and their community have a good and supportive relationship and really are trying to support each other I don't really see that being too much of an actual concern.

We need something that helps make the case to creators that there is a real market for this, that there is a path to being compensated for their work, and that those parts of their community that are interested in this will still help support them. It doesn't even necessarily have to be directly competitive with Youtube, at this point, we're not going to collect millions of dollars. But it shows that there is potential money being left on the table, and even if it's only a little bit of money, it's not much work for a little bit of extra money, and the creator will ultimately have to decide whether that work is worth the extra money.

Right now, there's no guarantee at all, and in fact there usually is no financial benefit. They're just guessing whether there might be some money down the road for them on alternative platforms, and that's a pretty tough sell for anybody, nevermind somebody making millions already.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

This has been tried more than a few times in the past, usually in regard to textual and graphical content. It's widely known that advertisers are ready to pay at least double what the end users do, even compared to loyal audience of existing projects like on Patreon — let alone people randomly coming across the content.

[–] tpyo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

That's like a reverse gofundme/kickstart with an escrow. Money held by a reputable 3rd party and if either side falls through the money goes back to the original holders

I don't want to pay monthly for someone to produce a variable number of videos, or even pay to subscribe to a whole platform to be distributed and support content I would not like to support financially. But I could very realistically consider how much I'd be willing to pay for one of their videos

A creator like Technology Connections? 100% willing to put money on the table to show there's an audience for the video. I'd be willing to pay less for a video from a streamer who plays games and puts out a video a day. They both bring entertainment value but also the production value and informational content is vastly different

I was interested so I looked into it:

collapsed inline media

From https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/209777053-How-to-bill-members-customers

alt text

"Per Creation was our first-ever billing model. Based on a “choose what you pay model,” you can create differently priced tiers, however, paid content is shared with all members. To bill members, you must designate which posts you want us to charge for. We create pending bills for your active members when the designated posts are published. Pending bills begin to process at approximately 12:00 am PT on the 1st of the month or when a member cancels. Members can set a monthly maximum

Members subscribed to a creator who bills per creation can set a monthly maximum of posts to support in a given month – this ensures that members aren’t charged more than they can agree to. A member’s monthly max does not impact their membership access."

Seems like that's what patreon was originally intended for, but they've deprecated that feature

A lot of creators have turned to merch which I also don't really want to buy, unless it's practical like a tool because I don't like wearing branded or logod things and have no need for knickknacks (stickers are an exception but they go on water bottles). Besides, the markup is ridiculous for very basic commodities

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

And this is why anything well fail. We don't want to pay.

[–] brianpeiris@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yup, that's why I'm asking them to use the alternative as a secondary, not a primary platform. I just want the option for now, we'll have to see how things shake out in terms of monetization a few years from now.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

Why would they waste their time for free? It still requires work on their part and time is not free.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

So it should be an easy W for the producers who already have Patreon etc. right? Just upload to one more place and make everyone happy.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 8 points 4 hours ago

While I'm not a huge channel, I have been posting on youtube for almost 10 years.

And over the years I have also been duplicating my uploads to a few other platforms, until they have inevitably shut down for one reason or another (though running out of money has always been among the reasons).

I'm currently duplicating my uploads on a peertube instance, and it's getting about the same viewership as any of the other alternatives I have used - which is to say 10s of views (compared to 4-6k on youtube).

For anyone who is actually trying to make a living from their videos (I'm not, it's a hobby that pays it's own expenses for me) that is a really hard sell to convince them to put in any extra effort for such a statistically negligible audience share.

[–] holymole@lemmy.ca 7 points 17 hours ago

I would like to see less dependence on youtube as well, but it's just such a difficult situation. I think it would be rare for anyone who does youtube as a job to switch over 100% all at once. Rather, at first I would just appreciate if they started uploading to another platform other than youtube in addition to youtube. I don't think that would drop their numbers on youtube or anything really.

Some browser extension that sets up the upload to peertube or something whenever you go to upload a video to youtube might make it trivial to do and therefore more attractive, but as far as I am aware no such extension exists.

[–] dgdft@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hell yeah, thanks for fighting the good fight.

Another pitch that I think has a lot of potential is to ask long-form creators to let paid supporters get videos through a non-Youtube distributor. It encourages people to talk with their dollars and diversifies the creator’s revenue stream, so there are benefits to all parties involved.

A niche academic history podcaster that I’ve listened to for many years was able to move off of Youtube long-term after branching towards Patreon (+ maybe Nebula?), and seems to be doing well with it. Shameless plug: https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/

[–] brianpeiris@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Good call, I'll mention Patreon in my future emails.

[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

I hate that I am stealing from the creators but I use Unwatched to block ads and trackers on youtube. If there was some other site like YouTube I would be willing to switch to it, I would even go back to paying for it if it was not a US company.

[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Right on!!!

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 hours ago

Make it about how relying on Google can affect them negatively without warning. Suddenly getting a fake DMCA takedown as other YouTubers have, suddenly seeing drops in viewership you rely on to negotiate deals with sponsors, false positives from AI taking down videos and potentially your channel without notice, making sure to diversify so if one platform goes down they will still have others they can retain their usual viewers in, etc. They may not be political activists, but all YouTubers want to succeed.

[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

As awesome as this is. What we need is a real YouTube alternative. Most creators use YouTube for various reasons, but all of the valid: money, visibility, reach, fun. If a site cannot at least do those 4 basic reasons to some extent it will never work long term.

I really, really want a proper YouTube alternative, something that has staying power, and can fill those shoes, but unless we have a multi millionaire that loves foss and actual competition, it isn't going to happen. :(

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

So how are you going to pay them?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 59 minutes ago

Most make money from sponsors and Patreons.