zlacker

Well there is podcasting and PeerTube.

>>paulry+(OP)
YouTube offers millions of dollars in free advertising to content creators along with tens of dollars in free hosting.

>>paulry+(OP)
With YouTube people can just click the "make money" button. YouTube handles the ad sales and payments. Both are your job if you're podcasting or publishing on PeerTube.

Hosting video content is not an unsolvable problem. YouTube's moat is economies of scale and user base. YouTube's draw is the "make money" button.

>>paulry+(OP)
With podcasting you’ll almost certainly be reliant on being searchable on the major podcasting apps.

PeerTube is as close to nonexistent as a video platform can be.

>>whatsh+B
Indeed, I was just trying to point out some decentralized alternatives.

>>whatsh+B
It really doesn't. To understand why, you have only to comprehend the following: Whether someone is searching under a particular keyword, or just browsing whatever pops up on the home page, the average browser has a finite amount they're willing to scroll before abandoning their search... and chances are your video is NOT going to be placed highly in those results unless you're directing a firehose at it from offsite via Twitter, forum posts, news aggregators, or paying Youtube to promote your video flat out (which is such an obvious moneygrab on their part its disgusting). In other words: If you rely on their algorithm to promote your work you're literally playing the lottery and, much like the lottery, statistically you're going to lose. It makes far more sense to find bandwidth and hosting, negotiate with an ad network, and direct a firehose at the resulting site... but that's more work than some are willing to do. shrug Oh well.

>>giantr+P1
The "make money" button, however, is an illusion for 99% of publishers. The one case where it does seem to make out is with livestreams, and then only because unlike topical short-form videos, streaming is not a winner-take-all environment where one or two people run away with all the eyeballs, but instead people will tend to decommoditize topical streaming based on the personality of the broadcaster and your ability to form a parasocial relationship with them... hence even a relatively unknown person, if they're persistent, can manage to grab a few hundred regular viewers who'll toss a few bucks each stream... not enough to make a living, but enough for beer money. The prime advantage of youtube in this scenario is not having to deal with setting up hosting/DDoS filtering and negotiating with a payment processor ... just push the button and upload. So for streamers I think it can still be worth it, but for people posting short form content I think they might be better off rolling their own because they can't rely on Youtube's algorithm to give them enough eyeballs to be profitable.

>>tshadd+Y1
Podcasting is actually worse. YouTube is a kingdom where people come to you. In podcasting there are a few large kingdoms and you have to be in all of them because of the "wherever you get your podcasts" thing.

>>EarlKi+0k
If you place it on a website you’ll also be subjected to their algorithm, google search.

>>EarlKi+0k
This is an amateurish take on marketing yourself on YouTube. The algorithm is /not/ like the lottery. My wife is a content creator on YT and hasn’t spent a dime on advertising. The free advertising isn’t in the form of search result placement (mostly) but rather the algorithm showing your videos next to more popular related videos. That’s why the absolute most important thing for video promotion isn’t the material itself, but rather the title/thumbnail combination. People are generally bad at understanding this and/or bad at marketing themselves so they attribute their lack of success as random chance

And unless your audience is very tech oriented, they’re not going to switch off whatever platform the ads are on to watch videos hosted elsewhere. You’d need to ask a LOT of people (= a large amount of $$$) and hope a few of them make it over a bit at a time

>>speff+T81
> My wife is a content creator on YT and hasn’t spent a dime on advertising.

Is your wife a representative sample of all Youtubers? If not, your datum is irrelevant.

> unless your audience is very tech oriented, they’re not going to switch off whatever platform the ads are on to watch videos hosted elsewhere.

Having now witnessed multiple creators hop from one platform to another and drag their audiences with them because they're JUST THAT ENTERTAINING... no, you're wrong. People will gladly follow artists to a better platform if it means they're able to make a living and/or not be censored.

>>ako+HC
The point of going to your own site, though, is not to rely on algorithms, but construct your own marketing funnel.

>>Spivak+ju
There is a quasi-open podcasting index that many podcasting apps use.

It's here: https://podcastindex.org/