Anyone else dismayed by the limited success and adoption of Odysee (YT alternative) when it comes to Reddit alternatives?

So YouTube has a lot of problems, there's no denying that. Frivolous and selective (not to mention automated) copyright enforcement, bureaucratic termination appeal system, COPPA idiocy, the whole clusterfuck that is monetization, etc?

In contrast, Odysee is this open-source video platform that fixes many of these problems. It took of, like, I dunno, a year ago? Thing is, it's still very inactive and dead. A lot of YouTubers have pined for a massive exodus from YouTube, which might sound familiar for many of us Lemmings here. Yet, the majority of them can't seem to let it go, since YouTube/Google pretty much exercises a monopoly on the online video sharing industry.

What worries me is that Reddit alternatives, such as Lemmy, Mastodon, or kbin, could see a similar fate to YouTube alternatives like Odysee or BitChute. I'd love to see people quit Reddit en masse and hopefully find a "safe harbor" some place like here, but I'm hearing about realistic concerns regarding even the viability of this site's databases, so I feel like the actual outcome will be more of a small dent than a massive crater.

Which is exactly what Huffman wants and he knows it.

Ugh, I hate this awful corporate creativity-stifling timeline.

iAmTheTot,
iAmTheTot avatar

Lol went and checked it out and after about three minutes found out that it's a block chain crypto bullshit website. No thanks.

influence1123,

Ah dam. I hadn't looked that much into it yet and got excited about the idea of an open source YouTube alternative.

Poggervania,
Poggervania avatar

Thanks for checking it out and warning us, my dude.

Also, your comment combined with the fact OP only listed some random YT alternative instead of also looking at stuff like Nebula or Feedtube (I think that’s what it’s called?) that actually has content, it makes me wonder if this was supposed to be a lowkey crypto shill.

HipHoboHarold,
HipHoboHarold avatar

Thought about checking it out before. Saw this post and thought maybe when I go on my lunch break. But for now let's read the comments.

This was the first comment and already I have lost all interest.

Euronomus,

I feel the need to point out that most of the "problems" you stated about YouTube are due to scale. If any YouTube competitor had to deal with the sheer amount of content YouTube does they would have the exact same problems.

beefcat,
beefcat avatar

Exactly.

Reddit enshittified because their management is incompetent. They couldn’t turn a profit running ads on a site that mostly serves text, and they couldn’t build a mobile app anyone actually wants to use. They wasted millions of dollars of development on nonsensical bullshit that never panned out instead of improving their core platform.

YouTube enshittified because hosting this much video is insanely complex and expensive, and people demand it for free. The idea that PeerTube or Odysee could replace it is farcical.

YouTubers themselves will not leave for anything that doesn’t pay them as much or more than YouTube itself. This is why most of them putting content on additional platforms are doing so on Nebula, Floatplane, or Patreon. Not PeerTube.

Phanatik,

I really liked Odysee until I start to really see it for what it was. A place where right-wing extremists can peddle their bullshit without the threat of being shut down for their vile rhetoric.

What ultimately clued me into this was when I decided to see how Odysee was doing and I noticed on the front page was a featured creator, the one and only Lauren Southern. If you don't know who she is, I don't really know how to describe other than right wing grifter.

I then started to see some other creators and what they were doing. Conspiracy theorists and bigots, lots and lots of bigots.

I didn't like how it was setup either because Odysee rewards groupthink and echo chambers. You have to have credits to post videos and there are some free ways to get these credits but like everything with crypto, you can buy the credits and these credits allow you to post videos.

If people like your videos, they might throw some credits your way but watching the video itself is helpful. So your own videos end up being a financial investment that you need a return on. Time and effort might not see a return so you're encouraged to put together low-effort drivel that you know will make a return. The best way is to make videos that cater to your audience. If your audience is right-wingers, guess what your videos will be about. If you diversify or change your views, your audience won't like that and they won't watch it so you don't get paid.

T0rrent01,

Well, thankfully, I've been told that since Lemmy is federated, any instances promoting hate are isolated, like those chuds over at Exploding Heads.

Xeelee,
Xeelee avatar

Yeah, I took a look at the front page there once and that's all i needed to know.

Lanusensei,
Lanusensei avatar

The problem with YouTube is that free alternatives don't pay content creators. In Twitch's case for example, they are seeing a real threat because Kick is offering tons of money to popular streamers to bring them to their platform.

Reddit doesn't pay to content creators and mods, this makes it easier for competition to take some of their audience compared to YouTube, which to some, is their only source of income.

Decentralized places like this only need to worry about making the joining process much more simplified, there is no need to overthrow Reddit, just make it a viable alternative when users get fed up with their shitty practices down the line.

GunnarRunnar,

Very well put. In case of Reddit there certainly is an angle to make money by creating community, providing support, some light self-post advertising etc. you get the gist but it's all indirect compared to YouTube's revenue model.

moldyringwald,
moldyringwald avatar

a lot of people are probably turned off by odysee because it's based around a crypto ponzi scam and most of the content creators there are hardcore conservatives. No thank you lol

lucidwielder,

Took waaaay too long to scroll down to this comment but bingo. It got over ran by qanon, alt right & extreme conservatives - many of whom got banned from YouTube or yea want fame & money.

Kara,
Kara avatar

Why would anybody move to Odysee? There's no content there.
Why would any creator move to Odysee? There's no audience there.

Addv4,

Almost like the need an infinite cash infusion to gain an audience. Who knows, might only need to do so for a decade to get almost to you tube's audience level.

Erikatharsis, (edited )
Erikatharsis avatar

I was thinking earlier today about Invidious, an open-source alternative front-end to YouTube. And I was struck with a thought: would it ever be possible for something like that to simultaneously serve as an alternative front-end to a (※federated) YouTube competitor? Because I could only imagine that if such a thing were to happen, that audiences would have plenty of reasons to move to the alternative front-end (wrt. ads and data harvesting, access to exclusive content on both platforms from one location, being able to download videos...), at the cost of being able to like and comment on YouTube videos; and then once a significant audience has moved to the alternative front-end, creators could transition to the competing platform without much fear of losing their audiences, and regain likes and comments.

I mean, I don't know what I'm talking about so there's probably a reason this hasn't already happened. It just feels like it should be possible with enough time and resources.

ThrowawayPermanente,

This is probably the only realistic way I've seen for something like this to catch one. People tend to use one app or website for videos, discussion, whatever.

fiofiofio,
fiofiofio avatar

On the other hand, I think the Reddit migration has a lot better chance of succeeding than any attempts at Twitter or YouTube or Twitch migration.

On the three other sites I mentioned, you’re following specific people. If those people don’t make the jump to a new platform, there’s little reason for you to make the jump either - you’re not going to see the content you want on the new site. Reddit and kbin and lemmy, on the other hand, are community based. I can talk about movies and woodworking and programming memes here just as well as I can on Reddit. The content is the discussion, and anywhere you can find groups of like-minded people, you’ll get that content.

Other people have mentioned the monetization angle for content creators, which is another factor that doesn’t apply to community-based sites. Hell, a large part of the complaints against Reddit is that they are relying on free content and free moderation. So that barrier isn’t holding people back here.

Last point, at least for YouTube and Twitch, is that video hosting and streaming is expensive - any competitor, if they want to gain serious traction, is going to need a lot of money behind it.

danhakimi,
danhakimi avatar

I'd prefer peertube, since Odyssey has the weird crypto factors and is full of right-wing extremism. LBRY weirded me out at some point, too, for some other reasons. But yeah, Peertube never took off, largely because most popular youtubers don't want an alternative, so the only things you can watch there are low-production-value tech videos and random vlogs. I'd love a high-quality cooking channel or something on there... but. I'd need more than one to keep bringing me back.

... Also peertube has a bad UI. But... does it embed well here?

karrbs,
karrbs avatar

This but the one peertube instance I'm rooting for is @tilvids as they have made an effort to get informational videos on their instance. http://tilvids.com

I am still trying to understand lbry vs peertube as it's been a bit since I've looked into it.

tilvids,
@tilvids@mstdn.social avatar

@karrbs @T0rrent01 @danhakimi

We do have @yesterkitchen on TILvids, which might be interesting for you if you're into food history and cooking.

https://tilvids.com/c/yesterkitchen_channel/videos

blobcat,
blobcat avatar

Odysee is a garbage platform with awful reputation for hosting many far-right content, I wonder why

Eigengrau,
Eigengrau avatar

Bitchutes right wing cesspit . Odyssee also(from what ive heard) garbage platform , gonna be hard convincing creators to switch due to its reputation

Unless theres mass exodus of creators (super unlikely) , youtube alternatives pretty much hav no chance , peops aren't gonna leave youtube . Same with any platform really , peopes go wherever the creators go

Calcharger,
Calcharger avatar

I just learned about Odysee from this post. Making an account now

lucidwielder,

Oh god.. please don’t.. the alt right cess pool & incels at Odysee is nuts. If this place goes the route of Odysee then I’m done w/ Reddit alternatives.

Calcharger,
Calcharger avatar

I'm just checking it out, sheesh

T0rrent01,

Honestly, I think if anything, Reddit itself could slip rightwards (since the kinds of nutjobs you're describing tend to be pro-corporate-authoritarianism and anti-labor-rights).

PM_me_your_vagina_thanks,

Already is. The amount of outright racism they have over there is getting problematic.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

I honestly had never heard of it. They could probably stand to do a little marketing.

My biggest worry about alternate video providers is their longevity at scale.

Since you're here to talk about them why don't you tell us a little about them? Are they free do they have pay options how are the ads? Do they have limits on length and quality? I actually wouldn't mind having an alternative to YouTube while I'm pulling stuff out of Reddit video to post here.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

OK, I did some research, but not the kind where you die in a submarine next to the titanic.

Odysee is running in the LBRY blockchain.

You can't realistically remove things from the blockchain, but they have made the site and the accounting filterable so they can effectively remove things from the public eye.

There's a lot of conspiracy theory on there, like a lot - a lot. There seems to be some marginally decent content in fits and starts. You earn crypto for watching and crypto for uploading, but the amounts look truly trivial.

Due to them effectively banning accounts and removing content when necessary, the people who came there to have a 'safe space' from regulation are mad.

The content that's on there that's not 'aliens' is mostly B-roll, but not without a few decent content creators.

The video lnks are on the chain, is stored in a torrent system. I suspect LBRY project is fronting a lot of money to run torrent boxes to distribute the data. They're funding the servers by selling crypto coins which pissed off the SEC.

They claim the servers are there to make things better but are not necessary. I suspect without the company support, you're watching bob's video from bob's hard drive then becoming a replica that others can watch. The coins here are kind of a pyramid scheme. At some point their economy will become (more) stale and the company will probably move on.

A video host with no restrictions will immediately just become a pool of all the people who are running from restrictions. It's possible it could grow better with time, it's also possible that once the watchers pull out the domain will get iced for illegal content and they'll start going all how to catch a predator on the the ip's sharing bad things.

Searching around, it doesn't feel like my crowd.

nieceandtows,

Difference between YouTube and Reddit is that YouTube is a content based platform, where as Reddit is a community based platform. In YouTube, people who post videos literally get paid based on their views, so it’s extremely hard for them to move to a different platform where they would not get paid as much. You don’t have that aspect in Reddit. There is no incentive to stay on Reddit if you could do the same thing elsewhere.

speck,

That's one significant impasse: YouTube has become a place for content generated with the goal of being paid. It initially wasn't, and need not be. The "in" for an alternative could be simply in catering to those who motivation isn't primarily financial. Along with an audience who a different motivation and expectation around content consumption. Just as with the fediverse.

And, we would be better served doing away with the idea of replacing platforms like YouTube and rather providing bespoke alternatives. We'll succeed when we stop trying to replace Tesco with Walmart. Which can be difficult, currently, when many users have probably only experienced living in a town where all your shopping is done there and never known a thriving downtown of small businesses.

nieceandtows,

I also don’t think we should ‘replace’ anything. We can be an alternative, but not a replacement. For a community to be tight knit, it should be smaller. The larger a community gets, the more the users become strangers and apathetic. That’s when all the trolling and bad comments start. I think Lemmy’s focus should be on being a sustainable community, not to replace a platform of millions and millions of users.

TGRush,

I still prefer PeerTube.

(it's part of the Fediverse. We're also part of the Fediverse here on Kbin and Lemmy.)

PM_me_your_vagina_thanks,

The only person I ever saw promoting Odysee was a literal fucking nazi, and them allowing that kind of content really puts people off, y'know?

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