this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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The main value of youtube for many of us is the enormous video collection, which is impractical for anyone else to duplicate. Need to fix an old washing machine (I did, recently)? Type in the make and model and there's an instructional vid. It's unfortunate that Google has exclusive control over such a resource, but here we are.
Maybe a silly idea, but what about a P2P-based video hosting! Hear me out:
We have more computing power and bandwith in our homes than ever before. We know that sharing data and files via P2P works, is resiliant against attacks, and scales really well.
No server costs mean that people could support creators by seeding the content to other peers. One cool thing about that would be seeing how you are making a difference, in real time.
The difficult part is not the software or even the hosting. It's more about the network effects and the ability to let users monetize uploads, which in turn creates vast potential for abuse and fraud, which in turn has to be addressed by burning stupendous resources. At a certain point people stop wanting exposure or "making a difference" for their own sake, and instead want to get paid in genuine coin of the realm.
Absolutely, people still need money. So P2P would not solve that bit, but at least the donations can go directly towards content creation rather than having to cover server costs as well.
I think it’s running it at a loss too. But there’s no reason these platforms couldn’t be publicly owned.
Publicly owned by which government? Because I don't think YouTube's home of the US is really a good choice right now.
I agree. I’m not thinking about USA at all.
As for the EU, we should fund a federated or decentralised system. I think it works well on Lemmy. For example I know not to trust feddit.org for anything related to Palestine. Content on other servers shows their pro-Israel bias.
I think a system like that could benefit the US to a point, at least until the government block all external news and commentary.
A centralized platform providing infrastructure could be financed using a tax on every internet subscription.
That's actually not a bad idea, but who would hold that money? Elon and Ron DeSantis showed that anyone can just waltz into a government office and steal all their money.
It was, but monetization has been so aggressively everywhere that I think they finally are in the black at least since 2018.
I had no idea. You’re right. It was a $15B business in 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019
Makes the ads seem even more obscene now that I know that.
That only mentions revenue, we still don't know their operating costs.
You’re right 🤦🏻♂️
I wonder what would happen if Google decided to "turn off" YouTube.
some random mfs with 400TB of hoarded YouTube videos will emerge out of hiding
I would be free from relying on a single google server for anything.
And sadly now I have to watch a video. Wouldn't step by step instructions be quicker and more effective? Yes. They were. Now it's some video wasting my time.
Not sure that is a great example.
For this type of work, typically no, it's quicker and more effective to have someone show you exactly how to do it.
No. That's generalizing
It depends on the person learning. You may get more out of a video and I may get more from a book
I hate that this has become so commonplace. Yes for some - mostly physical - things it’s much better if you can see someone do it. But finding an obscure setting in an app shouldn’t be a video.
Stuck on a 20 step installation process? Here’s a 10 minute video showing all the steps you already know before the phase you’re stuck. Sure you can scrub through it, but it’s still faster to skim and scroll through a text with images.
Unfortunately, when you do find a text article explaining the thing it's often unnecessarily long and padded out with meaningless fluff, just so more advertising can be stuffed within the contents.
This is the lure of a. I. And it's insidious.