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 <INSERT reasons>. 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 <INSERT alternatives> 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,
<Name>
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.
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.
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.
Why would they waste their time for free? It still requires work on their part and time is not free.
@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