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Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

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Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#131

Post by mohanmcgeek »

rognjen wrote: post #114

Other than a variety of technical reasons already mentioned, I think VEVO is an amazing moat that would be very difficult for even the most funded of competitors to cross.

This would have been a moat in 2013. But these days, at least where I live, I get music videos on my music app.

And maybe it's just me but music videos don't have the same traction that they used to have. There are so many chart toppers that I've listened to often for which I hadn't watched the video for a very long time.

Compare this to 2011 where we discovered songs, including Gangnam style, on YouTube charts.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#132

Post by bullen »

Twitch is the evolution of YouTube and Twitch has an open-source competitor, the question is rather why is nobody using the competition?

Look at Mixer, and in specific Shrouds transition to Mixer. Almost nobody followed him there. When he came back to Twitch he was the single biggest streamer they have ever had with 200K+ viewers.

Technology is feature monopolistic as long as it's "free", the evolution always happens by constructive destruction. Eventually there will be something that replaces Twitch by being _fundamentally_ better at capturing our attention without needing OBS.

People that haven't moved to Twitch from YouTube simply do not know Twitch exists or haven't tried it because they lack time.

Or maybe the transition is going from passive to active and some people wish to stay passive?

As for video anyone with a computer and a range capable HTTP server can distribute it, the problem is competing with bandwidth.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#133

Post by betwixthewires »

PeterisP wrote: post #62
betwixthewires wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really network effect though? I think with regard to YouTube the influence of network effect is overstated. The easy monetization capability is unrivaled, this is a big reason people that make videos choose YouTube. This is where their network effects come from. People don't really choose where to watch videos, people choose where to upload them though. But as far as a viewer is concerned, do you care what vide…

I'd argue that Youtube is a strong video discovery mechanism and "People don't really choose where to watch videos" is very much false. Many people watch videos by directly searching for them on youtube and by subscribing to specific "youtubers" (perhaps it's different between various ages/demographics, though); and, IMHO this is the largest part, when watching the next video people stay on the same site, at least in…

We are basically making the same point. People don't watch the videos because they're on YouTube, people watch the videos because the app on their phone only plays and searches videos on YouTube.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#134

Post by ju-st »

ergonaught wrote: post #73

Because AMZN and maybe MSFT have not yet decided there is sufficient revenue potential attached to it. The other contenders don’t have the various resources or would do it “wrong enough” it wouldn’t matter.

AMZN has Twitch which is a competitor.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#135

Post by vulcan01 »

Trex_Egg wrote: post #129
Hekioi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix only provides one very static huge library. As long as you move a few PB around the globe on your video release date, Netflix is fine. It's very easy to build a Netflix in comparison to yt. I would argue that for Netflix going into yt direction would eat up there revenue baseline fast.

what is mean by "PB"?

PB stands for petabyte.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#136

Post by saghm »

Trex_Egg wrote: post #129
Hekioi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix only provides one very static huge library. As long as you move a few PB around the globe on your video release date, Netflix is fine. It's very easy to build a Netflix in comparison to yt. I would argue that for Netflix going into yt direction would eat up there revenue baseline fast.

what is mean by "PB"?

I think "petabytes"

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#137

Post by silvershell »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #77

Youtube makes it pretty easy to search for videos and watch without an account, and the other big platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok go out of their way to make sure you can't do that.

About making it easy to search... Do you know if there's a way to limit your searches to only the channels you're subscribed to?

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#138

Post by teh_klev »

snek_case wrote: post #123
sharemywin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn't own it's own infrastructure.

Which means its hosting infrastructure is not even as cost-efficient as it could be.

For their use-case it's probably as cost effective as it needs to be. Bring all that cloud hosted infrastructure in house and then you've a whole new set of costs to deal with that aren't present in their current arrangement.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#139

Post by kgwxd »

formerly_proven wrote: post #17
1cvmask wrote: post #2

There is a new "free speech" alternative called Rumble emerging. Rumble for now promises Not to become a censorship platform like YouTube is now currently. https://rumble.com/ Even though some high profile civil libertarian and free speech advocates like Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani have chosen Rumble as home, YouTube is still lights years ahead. But if they continue to censor, alternative free speech platform wil…

The problem with media platforms that market themselves as pro-free-speech is that they attract alt-right content - and their hyper-toxic followers - like a warm pile of shit attracts flies, even if that's not the intent of the platform operators.

Rumble just signed a deal with Truth Social. We'll find out real soon if Rumble has cracked the code to avoid that problem.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#140

Post by mohanmcgeek »

somesortofthing wrote: post #50

Because Youtube can only make sense to run within Google. Youtube's actual service of providing free HD streaming video in exchange for showing the viewers ads is not, has never been, and cannot be profitable. Totally free, unlimited HD video streaming is just too expensive. It can only exist as part of a huge conglomerate because the only purpose Youtube can serve is to attract people into the ecosystem it's part of…

The day Google shows a split up between YouTube ad revenue vs the rest, it's going to be an AWS moment.

I don't know why people believe YouTube is a loss maker. My guess is that it makes up 25% of the ad income

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