Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor? • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by vineyardmike » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

bkovacev wrote: post #152

ageitgey wrote: post #47

YouTube is a huge technical achievement that would require billions of dollars to replicate: 1. It consumes nearly unlimited bandwidth. 2. It consumes nearly unlimited CPU for transcoding and serving media at different bitrates. 3. It consumes massive resources to police, from user moderation to appeasing content owners by building systems and databases like ContentID, etc. 4. It generates endless PR and legal headac…

Not to downplay the tech, but you could replicate majority of the tech nowadays with proper engineering effort, proper timeline and a budget. YouTube competitor would need to beat them in the business side of things, which is extremely hard, however not unachievable. The company would need to have proper monetization, proper support with proper appeal system and to enable producers to create high quality content with…

> to enable producers to create high quality content

Isn't this the MO of vimeo? Target higher quality content, and allow pay-per-hosting to avoid ads?

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

#182

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #175

joshuamorton wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strategy you describe is functionally "provide features that competitors cannot". You ascribe nefarious means to all of those features, but that isn' the only (or in many cases even the likeliest) motivation for providing those features.

no, it's absolutely not. it's an end-run strategy to subvert competitiveness in a market. practically every dominant company has engaged in these sorts of anti-competitive practices, but that doesn't make it right or defensible. that youtube also provides useful features has little to do with how it came to dominate. it's simply not a product-led outcome.

Well no.

For example, you claim that Vimeo "vimeo has all of those [features] to some degree".

But it doesn't. Vimeo isn't ad supported (this is literally their main differentiator from youtube). Doesn't appear to do algorithmic curation/recommendation (again, they consider this a differentiator), and has a tiny fraction of the upload rate and watchtime of youtube (so bandwidth and transcoding cost are lower).

Those are related to their distinct strategies: Youtube aims to be the product where anyone can share video for free (that's youtube's strategy!). Vimeo doesn't aim to do that. Doing the first invites challenges of scale that the second doesn't. Youtube operates at a scale where it makes sense to hire silicon engineers to build custom video transcoding chips. That doesn't make sense for vimeo.

You can maybe argue that Youtube was only successful because of Google's existing ad business (although I don't know how true/organizationally valid this argument is), but the idea that the "strategy" behind Youtube was to be illegal is sort of ridiculous.

And heck, OP of the thread even offers examples of successful competitors in the broad video media space: Twitch and TikTok (and arguably also Instagram via Reels). Youtube does have competitors in terms of video social media. It also has competitors in terms of video hosting. What it doesn't have is competitors in terms of scale (Reels and Tiktok limit content size, Twitch stores only a small fraction of streamed videos, vimeo makes you pay for the storage and bandwidth you use). That's due to a lot of technical optimizations that are difficult to replicate.

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

#183

Post by vineyardmike » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 8:57 PM UTC

WJW wrote: post #14

> Apart from network effect, and Google's Ad Monopoly This is like asking "why don't we live on the moon except that there is no atmosphere there and it's pretty far away?". Those two reasons are the main reasons Youtube is the clear winner in its field, saying "apart from that" does not make a lot of sense. If you'd want to start a competitor to take on Youtube, you either need to focus on a tiny niche not well serv…

> a tiny niche not well served by Youtube

TikTok is doing this. Using the same playbook as YT (paying creators for views) and they're creating a unique moat by building great tools for creators. iMovie may have helped YT get started by giving everyone an easy tool for video making, and TT is bringing comparable tools in-house.

They're also avoiding the issue of letting creators get too big and dictating the platform like some think started happening to youtube, because the algo pushes smaller creators and doesn't put focus on who you follow. This really shows their Chinese heritage (CCP wouldn't want individuals to have too much influence without being replaceable).

Also, i've seen some large youtubers or youtube catagories try to band together to make apps/sites that offer that content without YT influence. (eg. some tech reviewers, or some niche content like relaxation videos or meditation guides). If i were more entrepreneurial i'd throw my hat in this space and use Cloudflare's new hosting to lower costs.

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

#184

Post by vineyardmike » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #83

ItsMonkk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason they are able to do so is because by rejecting a video, you don't see it anymore. On the other hand, if you are given a view of 5 videos on YouTube and you click next, what YouTube should be doing is rejecting all 5 and showing you a new 5. For some reason this doesn't happen on YouTube. When you come back to the frontpage, you see the same videos over and over and over again unless you manually tell Y…

I often want to see some of those 5 later, but just not now. I suspect that’s common enough that YT’s algorithms have learned that.

Yes, same. EXCEPT there is new content all the time, and if you're like me, you'll probably never watch 4 of those videos because a new top pick emerged since.

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

#185

Post by SahAssar » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

bullen wrote: post #132

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…

I view twitch and youtube as two completely different types of content. Twitch is livestreaming and youtube is prepared, scripted content. Sorta like 24/7 cable news channels vs a documentary or drama series. A lot of people have a preference for one or the other and I definitely prefer the latter. Especially since the "news" that happens on twitch often seems to be twitch-specific drama.

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

#186

Post by clairity » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #182

clairity wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, it's absolutely not. it's an end-run strategy to subvert competitiveness in a market. practically every dominant company has engaged in these sorts of anti-competitive practices, but that doesn't make it right or defensible. that youtube also provides useful features has little to do with how it came to dominate. it's simply not a product-led outcome.

Well no. For example, you claim that Vimeo "vimeo has all of those [features] to some degree". But it doesn't. Vimeo isn't ad supported (this is literally their main differentiator from youtube). Doesn't appear to do algorithmic curation/recommendation (again, they consider this a differentiator), and has a tiny fraction of the upload rate and watchtime of youtube (so bandwidth and transcoding cost are lower). Those…

you're too focused on product here, which is not strategy. it's exactly the common sort of myopia that needs conscientious correction to understand how markets and market distortions operate.

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

#187

Post by Xorakios » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

I am truly not trying to be snarky, but so it goes.

Does anyone on HN actually still have YouTube videos playable on their machines?

Why? Text is so much faster to learn from and without sound and video baggage that gets added.

I understand people raised on MTV and Snapchat caring about video for fun and not caring about the wasted time. But isn't this a community focused on productivity and knowledge? YouTube is the opposite of that. Might as well watch sports or hanging out in bars. ;)

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

#188

Post by shaftway » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

Xorakios wrote: post #187

I am truly not trying to be snarky, but so it goes. Does anyone on HN actually still have YouTube videos playable on their machines? Why? Text is so much faster to learn from and without sound and video baggage that gets added. I understand people raised on MTV and Snapchat caring about video for fun and not caring about the wasted time. But isn't this a community focused on productivity and knowledge? YouTube is the…

I'm unlikely to learn a new coding pattern on YouTube.

But I have learned a ton of woodworking techniques from watching build videos. There are a ton of little techniques along the way that are innate to people who have been in the industry for years and thus wouldn't be in written instructions, but I can see them and pick them up from a video. It's really hard to describe the technique for some of the resin work out there too, like getting realistic looking waterlines.

Or when I'm stuck at a certain point in a game it's a lot easier to see a video of someone doing it than read a half-assed description.

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

#189

Post by NoPicklez » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

bkovacev wrote: post #152

ageitgey wrote: post #47

YouTube is a huge technical achievement that would require billions of dollars to replicate: 1. It consumes nearly unlimited bandwidth. 2. It consumes nearly unlimited CPU for transcoding and serving media at different bitrates. 3. It consumes massive resources to police, from user moderation to appeasing content owners by building systems and databases like ContentID, etc. 4. It generates endless PR and legal headac…

Not to downplay the tech, but you could replicate majority of the tech nowadays with proper engineering effort, proper timeline and a budget. YouTube competitor would need to beat them in the business side of things, which is extremely hard, however not unachievable. The company would need to have proper monetization, proper support with proper appeal system and to enable producers to create high quality content with…

"proper engineering effort, proper timeline and a budget"

Like all things? The proper engineering effort is hard to find in such a capacity and a budget to do all of this is overwhelming for most tech companies to attempt where an ROI can be seen within tolerable risk.

It's like saying we could live on mars if we had "proper engineering effort, timeline and budget".

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

#190

Post by minimoose » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

Xorakios wrote: post #187

I am truly not trying to be snarky, but so it goes. Does anyone on HN actually still have YouTube videos playable on their machines? Why? Text is so much faster to learn from and without sound and video baggage that gets added. I understand people raised on MTV and Snapchat caring about video for fun and not caring about the wasted time. But isn't this a community focused on productivity and knowledge? YouTube is the…

for me yt does podcast & music well. just download w/e for a jog. (really i would prefer to read a book but i need the exercise) as for tutorials sometimes it helps to see what's going on (like with painting or audio design), sometimes if I'm limiting to reading a book I can easily fool myself about what I know. solving pre-made problems help but is still limiting.