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Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

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Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#41

Post by duxup »

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Here's the impression I'm getting looking at that page: It's like YouTube Originals. Curated, safe, sanitized. As an adult, this is like the last thing I'd want in a YouTube-like site, for my viewing. I don't feel like I'm likely to find something unusual or unexpected. On the other hand, if I was a parent looking to distract my very young kids, curated, safe, sanitized, and ad-free is exactly what I'd want. EDIT: Is…

Yeah I've sworn off YouTube for my kids... you can't whitelist anything and the amount of garbage even on YouTube kids is terrible.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#42

Post by bscphil »

duxup wrote: post #41
stcredzero wrote: post #8

Here's the impression I'm getting looking at that page: It's like YouTube Originals. Curated, safe, sanitized. As an adult, this is like the last thing I'd want in a YouTube-like site, for my viewing. I don't feel like I'm likely to find something unusual or unexpected. On the other hand, if I was a parent looking to distract my very young kids, curated, safe, sanitized, and ad-free is exactly what I'd want. EDIT: Is…

Yeah I've sworn off YouTube for my kids... you can't whitelist anything and the amount of garbage even on YouTube kids is terrible.

That's a reasonable choice in my opinion. If you want to make any videos available to younger kids, you might have a look at Youtube-dl which would allow you to store pre-viewed videos offline on a device for them to watch.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#43

Post by bscphil »

smaddock wrote: post #29
cartman82 wrote: post #15

> No algorithm They are conflating what they care about vs. what the audience cares about.

This seems be directed at creators interested in their platform, which would be their audience at this stage. The "algorithm" on YouTube can decide whether or not a video will be discovered. Guaranteeing that subscribers will see their recent content could be a good selling point.

>Guaranteeing that subscribers will see their recent content could be a good selling point.

Sorry, doesn't Youtube already do that? I subscribe to 20-30 channels, and in my subscriptions feed it simply shows all the videos from channels I'm subscribed to in reverse chronological order - exactly the way people say they want to see these feeds.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#44

Post by Bukhmanizer »

I'll play devils advocate here, and say that I could potentially see this idea working.

The difference between this and the plethora of different video services, is that the product here may not be the actual video service, but can be seen as a way to support the various video creators.

Most of the creators on Nebula are already drawing in pretty large followings on Patreon, so it's clear that they are able to retain dedicated audiences that will pay for content. Even as someone who doesn't watch much Youtube, I can recognize a lot of great channels, like CGP Grey, Lindsay Ellis, Crash Course, etc.

Also, I can totally see the advantage of having a service like this compared to youtube for kids. It's a bit scary how fast children are being exposed to the internet nowadays.

All that being said, it's clearly very difficult and risky to start a video service nowadays, but I think this has a slightly higher probability of being sustainable compared to many of the other offerings I've seen.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#45

Post by maxton »

bscphil wrote: post #43
smaddock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems be directed at creators interested in their platform, which would be their audience at this stage. The "algorithm" on YouTube can decide whether or not a video will be discovered. Guaranteeing that subscribers will see their recent content could be a good selling point.

>Guaranteeing that subscribers will see their recent content could be a good selling point. Sorry, doesn't Youtube already do that? I subscribe to 20-30 channels, and in my subscriptions feed it simply shows all the videos from channels I'm subscribed to in reverse chronological order - exactly the way people say they want to see these feeds.

Youtube used to do that, until at some point they added the “bell” feature and converted all subscriptions to subscriptions-without-a-bell which means only some videos get put in your feed. Of course, if you go the extra step to click the bell icon you get the notifications like usual.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#47

Post by ALittleLight »

dvduval wrote: post #19

How could they possibly challenge a Monopoly like YouTube?

My perception is YouTube has a hostility toward independent creators, and this niche could be better served.

1. Copyright system is easy to abuse and harshly punishes people perceived as infringing.

2. Videos demonetized for unpredictable reasons.

3. Trending page is basically off limits to YouTubers in favor of corporate media. E.g. Logan Paul requires 11 million views to hit the trending page whereas ESPN requires 500k. Naturally ESPN trends much more than more popular YouTubers. httpss://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18642833/youtube-trending-coffee-break-pewdiepie-late-night-sports-highlights

4. YouTube's discovery system is opaque. I have a small YouTube channel and my most successful video has about half a million views. This video has worse metrics than my other videos proportionally but somehow gets recommended a lot whereas my other videos don't and I have no idea why. Conversely, imagine YouTube shared details about what metrics you need to hit to get recommended or surfaced in the search page.

5. Discovery. As a small channel, it's tough to get views. Why not gamify this: if you average X watch time and Y likes on 3 videos, we'll put your video in the suggestions for 100 people who wouldn't see it otherwise. There should be an easy way to see who is streaming too, which is difficult for some unknown reason.

6. Help with content creation. YouTube must know what people are searching for on YouTube and what search queries have good or bad results. Why not give that information to creators? I could check and see that X people search for Y, and Y has really weak results. Okay, great, if I like X, I can put together a video to answer the query and collect some sweet views helping me and YouTube.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#48

Post by notatoad »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #44

I'll play devils advocate here, and say that I could potentially see this idea working. The difference between this and the plethora of different video services, is that the product here may not be the actual video service, but can be seen as a way to support the various video creators. Most of the creators on Nebula are already drawing in pretty large followings on Patreon, so it's clear that they are able to retain…

The biggest mark against this site is that it's basically what YouTube has been trying to do for years, and had failed at. If YouTube and their huge install base can't do it, I'm skeptical that nebula can.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#49

Post by dymk »

xrjpi wrote: post #17
dymk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there are still swaths of HN commenters claiming that people would surely support paid, ad-free alternatives to YT, if only they existed. Well, this is try two. Think people will still try to claim it’s a viable model over ads after this one?

> And yet there are still swaths of HN commenters claiming that people would surely support paid, ad-free alternatives to YT, if only they existed. Nobody will and whoever claims that is either 1) mad wealthy or 2) out of touch. Or both.

Considering how well paid tech is, and how willing we are to resign ourself to our little HN bubble, I'm unsurprised to see the claim made so often here.

Re: Nebula: A paid alternative to YouTube, curated by the creators

#50

Post by notatoad »

elliekelly wrote: post #22

I (naively) expected the platform to be paid for by the creators in a way where they all shared the operating costs while finding some “fair” way to allocate advertising income. Instead they’ve taken Jay-Z’s Tidal strategy: create a premium platform for the content creators and expect the content consumers to pay a premium price for it.

Tidal is a perfect analogy. It's a bunch of artists sitting around saying "hey, what if we just stopped caring about what our customers want?"
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