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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

#61

Post by ehsankia »

jasode wrote: post #14

>No algorithm. A personal observation... On that Nebula site, I see creators like CGP Grey, Wendover Productions, Real Engineering, etc. I learned about their existence from Youtube's algorithmic suggestions . Probably 99% of any channel I watch regularly on Youtube came from algorithms instead of url referrals of HN or reddit. Yes, algorithms have a dark side such as the ElsaGate situation. All I can say is that the…

You are kinda getting at the problem, but I don't think you fully hit it with your comment. The reality is that for small services, hand curation works perfectly fine. This right now is a platform with a couple dozen hand picked creators, and if you like a some of them, chances are you will like the others too.

The issue with that is that these platforms don't really scale, and will always be gated by some magical hand. Getting on there is probably more about having the right connections. As long as Nebula stays small, it'll probably be fine, but this greatly limits to breadth of the site.

One great example would be early Steam, and what Epic is sorta trying to re-create now. As the site got bigger and allowed more and more games, finding something you like became impossible. You had to dig through piles of crappy low tier games to find anything good. That's where algorithmic recommendation becomes a must.

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

#62

Post by ehsankia »

rland wrote: post #55
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…

I have to imagine that there is a market out there for SAFE low-ish budget content created to distract kids. I can imagine a "youtube kids" but where every video has actually been vetted by a responsible adult.

Disney+ is going to completely rule that market.

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

#63

Post by ehsankia »

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 was one of my biggest complaints too, but Youtube Kids added whitelisting ~9 months ago.

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

#64

Post by ehsankia »

cartman82 wrote: post #15

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

If you look at the creators on there, the majority of them create fairly similar content. Most of them are either educational or video essay channels. They are mostly banking on the fact that if you like some of these creators, chances are you will like most of them. It seems like they are targeting a specific niche of people and it's definitely not meant to be for everyone. It's their own little walled garden, a shared patreon if you will.

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

#65

Post by quickthrower2 »

ehsankia wrote: post #62
rland wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to imagine that there is a market out there for SAFE low-ish budget content created to distract kids. I can imagine a "youtube kids" but where every video has actually been vetted by a responsible adult.

Disney+ is going to completely rule that market.

Not necessarily. Kids like short home made videos as much as Disney quality films.

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

#66

Post by bscphil »

ihuman wrote: post #60
maxton wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought the bell was just for push notifications vs no push notifications?

That is also what I thought. My subscriptions feed shows only videos, not other posts and notifications. As far as I can tell it shows all the videos. This seems like a reasonable default to me.

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

#67

Post by untog »

jasode wrote: post #14

>No algorithm. A personal observation... On that Nebula site, I see creators like CGP Grey, Wendover Productions, Real Engineering, etc. I learned about their existence from Youtube's algorithmic suggestions . Probably 99% of any channel I watch regularly on Youtube came from algorithms instead of url referrals of HN or reddit. Yes, algorithms have a dark side such as the ElsaGate situation. All I can say is that the…

Of course, that's why YouTube insists on keeping recommendations despite the horror stories. It works 98% of the time. But .2% of the time it assembles a playlist of content finely tuned to the tastes of a pedophile.

But you can't take the smooth without the rough. The plus side of the recommendation algorithm is great, but is it worth the bad side?

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