[notatoad]

It seems like floatplane is going the same route as all these other "by creators for creators" video platforms - forgetting to worry about the viewer at all, and focus solely on the experience for the creator.

As a viewer, i have no idea what i'm supposed to do on this site.

[dwild]

Floatplane was never about the viewer though. You should look at their video for the release of the beta[0], I still haven't watched it though, so I could be wrong on some stuff, but that video will certainly make everything more clear for you.

Essentially, Floatplane is a fail over for Youtube. It's not there to replace it, it's there to supplement it and be there in case it disappear. That means that it will never be your source to discover someone, but it will be your source to subscribe to someone that you discovered somewhere else. It's closer to Patreon in that regard (though I believe they still have a bit of discoverability, but it's certainly not your source for that).

That means that most of their function will be geared toward creator, and allow them to offer something more to their viewer (but that for sure will require an account and a paid subscription). One of their interesting current feature for example is to allow streaming to multiple platform (Floatplane, Twitch and Youtube) in parallel.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOOOfZWXPu4

[Fr0styMatt88]

I think they need to let you watch stuff (some stuff) without logging on or creating an account, or at least have a landing page that's geared for viewers. I hope eventually that's what happens.

I was also extremely confused looking at it - I wasn't even sure whether I was signing up as a creator or a viewer. Then I signed up and got in and was presented with nothing except a bunch of locked content. I had watched the video on the launch and still had no idea that it was a pay-per-month thing. I'm not against that at all - I just didn't know.

I'm extremely glad Floatplane exists. YouTube is changing for the worse IMHO - at least I no longer feel like I'm their target audience.

I hope the Floatplane guys are reading this and other places and taking all this feedback in. I'm really excited to watch this one; I can see the end of YouTube, at least as a viewer and I'm glad that people are starting to build and consider alternatives.