[infamia]

You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider. Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube. Otherwise, you will always be subject to platform risk via YouTube's whims which has destroyed many content creators. That's the long term winning play IMO and it doesn't preclude tools like FreeTube.

[mywittyname]

Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market.

Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos. They are going to fire up YT and eat what the algorithm feeds them.

The reason PeerTube and Nebula are important is it provides the potential for a true alternative destination for people looking for videos. Once these platforms have an enough content to draw an audience naturally, then content creators will be able to survive a post-YT world.

For people like the OP, it's probably best to follow the model video games do with DRM. Post on YT first, to get the ad revenue, then repost on other platforms after some time to build up an alternative subscriber base. Presumably, in-video sponsorships will pay for these views as well, even if there's no direct ad-sense like revenue model.

[dockerimage]

> Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos.

Counterpoint: Channels with Patreons with uncensored and pre-release content.

Youtube can't be unseated as the main platform, but you're wildly wrong about the order of operations for what to do beyond your lead audience. No, you want to post on other platforms first, at a premium, and on youtube second. And should Youtube somehow magically evaporate, you just unlock your past premium content so people can find it and you have some degree of word of mouth as content that survived the apocalypse, as a lifeline.

[ibejoeb]

> Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos

Unfortunately, I agree. It's not the algorithm for me, though. Rather, it's the capabilities of the platform. I use the cast feature almost exclusively. I rarely watch a video on a computer screen and never on a mobile device. YouTube's casting feature is constantly broken, but it's the only thing that even barely works. I have no idea how many others see it this way, but I don't think I'm particularly distinct.

I've been following https://github.com/futo-org/fcast for a bit, but it doesn't really have a viable receiver implementation that I know of.

[infamia]

> Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market.

People have been following this strategy of creating their own mini-brands for years and have their own following. YT doesn't even have all of the their content, and YT is just one lead gen channel. Frankly, Ad Revenue from YT is pitiful, and it's an open secret the real money is made as I've described (although it is a long term play).

I don't disagree with you about PeerTube and the like, but it is a two-sided marketplace and you need to prime both sides of that pump (content creators and viewers).

[sleepybrett]

Nebula is invite only, as far as I can tell, for creators.

[geerlingguy]

Nebula's value proposition for invited creators is dubious at best, too.

They also require an off-YouTube exclusivity contract, which was especially no bueno for me.

[Crespyl]

Isn't it possible for creators to release on YouTube some time after the Nebula release?

I know of a couple channels that do that, though it seems like there's a requirement to add a little extra bit on the end for the Nebula side.

[NtG_UK]

I’ve seen both “Nebula first, YouTube later” and “bonus/longer content on Nebula only” as a common pattern.

Examples: Adam Neely, Tom Scott

[zeeZ]

Jet Lag videos release on YT one week after they premiere on Nebula.

[newsomix9xl]

A bootstrap problem. No one goes until there's enough content and no one posts because there are no viewers.

What is needed is a way to ingest YouTube video through peertube or through a client that treats peertube as a primary destination and YT as a fallback.

This client then gives multihosting a single UI and blurs YT branding.

Maybe?

[someonebaggy]

Do people go looking for videos?

I think I go to YouTube because it has interesting content, and the fact it's in video form isn't particularly relevant. Some content must be in video form but not all of it. I also follow several blogs, and Hacker News. I used to use Reddit when it was less enshittified, the way I use YouTube now. I don't know why I don't follow Nebula - I have a subscription because I want to support more independent platforms.

[ElProlactin]

> Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube.

This reads like MBA advice but the reality is not that simple. For a variety of reasons, relatively few people have the ability to produce durable revenue over the long term by pushing their YouTube audience to owned platforms.

The most successful YouTubers get a lot of attention but the reality is that outside of the 1%, there is no "long term winning play" for most of these people. The average YouTuber who finds some success building an audience tries to milk it for as long as they can before they're supplanted by new faces, they burn out, their category loses appeal, algorithms change, etc.

[dymk]

Alright, you're hosting on FreeTube (paying for hosting & bandwidth costs) - how are you making money? Most YouTubers don't want to run their own ad network or sell a physical product. Sponsors make deals conditional on YouTube engagement metrics.

[infamia]

There are lots of strategies how to make money and it will vary based on your specialty. It could be premium content, premium services, exclusive engagement with your fans, merchandising (e.g., many cooking YouTubers sell their own brand of cooking utensils that they have designed themselves). It requires some thought, but the idea is to deepen the authenticity and engagement by building an actual community and your own personal micro-brand. The offering needs to feel organic and huge value to your community in some way. Many many people have done this on YT and now are making way more money than what's possible with the pittance that is YT monetization. YT then becomes just one part of your funnel intake strategy once you get big enough.

Edit: Of course, you do need to have enough demand/scale to make it worth your while, but that will depend on your audience size and how engaged/invested they are in your content AND you personally to an extent. Perhaps be creative and start out with small experiments. Not too hard with LLMs nowadays.

[wisty]

Selling get rich quick schemes, workout plans, etc?

[infamia]

A bit more like Kevin Powell, who publishes lots of free CSS videos [0], has some good basic CSS Training Courses for free, but charges money for the advanced ones [1]. His videos are not only available on his site, but they're also on Front End Masters, which is a well known training site.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@KevinPowell

[1] https://www.kevinpowell.co/courses/

[ElProlactin]

While I can't speak specifically to this person's earnings, I suspect you're overestimating just how much money average YouTubers make from owned platforms when they try to push their audiences to them.

It's very difficult to do this in a way that produces sustainable, durable revenue, and I suspect that people doing technical educational content are finding it increasingly difficult in the age of AI.

Trends for his YouTube channel look pretty much like what I expected given the general trends in the marketplace.

https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCJZv4d5rbIKd4QHMPkc...

[makeitdouble]

> It could be premium content, premium services, exclusive engagement with your fans, merchandising

To address the elephant in the room, except for "premium content", you're asking to pay for something the users didn't come for and most probably don't want.

So if you're not into mild grifting, the only way your content is directly monetized is paywalls, and that's an utterly complicated business as you need to show enough to entice, but not too much, while dealing with freebooting and custome support. It can be alleviated by joining a paywalled community like Nebula's, but it comes with it's own issues.

As you point out it's not impossible by any mean, it's just a huge PITA that will make no business sense for most creators compared to ad ridden platforms.

[squarefoot]

> You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider.

That one is likely the best use case while one monetizes on YT waiting for FreeTube to gain more popularity. Worth also for keeping a safer online accessible backup in case things go south with the YT channel being taken down for any reason, be it bogus copyright claims or else. What I'm not sure of though is how long until Google changes YT rules to disallow linking or even mentioning competing, or perceived as such, services. Companies always do that: I'm a Ebay user since 2008, 100% feedback both as seller and customer, hundreds of positives not a single negative or neutral in 18 years, but a while ago Ebay in their infinite wisdom blocked a listing of mine because I added the links of the documentation needed to use the device I was selling; no way to appeal successfully or have it restored, they evidently either used a monkey or AI to detect what they identified as an attempt to contact the customer outside of Ebay, for a €30 item nonetheless. Years ago they didn't enforce such idiotic limitations, so I wouldn't put any trust on YT to remain consistent with their current rules.

[Scoundreller]

> they evidently either used a monkey or AI to detect what they identified as an attempt to contact the customer outside of Ebay, for a €30 item nonetheless

Dunno if they’ve caught on, but just send what you need to send in a .png

Probably goes through a not-hotdog test, but that’s about it.

[lanthissa]

long term he doesn't want his own distribution though. youtube offers you new viewers constantly. peertube only makes sense if it has a viewerbase and an ad network, and at hte point we're back to google but they're going to pay more since they have a larger user base and more ads which means their monetization rate is going to be much higher.

disrupting youtube is super hard, you basically need to bring your own audience from something else to do it, or have a platform already existing that you expand into the us.

[newsomix9xl]

Well said. So do prepublish to peer tube post it to my domain and then post to YouTube and link back to my domain ?

Does the order matter as long as I hit both?

Would having bonus content on the peertube version make sense ?

Or even more extreme do I want the YouTube bid to be a teaser to the peertube version?

[kulahan]

People don’t really want another step in the already arduous process of making videos - especially when the return on investment will be $0. This website will die off in a couple years and everyone who wastes time on it will be worse off for it.

You need to build a product so good that my statement above sounds INSANE. Not just “I think he’s wrong” but “dude absolutely no way. Everyone will want this. Are you stupid?”

And this is not that product.

Edit: yeah. I was curious so I went searching for ASMR videos. The default search brought some (terrible-looking) ones up, but half of them were in French? I sorted by views instead, and even though I literally only searched for “ASMR”, there were no longer any ASMR videos near the top of the results. For something trying to compete with YouTube, this is a very mid experience. Nobody is going to waste time migrating.

[anticorporate]

Your use of the word "product" here reminds me of the now infamous McDonald's video.

It's a decentralized, open source, video sharing platform. It's not a product. It's okay for products to exist, but not everything needs to be one.

[mlmonkey]

In Youtube, you are the product...

[kulahan]

Sure, but as I explained, it doesn’t really work well anyways, so who cares?

[Hilliard_Ohiooo]

Exactly, but good luck convincing a horde of morons of it

[catach]

> This website will die off in a couple years

While that might be true, it's worth noting that the project has been running for seven years already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube

[Hilliard_Ohiooo]

It's hard to discuss things online because the dumb people will make stuff up, then when you correct it they disappear but leave the wrong info up, confusing even more dumb people. Like an idiot-tsunami growing ever larger

[keithnz]

this isn't an appropriate response on HN, please read the guidelines on how to conduct yourself https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[infamia]

I think for most people you're right, they just want to upload their videos, and maybe make a couple of bucks on the side. I was referring to folks who are truly committed to making this their career and want to have their own brand. Many, many people are already doing this, so it isn't something theoretical. Most YouTubers are automating their production pipeline, so another upload step isn't too hard, especially nowadays where it is easier than ever to build a bespoke, deterministic pipeline with agents writing scripts and programs.

[Scoundreller]

> I think for most people you're right, they just want to upload their videos, and maybe make a couple of bucks on the side.

Sadly, those won’t make a couple bucks anymore. You can’t get a cut of the revenue until you have 1000 subscribers.

The couple bucks a month from my 1 video that was more useful than professional was nice until the moved that goalpost.

In case you were wondering why every bloody publisher, big or small, asks you to subscribe, even if, well, why would you subscribe to a channel that helped you fix your phone one day but their next video couldn’t be more unrelated?

Meanwhile in my “blogging” days, that first couple cents/bucks a month from Adsense convinced me to spend more time on it & make $20/month, then $200. Was $2000/month for a while. Now they expect you to work for free to prove yourself?