YouTube's monetization, censorship, and copyright issues have forced certain Content Creators to investigate other platforms for more reliable revenue streams, such as Twitch and Patreon, both of which have a direct subscription model (in addition to Patreon's per-video model). I hope to see DTube become a viable alternative.
YouTube's advertising-based business model
YouTube is funded primarily by advertising. It is subsidiary of Alphabet, a public corporation based in the US that also owns Google. Alphabet hosts the videos on Google's servers and provides the interface for accessing the videos. YouTube removes content that does not meet its TOS, including NSFW content. YouTube is very careful to pick safe, family-friendly content to appear with ads, because the companies that are advertising don't want their content to be associated with anything negative.
Even when a Creator does quality for ads on their videos, if there is any copyrighted audio/video contained, 100% of ad revenue is rerouted to the copyright owner.
Videos under 10 minutes cannot be monetized, discouraging short-form content like Vines.
As Creators struggle to make money from their content alone, they are putting more time and energy into merchandising and brand deals instead of creating great content.
DTube as a potential solution
I think DTube, utilizing both Steem, which is P2P/engagement-based, and decentralized hosting (IPFS), could be a great alternative for many creators including those who make videos like:
- Short form videos (From 6 seconds, up to 10 minutes)
- Video essays, music critiques
- Vlogs (with adult language)
- Covering sensitive issues (discussion of war, LGBTQ+ visibility)
- NSFW content
I would love to see some of my favorite Content Creators get on DTube and bring their audience. There is still some friction because people need to buy bitcoin and then convert it to Steem, which can get complicated. But I hope that it will eventually reach critical mass.
Questions about DTube
I recently had my first run-in with explicitly copyrighted material on DTube and it left me with some questions. I posted this comment on a video someone posted of Disney's Avengers: Infinity War:
https://steemit.com/dmania/@maykocan/k2eor6fb#@mxpuck/rb964duwt
Since this seems clearly illegal to post, I have some questions about this video, and potentially other videos that would be illegal even to view:
- Since this lives in IPFS, is there any way for this to be removed?
- If it could not be removed from IPFS, could it be removed from DTube?
- If Disney were to file a complaint, could/would all Steem be rerouted to Disney? (Isn't this baked into Smart Media Tokens?)
- If this were a DVD rip, is it possible that Disney could verify users that have purchased to view the content (via Steem's Blockchain)?
- Is DTube itself liable to a lawsuit from Disney for the content being visible here? If this were rampant on this platform, would it get shut down?
P.S. I loved the movie when I watched it in theaters.
I would love to get these questions answered. Did I miss any other pros/cons of YouTube vs DTube?