Here We Go Again (Updated with Restoration Progress)

[DragonSkunk]

Been through an interesting journey to find myself an alternative to Vidme.

Bitchute: Reliable, uses peer to peer AKA torrent technology to host videos. Seems good.
DTube: Trouble connecting, perpetual spinners, can't confirm but scam-ish when I hear paying you to comment... what?
Vimeo: Classy, artsy, buggy, I haven't been able to play anything from Vimeo in a long time with Firefox. I asked them for help, best to email them here: support@vimeo.com for problems as their online forms is also buggy.
Pewtube: Supremely buggy can't see any content let alone play any content.

I hope this helps.

[Independent George]

Well, I just upped my Patreon pledge to $5. I'll probably reduce it again later in the year, but hopefully others will do the same and that it helps a bit with the transition cost.

Thanks for your hard work, Chuck.

[ewmailing]

I just wanted to throw another idea out there in case you haven't thought about this. Eli the Computer Guy, an IT specialist YouTuber who has "left" YouTube has done various analyses of what it costs to operate a video site. (There was also a lot of drama a little bit back where he tried out Vidme and they tried to put the hard-sell on him and everything blew up. He has since done a lot of videos predicting the fall of Vidme and why it will happen. And he appears to have been proven right.)

Anyway, Eli has two provocative insights:
1. The cost to do something like YouTube is massively expensive. Storage and bandwidth costs are too much for all the extra things they do to support low-latency streaming video.

2. But in 2017, maybe you don't need all the things that a YouTube service does. A huge chunk of the expense of YouTube is to support low-latency streaming video that require no storage. This means you need CDNs. You also need to encode videos in many different formats and resolutions and these all have to get duplicated for every CDN which greatly increases storage costs. But in 2017, the majority of people now have more bandwidth and actual disk space on their devices compared to 2005. Eli asks, what if you throw out all the streaming pre-conceptions and think more like video-podcasts? Then you can just throw up a single version of video on something like AWS S3. Your viewers can download on demand to watch. I also think web browser video players still can stream and skip around the file, effectively streaming it.


I noticed the videos I was getting from Vidme maxed out at 480p, which is already on the small-side for 2017. So just serving a single version of this without CDNs and multiple quality versions is probably fine. So the remaining things that these video sites give you are advertising revenue and social network effects. But since you were on Vidme, I suspect you weren't benefiting from either of these things anyway.


Anyway, if you know your bandwidth and storage numbers, it might be worth doing some quick calculations on S3 or similar service to see if this could save you a lot in costs. If it does, then you could look into the feasibility of serving files yourself. The other advantage of serving your own files is you probably won't ever have to move like this again.



Here's is Eli's analysis:
How to BUILD a YOUTUBE ALTERNATIVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIGJMpLgDXI

Also, his victory lap.
Why VIDME FAILED - Kids with Other People's Money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1Rhdhx7J4

[Sam]

"Oh boy! What fun!" (Sam says sarcastically)

[Wargriffin]

I wonder how Pornhub would react if they suddenly had a bunch of nerds uploading and watching non porn content on their sites?

Well if all the reviewers did that ... scrambling to block out boobies and genitalia when reviewing works with nudity wouldn't be an issue anymore.

What if you were a reviewer... that had bits of your own porn scene scattered through!

Therefore its both porn and a review!

[TheNewTeddy]

okay this is starting to get a bit weird

[Beastro]

I wonder how Pornhub would react if they suddenly had a bunch of nerds uploading and watching non porn content on their sites?

Well if all the reviewers did that ... scrambling to block out boobies and genitalia when reviewing works with nudity wouldn't be an issue anymore.

What if you were a reviewer... that had bits of your own porn scene scattered through!

Therefore its both porn and a review!

Like those shows where women casually strip naked as they read out the news?

[Wargriffin]

I wonder how Pornhub would react if they suddenly had a bunch of nerds uploading and watching non porn content on their sites?

Well if all the reviewers did that ... scrambling to block out boobies and genitalia when reviewing works with nudity wouldn't be an issue anymore.

What if you were a reviewer... that had bits of your own porn scene scattered through!

Therefore its both porn and a review!

Like those shows where women casually strip naked as they read out the news?

I suppose, but more XXX

[Robovski]

I, for one, do not welcome a future where Chuck has explicit XXX reviews. I fully expect Chuck to not be my type and probably not his wife or co-host. Plus it may be distracting with him talking about Lucas while ''performing'' and hard to tell if he liked something or not.

[Wargriffin]

I, for one, do not welcome a future where Chuck has explicit XXX reviews. I fully expect Chuck to not be my type and probably not his wife or co-host. Plus it may be distracting with him talking about Lucas while ''performing'' and hard to tell if he liked something or not.

I don't know getting an active BJ might make the bad trek more tolerable