Level1Techs Support and access to Media

Level1Techs INBOX.deb
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It seems like youtubers are really after your ‘patron dollars’ these days. Is suspect auto censorship of instant loss of monetization being the key driver on the Youtube. So far it doesn’t seem like there are any good alternatives.

What I want: A place to watch Level1Techs content for free. If I enjoy, I can pay extra and get bonus content if exists (and it doesn’t, well at least I supported).

FloatPlane and Uteron both make you “subscribe” to get any content and I am not a big fan of that. Do you have any recommendations of what I can do to get my want met, and if there is no option for that, what can I do support that will give Level1techs the biggest cut of my donation.

Thanks!

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Floatplane is the best option as 100% of your $$ is going to tech related people and not a google or random other company. (I get they have costs that will go to someone, but by far the best option)

They also have very little exclusive content, just buy some stuff at the merch store ?

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We will always need YouTube as it’s ubiquitous, mostly free and how people discover things

I, a tightwad who couldn’t fathom paying 3-5$ per channel monthly can’t go on floatplane and freely browse content and find content related to other content

I follow like 50 different channels, that’s 150-250$ a month

There is no algorithm

I need to find my interests on another platform such as YouTube then go on floatplane

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what you want doesnt exist.

patreon is about the best option if you want to make a donation that sees the vast majority go to l1 techs… 5-12% is patreons take.

linus takes 30% for floatplane apparently.

gasps from the google/apple hat wearing members … b-but he ripped apple for taking 30%?
yep :rofl:

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Wendell could have a better deal with all the support he has provided over the years

Also to be fair CDN is actually taxing unlike Apple/Google hosting small installer file

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Video hosting/streaming is substantially more bandwidth intensive per-user than download hosting, in LTT’s defence.

This is probably why Youtube will remain a necessity, @Nordom. Rumours are that despite its ads and Red programs, YouTube still loses money for Google/Alphabet. If so, Google probably allows this because YouTube’s dominance in the market provides, in effect, promotional value for its other services.

The scary reality is that if Google is unable to make a free video hosting platform viable, no one likely is. I have no doubt that Google custom builds servers, likely with FPGAs and/or custom silicon accelerators to operate YouTube infrastructure at maximum efficiency; I doubt Floatplane or any other startup will be able to keep there costs anywhere near YouTube’s. In fact, when you see Google’s push for better (and rotalty-free) codecs like AV1, this is in no small part motivated by trying to cost-reduce YouTube; it is useful that smaller files decrease storage and bandwidth, even if video processing time goes up; one time costs increase while recurring costs decrease.

Of the other video hosting plaforms that I can think of,
Dailymotion, NicoNico, Vimeo, Floatplane, Odysee, Rumble, Bitchute

outside of YouTube, many have some caveats or limitations. As for newly created services, is difficult to know whether they are profitable or merely have yet to run out of investment capital.

There are also other services which host only shorter videos, or only retain videos for a limited time:
Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Twitch, Twitter, Douyin (Tiktok), IBM (Ustream)?, Snapchat?

Facebook may very well host lengthy videos, but I classify it here since videos are not really the core service.

I do not see how this landscape significantly changes until storage and bandwidth is an order of magnitude cheaper; however, there is a chance that video hosting which makes use of P2P might remain viable where others cannot. Peertube, for example, does this, but it is also more of a server package for people or groups to host their own video, rather than a public general-purpose video sharing site. I do not know if its server costs make widespread adoption viable.