Good luck getting that through the system… the cost to run something like YouTube is… well, let’s just say the lack of real competitions speaks volumes.
That’s a drop in the pond in the grand scheme of things. You just out source that out to rights management companies and absolve yourself from that obligation behind safe harbour. This is basically what they’re doing in this department. They’ve built Content ID for digital finger printing, and then invented an entire market for rights management companies on both sides of the equation.
On the other hand, 500 hours of video footage got uploaded to YouTube every minute per YouTube in 2022 (pdf warning). 30 minutes of video game content (compresses better), just the 720p variant using avc1 codec is about 443MB of space. Never mind all the other transcodes or higher bitrates. So say 800MB per hour of 720p content; 500 hours of content per minute means 400GB of disk space requirement, per minute; 500TB of disk space per day.
That’s just video uploaded to YouTube. I don’t even know how much is being watched regularly, but even if we assume at least one view per video, that’s 500TB of bandwidth in and then 500TB of bandwidth out per day.
Extrapolating from this, we can say that Youtube hosts around 2.5 to 3 exabytes (2.5 to 3 million terabytes) of data. Interestingly, the total volume of data on the internet is, as of the end of 2023, around 120 zettabytes, so Youtube only makes up around 0.0025% of the total volume of all that data.
Microsoft could have done it if storage was all. They got the infrastructure, the tech, cdn infrastructure , and even had a lot of big business customers already using Azures media streaming services. Instead they are withdrawing.
I said infrastructure, not just storage. and yes there is even more involved like the user base, as we have seen with social media time and time again. Even if Microsoft built an even better YouTube (lol), it’s still very likely no one would use it. It’s a massive investment with a lot of risk.
every computer gets a government-mandated tool installed that reserves 50% of your upload speed to help host YouTube. If you are caught without it, You’re going to jail.
Of course they dont. Not a chance with that much video added every hour. Also everything gotta be automated. And in favor of those who can make the most legal trouble. And thats companies, not the many various smaller IP-owners.
Just rubs me the wrong way that only Google are finding this business worth it. None of the other companies, even with massive amounts of storage and cdn infrastructure, are able to compete for long.
Japan has nicovideo.jp as well. Russia has Yandex Efir (gone through a couple rebrands, Efir was the name in 2020 when we were discussing deals; it was operating under another name prior, and I think it is superseded by dzen). Off to the side I think vK also has a small video delivery presence like how Facebook has videos in their feeds. China has several platforms: Tencent Video (owned by Tencent), Youku as you’ve called out (owned by Alibaba), XiGua (ByteDance), Haokan (Baidu), and then slew of smaller ones like KuaiShou, BiliBili and that video thing WeChat tries to push. None of these are public service operated by the State, by the way. List really goes on… and I’d know, because I’ve worked in the space for almost 12 years now.
China’s great firewall aside, all these platforms are tiny in comparison, and in the grand scheme of things, and barely have any reach. In general, these regional are all taking a backseat just like Nebula and alike — if creators’ content are hyperlocal/super niche, they might be okay with smaller regional platforms; but if they’re trying to extend their reach and monetization (to ensure they have money to continue producing content), the creators’ presence on these platforms are really just auxiliary to their primary presence on YouTube.
Getting viewers to these smaller platforms is going to pose a significant chicken or the egg problem — creators aren’t incentivized to be there because lack of viewer, viewers aren’t incentivized to go there because lack of content. Worse yet, I’ve also seen situations where creators are paid for some period of exclusivity and then when the deal lapses they just go straight back to YouTube.
Real competitors do not exist, and likely will not exist for the foreseeable future. YouTube is the million pound behemoth when everyone else barely registers on the radar.
There are lots of peertube instances. The issue is that YouTube uses ads to pay content creators, and so everyone puts their content on YouTube in the hope of becoming the next big thing.
Yep, definitely. That’s the allure. From what I can tell, it’s likely there are tens of thousands of people making over $1m a year. However, there are hundreds of millions of people uploading videos.
Most people won’t make much at all, but if you don’t have the people at the top making millions then no one has any incentive, so those people are critical.
It’s also the hosting. YouTube has hundreds of hours of high-res video uploaded to it every single minute, and then has to process and mirror that content across its global distribution network. Just the hardware required to make that function, alone, is prohibitively expensive for any other contenders to enter this space.
We need a publicly funded video hosting service like PBS.
Good luck getting that through the system… the cost to run something like YouTube is… well, let’s just say the lack of real competitions speaks volumes.
The biggest drain is the copyright fights, I’m guessing. Defending against and pleasing every big company with an interest.
That’s a drop in the pond in the grand scheme of things. You just out source that out to rights management companies and absolve yourself from that obligation behind safe harbour. This is basically what they’re doing in this department. They’ve built Content ID for digital finger printing, and then invented an entire market for rights management companies on both sides of the equation.
On the other hand, 500 hours of video footage got uploaded to YouTube every minute per YouTube in 2022 (pdf warning). 30 minutes of video game content (compresses better), just the 720p variant using avc1 codec is about 443MB of space. Never mind all the other transcodes or higher bitrates. So say 800MB per hour of 720p content; 500 hours of content per minute means 400GB of disk space requirement, per minute; 500TB of disk space per day.
That’s just video uploaded to YouTube. I don’t even know how much is being watched regularly, but even if we assume at least one view per video, that’s 500TB of bandwidth in and then 500TB of bandwidth out per day.
Good luck scaling that on public budget.
Extrapolating from this, we can say that Youtube hosts around 2.5 to 3 exabytes (2.5 to 3 million terabytes) of data. Interestingly, the total volume of data on the internet is, as of the end of 2023, around 120 zettabytes, so Youtube only makes up around 0.0025% of the total volume of all that data.
Most of the remaining space is used by porn obviously…
No, it’s a picture of your mum, cos she’s so fat. I’m sorry
Yes, the state is subservient to capital.
the infrastructure cost required to host the quantity of video YouTube has is insane.
Microsoft could have done it if storage was all. They got the infrastructure, the tech, cdn infrastructure , and even had a lot of big business customers already using Azures media streaming services. Instead they are withdrawing.
I said infrastructure, not just storage. and yes there is even more involved like the user base, as we have seen with social media time and time again. Even if Microsoft built an even better YouTube (lol), it’s still very likely no one would use it. It’s a massive investment with a lot of risk.
every computer gets a government-mandated tool installed that reserves 50% of your upload speed to help host YouTube. If you are caught without it, You’re going to jail.
/s
You say that like they even look at them. That’s clearly not the case.
Of course they dont. Not a chance with that much video added every hour. Also everything gotta be automated. And in favor of those who can make the most legal trouble. And thats companies, not the many various smaller IP-owners.
Just rubs me the wrong way that only Google are finding this business worth it. None of the other companies, even with massive amounts of storage and cdn infrastructure, are able to compete for long.
China did it…https://www.youku.tv/ probably the EU could do it too, if it cared about owning its own critical infrastructure.
Japan has nicovideo.jp as well. Russia has Yandex Efir (gone through a couple rebrands, Efir was the name in 2020 when we were discussing deals; it was operating under another name prior, and I think it is superseded by dzen). Off to the side I think vK also has a small video delivery presence like how Facebook has videos in their feeds. China has several platforms: Tencent Video (owned by Tencent), Youku as you’ve called out (owned by Alibaba), XiGua (ByteDance), Haokan (Baidu), and then slew of smaller ones like KuaiShou, BiliBili and that video thing WeChat tries to push. None of these are public service operated by the State, by the way. List really goes on… and I’d know, because I’ve worked in the space for almost 12 years now.
China’s great firewall aside, all these platforms are tiny in comparison, and in the grand scheme of things, and barely have any reach. In general, these regional are all taking a backseat just like Nebula and alike — if creators’ content are hyperlocal/super niche, they might be okay with smaller regional platforms; but if they’re trying to extend their reach and monetization (to ensure they have money to continue producing content), the creators’ presence on these platforms are really just auxiliary to their primary presence on YouTube.
Getting viewers to these smaller platforms is going to pose a significant chicken or the egg problem — creators aren’t incentivized to be there because lack of viewer, viewers aren’t incentivized to go there because lack of content. Worse yet, I’ve also seen situations where creators are paid for some period of exclusivity and then when the deal lapses they just go straight back to YouTube.
Real competitors do not exist, and likely will not exist for the foreseeable future. YouTube is the million pound behemoth when everyone else barely registers on the radar.
We have torrent technology, we just need to make it a little more dynamic.
If we fund a peertube instance we could do that.
There are lots of peertube instances. The issue is that YouTube uses ads to pay content creators, and so everyone puts their content on YouTube in the hope of becoming the next big thing.
Most YouTubers rely on sponsorships and/or Patreon subscriptions. Getting compensation is not a platform problem.
The reason why content creators choose YouTube is because that’s where all the viewers are. Few people know about peertube. Even fewer have used it.
The top Youtubers are making millions, easy…
Yep, definitely. That’s the allure. From what I can tell, it’s likely there are tens of thousands of people making over $1m a year. However, there are hundreds of millions of people uploading videos.
Most people won’t make much at all, but if you don’t have the people at the top making millions then no one has any incentive, so those people are critical.
Classic pyramid scheme of capitalism.
Very true. It’s not so much the hosting, it’s monetary value.
It’s also the hosting. YouTube has hundreds of hours of high-res video uploaded to it every single minute, and then has to process and mirror that content across its global distribution network. Just the hardware required to make that function, alone, is prohibitively expensive for any other contenders to enter this space.
What people need to do is start self-hosting PeerTube IMO.
That’s already a thing, my guy.
What is it?
Its called PBS
Can I freely upload my niché videos of USB cable testing there? PS, I’m not a US citizen.
No
Then how is it a replacement for YouTube?
at that point why not just subscribe to yt premium?
Public service =/= privately owned mega corp