Sure, we have open source, federated replacements for Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. How do we get creators to use this stuff? One consideration involves the ability to pay for things.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.

Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Honestly the best YouTube alternative at the moment is Nebula. The problem is that it’s a closed system. You can’t just make an account and start uploading, you have to be invited. So the range of content is fairly limited compared to YouTube. But unlike many other platforms, it is designed to be fairly general-purpose. There are some excellent individual creators’ platforms, like Dropout, Viva+, Club TWiT, etc. But you only get a single creator/team’s videos on those. Dropout is improv comedy. Viva+ is sketch comedy. Club TWiT is tech news. Whereas Nebula is more of a coop owned by tens of different creators with content including news, media analysis (including film, games, and music), politics, science, short films, game shows, and more. It’s not federated, but it’s independent and worker owned-ish.

    • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      I often forget about nebula. I really do like their model. Personally, I think their biggest problem is lacking a free trial. They’re curating, so I expect they’ll have some pretty solid content. But every time I consider them I go and browse their catalog and I don’t recognize most of it, and that what I do recognize is marginally interesting to me, but not worthy of payment.

      I suspect their closed model is because it’s very expensive to host that data, and they want to make sure that whoever they put up there is worth spending the money on. Return on investment, yada, yada.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        I think their biggest problem is lacking a free trial

        They have a 3 day free trial by default. And members can also give out a limited number of “guest passes” which act as a 1 week free trial.

        I suspect their closed model is because it’s very expensive to host that data, and they want to make sure that whoever they put up there is worth spending the money on

        That’s probably part of it. It’s also a marketing tactic. They’re positioning themselves as a premium service. They want customers to know that if something is on Nebula it’s going to be good. Similar to the way Apple positions themselves as premium by not selling a $200 smartphone, or Mercedez-Benz, or Louis-Vuitton.

        It’s also about trust. One of the things they’re trying to do with Nebula is to provide creators a space to safely discuss controversial topics without censorship. But with that, along with the fact that they have a coop-type structure, comes the need to be able to trust that the people uploading on their platform aren’t gonna be Nazis.