this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each wants some 10-20€ out of your pocket.

I guess that means back to ad blockers and piracy...

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[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 year ago (31 children)

I think we're starting to see the beginning of YouTube's end. The algorithm is actively choking the life out of the platform, they're forcing viewers to pay fees that seem to keep getting bigger and bigger, and they're making life miserable for creators while also paying them less and less.

Once another platform comes along that ticks enough boxes to satisfy people then YouTube will be absolutely screwed. The only reason we all use that wretched site is because there is no viable alternative. More and more creators are moving to premium platforms like Nebula that offer better deals for viewers and creators alike. I'm likely to jump ship myself once more people I watch also join up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

User content deliver platform is a really bad business model cause:

  • there is always that free option, pirate, rip record and the share, or simply patreon that skips the platform's fee taking once you are big enough.
  • if you try to charge for ad, then you need enough conversion rate(views->click through, views->query or views->sales), there is really not much options to do this, if you make another youtube clone, you pretty much can't pay for the infrastructure nor bandwidth.
  • you still have to deal with all the other stuff, DMCA, content moderation, age restriction, reports, etc.(these are cost sink that does not generate revenue at all.)

I don't know how Nebula do the revenue split, can a user even specify like I want to support this creator only? cause from what I see only 50% revenue is distributed, that means the bigger channel you are traffic wise, the more you get from sign ups. so smaller creators might not have a good time there compare to the patreon model.(where user pay directly to them and the end user just watch youtube or from other source direct stream/download).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nebula is so cheap I have a subscription even though I almost never use it. I would use it more if they had a better recommendation system, as it is now you almost have to search for a specific video you want or dig through piles of random videos you don't care about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mostly open Nebula when I'm watching a video, and the creator says "I had to censor this on YouTube, you can get the full version on Nebula"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would get a subscription but (at least last I checked) they don't want European customers. Who the fuck has a credit card and why aren't you accepting plain old bank transfers. I half-way expected them to list "mail us a cheque" under payment options.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait, there are parts of the world where you can pay for online subscriptions via BANK TRANSFER?!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Bank transfer is the standard option because everyone has a bank account and everyone can do it, also, there's generally zero fees attached. There may be more convenient options, but it basically always is there as a fallback. As a company you have an account, anyway, only thing you need to do is have your payment system look through incoming transactions and scan the "intended use" field for a transaction id or account number or such you told people to put in there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally pretty much every online service - especially subscription ones - want a card. Not necessarily a credit card, but at least debit.

Even in Europe many people have credit cards and pretty much everyone with a bank account has a debit card.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have a bog-standard bank account and yes of course it comes with a debit card that doesn't mean that it works with the US-centric "enter card number and expiry date" system, though. Way too insecure anyway.

Steam manages to use Giropay, I can understand if a US company doesn't want to deal with that kind of solution^1^ but accepting SEPA transfers is dead-simple, dirt cheap, and covers 100% of the EU (and more) market.


^1^ The German banking sector, alas, in in the habit of pioneering stuff and then be incompatible with what big financial players elsewhere come up with. Other times the rest of the world simply doesn't care, e.g. when it comes to HBCI/FinTS.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Nebula seems geared as a curated collection of small content makers that make more money per watch of Nebula content than YouTube. You also have some content creators who get additional funds to do larger productions on Nebula that are either Nebula exclusive or Nebula first.

I would probably see it as a middle ground between YouTube and a Patreon gift.

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