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The problem with YouTube specifically, is that while blog posts are easy to host on pretty much anything that has a CPU, self-hosting videos at scale is essenti

The problem with YouTube specifically, is that while blog posts are easy to host on pretty much anything that has a CPU, self-hosting videos at scale is essentially impossible. So while Medium only added a marginal amount of convenience for your average blogger, YouTube straight up enabled the kind of content it hosts.

fghtr 7y ago
We now have peertube, which uses p2p to decrease the load on your server.
- corobo 7y ago
  Unfortunately everyone (including GDPR laws) is scared of p2p
  - mikro2nd 7y ago
    Care to elaborate? I find this rather a sweeping statement and quite inconsistent with the level of activity and progress being made in the p2p sphere.
    - corobo 7y ago
      Fair comment. Unfortunately (for me!) I'm going to have to look like a bit of a wally. I can't elaborate on it and my stance has changed in the time since I posted (while looking up my former 'facts'). 1) Based on the GDPR comment. If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information (never let a user associate IP with any other PI - e.g. if a user can ban another from their channel something, don't let them see the underlying IP ban in place. Not sure how IPs are handled across ActivityPub). 2) People scared of p2p.. I'm still on the fence a little. For instance the opt out issue at Peertube[1] displays a snippet of p2p-fear however it should be noted that a feature to opt out of the p2p part is implemented in Peertube specifically now so may just be a non-issue. p2p fear needs to be determined with a simple "do users use this opt-out" before I can sway one way or the other [1]: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/685 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/685 Thanks for calling it out, I might not have found out that what I knew was outdated otherwise :)
      - vonmoltke 7y ago
        > If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information Current guidance (from the legal profession, not the HN peanut gallery) is that IPs are standalone personal data.
        corobo 7y ago
        You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery? Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this.
        vonmoltke 7y ago
        > You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery? Nothing that isn't privileged information, unfortunately. > Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this. Recital 30 (https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-30/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-30/) says "in particular" when combined with other information, but the addition of that phrase indicates this is not the only case. The accuracy of your statement depends on how you interpret that recital. Based on this case (https://www.alstonprivacy.com/ecj-declares-ip-addresses-personal-data/ https://www.alstonprivacy.com/ecj-declares-ip-addresses-pers...) I suspect the broader interpretation is the one that would win over regulators. Additionally, the information about that case states there is clear agreement that static IPs are personal data, which alone contradicts your belief.
        mikro2nd 7y ago
        In which jurisdiction? i.e. That's a hell of a generalisation.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      p2p is widely useful technology, but in the minds of regular people, it's primarily associated with movie and videogame piracy. I don't know how common this is world-wide, but at least in my country it's widely known among people who use computers that downloading or streaming a copyright-protected video from a random site is legally in the clean, but p2p may land you in jail or have you paying fines - because it's unlawful distribution, not consumption, of copyrighted material that's punished.
srrr 7y ago
Is it really Impossible to selfhost videos? My 5€ webhosting has 250GB storage and unlimited traffic and every decent CMS has video capabilities. I think the hosting is not the problem. But the social features that YouTube provides are not easily replaced...
- Theodores 7y ago
  Try it. Also there is Cloudflare doing a video CDN. I don't think they have a free plan with that, but it would be interesting to see what the costs actually are. There should not be a need for a CDN though if you are only showing a few videos to a few people. Video does the buffering thing so it should be possible to serve video half way across the world. I would give it a go myself but I only have audio!
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Also consider their automatic video encoding / re-encoding / resizing; I think there's services (e.g. Amazon Elastic Transcoder) that can do that for you, but that would require some development time of your own. Is there a single video format supported by all browsers yet?
  - irrational 7y ago
    Those things are easily done with tools like ffmpeg and mbox. This stuff isn't rocket science. These are all solved problems and the tools are free and open-source. And yes, there are video format that are supported by all browsers. The number of naysayers that are implying that working with videos is so hard in these comments is shocking to me for such a supposedly technical group of people.
- icdsoft 7y ago
  It is quite unlikely that the "unlimited" traffic you are paying for is truly unlimited. There is always a catch with such "unlimited" offers.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Self-hosting some very niche videos? Sure. Trying to make a generally popular channel? Forget it. It's the transfer and bandwidth that are the problem. There isn't really such a thing as "unlimited transfer" (there's a hidden limit past which they'll rate-limit you, and kindly ask to stop or pay more). Moreover, once your video gets somewhat popular, you'll hit bandwidth issues. Given how popularity on the Internet seems to happen in spikes, this will likely severely limit the reach of your video. People are also spoiled by big video services with unlimited budgets and CDNs all around the world.
ralphstodomingo 7y ago
This. And even if you manage to somehow self-host your videos, YouTube is also a discovery service for these videos. Think about how many times you looked for a video on a certain topic in YouTube's search bar itself, the recommendations and the Trending tab.
- HeavyStorm 7y ago
  Well, so is Medium. I can self host a blog but how will people find me? As the OP said, Medium ranks well.
  - ralphstodomingo 7y ago
    It ranks well, but you rarely go on Medium's search bar or feed. I'd usually be here in HN, or Reddit, or some aggregator, where your self-hosted content can be found.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- irrational 7y ago
  >if you manager to somehow self-host your videos... Wait, we've been self-hosting our own videos for years. It's not exactly rocket science. YouTube is convenient, but what it is doing from a technical standpoint isn't that difficult to do on your own server.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    How do you do this? I’ve looked at Digital Ocean and their super cheap bandwidth, but storing a serious amount of data would get expensive.
  - jasode 7y ago
    >It's not exactly rocket science. YouTube is convenient, but what it is doing from a technical standpoint isn't that difficult to do on your own server. You've left several comments in this thread talking down to people as if they're ignorant about how to write an HTML5 <video> tag on their own web server. I wasn't the one that downvoted your comment but for some reason, a lot of technical folks like you misunderstand Youtube and how it enables video uploaders. (A previous commenter misunderstands Youtube the same way and my previous reply to it.[0]) There is no self-hosting web server stack to serve videos that charges $0 to the content creator whether it gets zero or 1 billion views. Therefore, repeatedly recommending "self-host your videos" -- completely misses the point. Consider a corporate giant like Microsoft. Several years ago, they used to self-host their tech videos on channel9.msdn.com.[1] Now they're hosted on Youtube.[2] Obviously, MS is not so technically inept that they don't know how to stream their own videos! They also have billions in cash to prevent "server bandwidth exceeded" errors so cost isn't the issue. Stop and think about why Microsoft switched to Youtube instead of using their own MS Azure infrastructure. As for the other metaphor of "sharecropper" for Youtube that seems popular... is Microsoft a "sharecropper"? Why or why not? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488275 [1] clicking any of the new videos on Microsoft's front page will play embedded Youtube videos: https://channel9.msdn.com/ https://channel9.msdn.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/Microsoft/search?query=build https://www.youtube.com/user/Microsoft/search?query=build
frankzen 7y ago
Three letters: AWS Same issue with regards to control but not as policed as YouTube...

fghtr 7y ago

We now have peertube, which uses p2p to decrease the load on your server.

corobo 7y ago
Unfortunately everyone (including GDPR laws) is scared of p2p
- mikro2nd 7y ago
  Care to elaborate? I find this rather a sweeping statement and quite inconsistent with the level of activity and progress being made in the p2p sphere.
  - corobo 7y ago
    Fair comment. Unfortunately (for me!) I'm going to have to look like a bit of a wally. I can't elaborate on it and my stance has changed in the time since I posted (while looking up my former 'facts'). 1) Based on the GDPR comment. If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information (never let a user associate IP with any other PI - e.g. if a user can ban another from their channel something, don't let them see the underlying IP ban in place. Not sure how IPs are handled across ActivityPub). 2) People scared of p2p.. I'm still on the fence a little. For instance the opt out issue at Peertube[1] displays a snippet of p2p-fear however it should be noted that a feature to opt out of the p2p part is implemented in Peertube specifically now so may just be a non-issue. p2p fear needs to be determined with a simple "do users use this opt-out" before I can sway one way or the other [1]: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/685 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/685 Thanks for calling it out, I might not have found out that what I knew was outdated otherwise :)
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      > If you're really careful with how you do things the IP address could be argued to not be personal information Current guidance (from the legal profession, not the HN peanut gallery) is that IPs are standalone personal data.
      - corobo 7y ago
        You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery? Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this.
        vonmoltke 7y ago
        > You got a source on that if you're going to be referring to the rest of us as a peanut gallery? Nothing that isn't privileged information, unfortunately. > Everything I know and have found says IPs are classed as personal data only if combined with other data. I've yet to find anything that supports your claim, which is why I changed my mind on this. Recital 30 (https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-30/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-30/) says "in particular" when combined with other information, but the addition of that phrase indicates this is not the only case. The accuracy of your statement depends on how you interpret that recital. Based on this case (https://www.alstonprivacy.com/ecj-declares-ip-addresses-personal-data/ https://www.alstonprivacy.com/ecj-declares-ip-addresses-pers...) I suspect the broader interpretation is the one that would win over regulators. Additionally, the information about that case states there is clear agreement that static IPs are personal data, which alone contradicts your belief.
      - mikro2nd 7y ago
        In which jurisdiction? i.e. That's a hell of a generalisation.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    p2p is widely useful technology, but in the minds of regular people, it's primarily associated with movie and videogame piracy. I don't know how common this is world-wide, but at least in my country it's widely known among people who use computers that downloading or streaming a copyright-protected video from a random site is legally in the clean, but p2p may land you in jail or have you paying fines - because it's unlawful distribution, not consumption, of copyrighted material that's punished.

srrr 7y ago

Is it really Impossible to selfhost videos? My 5€ webhosting has 250GB storage and unlimited traffic and every decent CMS has video capabilities. I think the hosting is not the problem. But the social features that YouTube provides are not easily replaced...

Theodores 7y ago
Try it. Also there is Cloudflare doing a video CDN. I don't think they have a free plan with that, but it would be interesting to see what the costs actually are. There should not be a need for a CDN though if you are only showing a few videos to a few people. Video does the buffering thing so it should be possible to serve video half way across the world. I would give it a go myself but I only have audio!
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Also consider their automatic video encoding / re-encoding / resizing; I think there's services (e.g. Amazon Elastic Transcoder) that can do that for you, but that would require some development time of your own. Is there a single video format supported by all browsers yet?
- irrational 7y ago
  Those things are easily done with tools like ffmpeg and mbox. This stuff isn't rocket science. These are all solved problems and the tools are free and open-source. And yes, there are video format that are supported by all browsers. The number of naysayers that are implying that working with videos is so hard in these comments is shocking to me for such a supposedly technical group of people.
icdsoft 7y ago
It is quite unlikely that the "unlimited" traffic you are paying for is truly unlimited. There is always a catch with such "unlimited" offers.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Self-hosting some very niche videos? Sure. Trying to make a generally popular channel? Forget it. It's the transfer and bandwidth that are the problem. There isn't really such a thing as "unlimited transfer" (there's a hidden limit past which they'll rate-limit you, and kindly ask to stop or pay more). Moreover, once your video gets somewhat popular, you'll hit bandwidth issues. Given how popularity on the Internet seems to happen in spikes, this will likely severely limit the reach of your video. People are also spoiled by big video services with unlimited budgets and CDNs all around the world.

ralphstodomingo 7y ago

This. And even if you manage to somehow self-host your videos, YouTube is also a discovery service for these videos. Think about how many times you looked for a video on a certain topic in YouTube's search bar itself, the recommendations and the Trending tab.

HeavyStorm 7y ago
Well, so is Medium. I can self host a blog but how will people find me? As the OP said, Medium ranks well.
- ralphstodomingo 7y ago
  It ranks well, but you rarely go on Medium's search bar or feed. I'd usually be here in HN, or Reddit, or some aggregator, where your self-hosted content can be found.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
irrational 7y ago
>if you manager to somehow self-host your videos... Wait, we've been self-hosting our own videos for years. It's not exactly rocket science. YouTube is convenient, but what it is doing from a technical standpoint isn't that difficult to do on your own server.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  How do you do this? I’ve looked at Digital Ocean and their super cheap bandwidth, but storing a serious amount of data would get expensive.
- jasode 7y ago
  >It's not exactly rocket science. YouTube is convenient, but what it is doing from a technical standpoint isn't that difficult to do on your own server. You've left several comments in this thread talking down to people as if they're ignorant about how to write an HTML5 <video> tag on their own web server. I wasn't the one that downvoted your comment but for some reason, a lot of technical folks like you misunderstand Youtube and how it enables video uploaders. (A previous commenter misunderstands Youtube the same way and my previous reply to it.[0]) There is no self-hosting web server stack to serve videos that charges $0 to the content creator whether it gets zero or 1 billion views. Therefore, repeatedly recommending "self-host your videos" -- completely misses the point. Consider a corporate giant like Microsoft. Several years ago, they used to self-host their tech videos on channel9.msdn.com.[1] Now they're hosted on Youtube.[2] Obviously, MS is not so technically inept that they don't know how to stream their own videos! They also have billions in cash to prevent "server bandwidth exceeded" errors so cost isn't the issue. Stop and think about why Microsoft switched to Youtube instead of using their own MS Azure infrastructure. As for the other metaphor of "sharecropper" for Youtube that seems popular... is Microsoft a "sharecropper"? Why or why not? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18488275 [1] clicking any of the new videos on Microsoft's front page will play embedded Youtube videos: https://channel9.msdn.com/ https://channel9.msdn.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/Microsoft/search?query=build https://www.youtube.com/user/Microsoft/search?query=build

frankzen 7y ago

Three letters: AWS Same issue with regards to control but not as policed as YouTube...