Ask HN: what would a YouTube competitor need to get right to have a real chance?

Don't compete directly with a well-run monopoly.

(You can sometimes attack a monopoly directly if they're poorly run and can't adapt. But not if they're doing a decent job.)

Instead, do something YouTube doesn't do.

To make money for the contribs, preferably no hijacking of revenues for a 3 sec song clip. It's all about money, find a way to pay ppl for content and you win. There's already dozens of YouTube competitors but they don't pay. For example weed related content is a ban/demonetization on youtube. Anything with a song in the background for a split second as you're walking and filming is a demonetization.

Find youtube pain points then work on those - Having new/good stuff people people want to see, and a way for them to search/access it easier than youtube provides...

If I cant find anything I want to watch, it doesn't work well on my platform, and/or it is more cumbersome to find stuff then its a no-starter for me.

I guess for creators it would be easy to setup, upload, and get validated; easy to find their channel/content and play it; easy to monetize (if that's their thing) they would be willing to give it a try.

Large scale machine learning that can curate, crop, and find all the most interesting parts of all the content uploaded.

Youtubes recommendation algorithm is aimed at maximizing hours watched, its essentially a retargeting algorithm (it only wants to show you what you already watched). A system that eschews revenue for providing useful content you may want to watch could give a big edge. You need all that content though.

Make it robust against copyright takedowns. This probably requires making it decentralized and non-commercial. If your goal in competing with youtube is just to make money, then i hope this discourages you. We have way too much parasitism as it is. People desperately need communication tools not subject to corporate censorship.

Curated content starting in one domain. Don't be everything to everyone, at least not at first. (Think Amazon.)