But can one really build a business on that platform? What kind of protections does the enterpreneur have? Do they have a contract with youtube? Is it easy to switch to some other platform?
How hard is it to buy video hosting from a web hotel?
I think the whole idea of the internet was a difference to these "dial in" services. On the internet, you can run your thing anywhere and anybody can access it just the same. No walls. That's the whole point.
More to the point, it's not that simple, it's not just streaming but apps for all the mobile devices + everything else that people watch video on (xbox, playstation, smart tv's).
I'm going away from YouTube to twitch and other services for some specific tech content. If it's relatively unique, people will find it. (Or if you build awareness over a long time, rather than starting on the day of disappearance)
You can trivially host a peertube instance (or use an existing one). The question is how to move your viewers there.
There doesn't seem to be anything explicitly stopping big accounts from mirroring content. See LTT channel creating floatplane (https://www.htxt.co.za/2019/12/17/linus-tech-tips-streaming-...)
There were no walls once. But it turns out building walls is a great way to make a lot of money.
The whole issue is that serving videos is very expensive to do as a "run your thing" effort. YouTube and Netflix alone are soaking up a lot of Internet bandwidth, so the subsidy YT is providing to video creators and viewers should not be underestimated. And this means YT gets to decide what they want to host.
Welcome to the future Marty! How was your ride in the time machine? I think you've got some catching up to do from the web/world of the early 2000's that you've just come from and are describing here.
Let me fill you in on what has happened. Platform Monopolies are in full swing, and the internet is now a corporate owned web - with a myriad of apps that are surveilling our every touch and click (US but also abroad). Palantir has terrifying racist policing algorithms, the NSA is plugged into everything and has a dragnet filling a complex database for US 'homeland security', social media/Facebook campaigns can be used by 'Doublespeak'-ing authoritarian childhood-traumatized leaders to win elections [1], and Crypto AG is a CIA owned company that has been selling back-doored cryptography tools to national governments for many decades. [2]
Oh and you might want to Google 'Edward Snowden' and go back and read some of the great the Guardian articles published about it. [3]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-mJnYmdVmQ
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22500231 or https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/812537258/uncovering-the-cias...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden...
-
edit: seriously though - Intellectual Property laws and the Silicon Valley strategy of purchasing IP by buying up competition is suffocating and stifling much needed access to essential technologies, depriving humans the ability to remix, reuse and have access to the underlying technical components in a modular fashion. Our current reality is killing our ability to meet these human needs for play, growth, autonomy and cooperation.
The most promising change I see possible is a transition to Commons-based peer production, using the Holographic chain distributed app pattern by Arthur Brock and Eric Harris-Braun, together with a move to mutual credit currencies, replacing mechanisms and dynamics that create or sustain the artificial scarcity of information or knowledge. This world would bring us universal access and shared control of a rich Commons, fully accessible by every child.
Essentially what I am describing is an open source world. An open source economic system made up of unencloseable carriers and ever-evolving protocols, immersing us in a diverse and beautiful Commons - our shared inheritance.
I think the narrative you describe comes from ubiquitous psychopathology, which affects all of us. In other words: the weight of our current systems creates a low level mental illness for all who are under it's influence and control. This weight comes from the continual stresses digitally technological society exerts on us. This is the shared reality of digital Rentier Capitalism [2]. It means the system keeps most of us fragmented and passive.
But I think your narrative is dangerous. To believe more suffering has to happen, just because you didn't experience pain directly doesn't mean others' suffering isn't worthy of acting upon. All you did is reveal your privilege, which is a great first step. Next comes awareness, should you choose to accept that important mission [3]
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-clas...
[2] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
If you think things can't or won't get even worse, you're being too optimistic. Even if you think some people are already experiencing a maximally bad time, "some" can become "more".