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Comment by dcjintel | Hacker News Reader

Most people use Youtube because of the huge archive of footage, a really great search engine, and a good algorithm.

Do any of these sites attempt to beat them in these areas? Can you even do that?

I know I watch YouTube because there's a handful of specific channels whose content I really enjoy, and those channels are based on YouTube primarily because their audience - or potential audience - is there. That sort of established, two-way relationship is weighty enough to be difficult to shift.

Exactly. I don’t necessarily care about the YouTube pet se, but I do care about the specific content from the creators I follow. And the content creators go to where the users are. And the cycle repeats.

And while some of the same types of content may be available on other platforms, the personalities are almost completely focused on YouTube.

That's mostly true, but even if every single one of the creators I followed were also on platform X, there's also all the instrumentation around Youtube, such as TV apps, Chromecast support, third party support from other sites, etc. The site itself has so many features that people take for granted until one of gone.

Hell just removing a tiny portion of one feature (user submitted subtitles) had a huge uproar from the community. Most of these alternatives on the other hand don't have 80% of the features Youtube does.

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