
Ask HN: Why is building a video platform so hard in 2020 for smaller creators? - colesantiago
As the title suggests, with YouTube, Netflix and Vimeo being the biggest video platforms in the world, how does one go about building their own video platform like those?<p>I&#x27;m surprised why I haven&#x27;t seen a new incumbent in the video space in over 5 years.
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Someone
1\. Getting content is a challenge. Why would people upload their videos to a
platform with few users?

2\. Getting users is a challenge. Why would users flock to a platform with few
videos?

3\. Getting rid of content is a challenge. How do you filter out the stuff you
don’t want on your platform (copyrighted material, child pornography,
terrorist propaganda, etc)?

4\. You’ll bleed money until you have lots of users, possibly even after that.

Also, given that you mention Netflix: both Apple and Disney entered the market
recently (for Apple, I think the jury is still out, but they have deep
pockets, so they may not be in too much of a hurry to become profitable);
Disney, with its enormous catalog, couldn’t go wrong, I think)

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PaulHoule
If I wanted to publish video independent of YouTube I would probably use this
AWS service

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/Develope...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/on-
demand-streaming-video.html)

The document makes it look much harder than it really is. It really should be
a matter of "upload video to S3" and then "run a script" and a while later it
is loaded in the CDN and good to go.

The deal breaker for most people would be the cost, something like 0.10 per GB
downloaded, with reasonable quality that would be $0.10 for an hour of video.

If YouTube didn't exist it would be an easy sell: compare that to cable where
a person with a serious TV habit might watch 200 hours of TV a month and pay
$80, that is 40 cents per hour including both the content and the distribution
network.

It would be a weekend project to make a web site that ordinary people could
upload video that would pipe it through that script into the Cloudfront CDN.

If it were to turn into a hit you would run into two problems: (1) costs for
bandwidth, storage and compute and (2) illegal and otherwise troublesome
content.

The AMZN price is a sustainable price, they are making a healthy profit, they
aren't going to be in a hurry to discontinue the service. (Use "unlimited"
bandwidth at a cheap web host and you might get a call where they explain that
it as "unlimited" as an "unlimited" cell phone plan.)

You could pay less but you will be spending your time, spending money up
front, etc.

You are now dealing with problem (2). That includes: pirate content, beheading
videos, incitement to violence, slander, fraud, privacy violations, "fake
news", child pornography, other pornography, innocent people accused of
posting videos of the above sorts, etc.

Google has lawyers who have gotten a favorable deal with the content industry.
That's the easy part. If you go about it with any sense of "justice" or
"fairness" the content moderation job can destroy your mental health through
this mechanism:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury)

You either take a "delete them all and let [God] sort them out attitude" or
you pay somebody else to do it.

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IanDrake
Youtube and Netflix are two very different video platforms. Can you rephrase
the question?

Why are there no new Netflix like competitors? Like Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc...

Or, why are there no YouTube competitors? Like PeerTube, BitChute, TikTok,
etc...

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colesantiago
For smaller creators to create their own Netflix I haven't seen any incumbents
for 5 years.

On YouTube competitors again the same applies, PeerTube, BitChute, and TikTok
don't allow you make money on their platform.

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fsflover
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24222661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24222661)

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aiscapehumanity
data capacity, data management, mass appeal, costs.

