You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider. Long term you want to own your distribution channel as much as possible, while using YouTube as your lead generation tool to drive true believers to your site and premium distribution channel not owned by YouTube. Otherwise, you will always be subject to platform risk via YouTube's whims which has destroyed many content creators. That's the long term winning play IMO and it doesn't preclude tools like FreeTube.
Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market.
Nobody is going to go to OP's personal site to watch videos. They are going to fire up YT and eat what the algorithm feeds them.
The reason PeerTube and Nebula are important is it provides the potential for a true alternative destination for people looking for videos. Once these platforms have an enough content to draw an audience naturally, then content creators will be able to survive a post-YT world.
For people like the OP, it's probably best to follow the model video games do with DRM. Post on YT first, to get the ad revenue, then repost on other platforms after some time to build up an alternative subscriber base. Presumably, in-video sponsorships will pay for these views as well, even if there's no direct ad-sense like revenue model.
> Realistically, how many viewers will be retained should YT shut the OP down? Right now, that number rounds to 0. Practically speaking, YT is free internet video streaming for long-form videos on the US market.
People have been following this strategy of creating their own mini-brands for years and have their own following. YT doesn't even have all of the their content, and YT is just one lead gen channel. Frankly, Ad Revenue from YT is pitiful, and it's an open secret the real money is made as I've described (although it is a long term play).
I don't disagree with you about PeerTube and the like, but it is a two-sided marketplace and you need to prime both sides of that pump (content creators and viewers).
Nebula is invite only, as far as I can tell, for creators.
People don’t really want another step in the already arduous process of making videos - especially when the return on investment will be $0. This website will die off in a couple years and everyone who wastes time on it will be worse off for it.
You need to build a product so good that my statement above sounds INSANE. Not just “I think he’s wrong” but “dude absolutely no way. Everyone will want this. Are you stupid?”
And this is not that product.
Edit: yeah. I was curious so I went searching for ASMR videos. The default search brought some (terrible-looking) ones up, but half of them were in French? I sorted by views instead, and even though I literally only searched for “ASMR”, there were no longer any ASMR videos near the top of the results. For something trying to compete with YouTube, this is a very mid experience. Nobody is going to waste time migrating.
I think for most people you're right, they just want to upload their videos, and maybe make a couple of bucks on the side. I was referring to folks who are truly committed to making this their career and want to have their own brand. Many, many people are already doing this, so it isn't something theoretical. Most YouTubers are automating their production pipeline, so another upload step isn't too hard, especially nowadays where it is easier than ever to build a bespoke, deterministic pipeline with agents writing scripts and programs.
Alright, you're hosting on FreeTube (paying for hosting & bandwidth costs) - how are you making money? Most YouTubers don't want to run their own ad network or sell a physical product. Sponsors make deals conditional on YouTube engagement metrics.
There are lots of strategies how to make money and it will vary based on your specialty. It could be premium content, premium services, exclusive engagement with your fans, merchandising (e.g., many cooking YouTubers sell their own brand of cooking utensils that they have designed themselves). It requires some thought, but the idea is to deepen the authenticity and engagement by building an actual community and your own personal micro-brand. The offering needs to feel organic and huge value to your community in some way. Many many people have done this on YT and now are making way more money than what's possible with the pittance that is YT monetization. YT then becomes just one part of your funnel intake strategy once you get big enough.
Edit: Of course, you do need to have enough demand/scale to make it worth your while, but that will depend on your audience size and how engaged/invested they are in your content AND you personally to an extent. Perhaps be creative and start out with small experiments. Not too hard with LLMs nowadays.
> You can publish to both and even better your own domain that simply points to your video hosting provider.
That one is likely the best use case while one monetizes on YT waiting for FreeTube to gain more popularity. Worth also for keeping a safer online accessible backup in case things go south with the YT channel being taken down for any reason, be it bogus copyright claims or else. What I'm not sure of though is how long until Google changes YT rules to disallow linking or even mentioning competing, or perceived as such, services. Companies always do that: I'm a Ebay user since 2008, 100% feedback both as seller and customer, hundreds of positives not a single negative or neutral in 18 years, but a while ago Ebay in their infinite wisdom blocked a listing of mine because I added the links of the documentation needed to use the device I was selling; no way to appeal successfully or have it restored, they evidently either used a monkey or AI to detect what they identified as an attempt to contact the customer outside of Ebay, for a €30 item nonetheless. Years ago they didn't enforce such idiotic limitations, so I wouldn't put any trust on YT to remain consistent with their current rules.