YouTube scares me; I need RAID 1 for my video content
I've published 500 videos in 18 years on my YouTube channel.
It was different back in 2006, when I moved from Google Videos over to YouTube. Monetization wasn't a thing, and we all just posted video online for the fun of it.
Fast forward to today, and it seems like AI slop is set to take over the entire platform, proving the Dead Internet Theory right. You have AI videos with AI bots watching and commenting, and YouTube enables it by plastering unskippable ads everywhere! They make money, AI farms make money, everyone's happy!
...except for you and me.
They took away dislikes, so we lost one of the best signals for avoiding slop. And then they push shorts and products so much, it's harder for creators who want to do things with intentionality.
The tl;dr?
- YouTube's been great, but it also scares me
- Because of that, I'm now also on Floatplane!
This blog post is a lightly edited transcript of this YouTube video:
What's Floatplane? I'll get to that soon.
For me, YouTube's a lot more about the community, the interaction, and the learning than the TV aspect.
What I mean by that is you go to a TV and pop a video on just to be entertained for a bit.
But you don't normally do that if you're going to sit at your workbench and work on something. Or if you want ask questions and discuss things with the person who made the video.
It can happen, but as we see more of a move towards TV and mobile, the interaction, the part that made Web 2.0 special, fades away.
And I hate that.
Besides that, YouTube's ad and business-friendly policies over the years have led to some unfortunate realities.
One of those realities was I got hit by my first community guidelines strike last year:
After being published on my channel for over two years, YouTube put a strike on my channel for my video showing people how to set up Jellyfin on their NAS, for promoting "dangerous or harmful content" pic.twitter.com/xs6mbrOFv3
— Jeff Geerling (@geerlingguy) October 2, 2024
YouTube said my video on self-hosting Jellyfin had "dangerous or harmful content."
It was a bit scary thinking if that happens twice, my entire YouTube channel—in fact all my YouTube channels, could just disappear overnight.
Luckily, after that Twitter post, I got someone inside Google to remove the strike.
But if you watch the news, you'll see this isn't an isolated incident. And unlike my case, or Sinevibes more recently, not every creator has the reach to get in touch with Google.
So we see some channels just fade off into nothingness—and that frightens me.
On top of that, the viewer experience on YouTube is getting worse. It's a sad state of affairs when people have to rely on extensions like Return YouTube Dislike, ReVanced, or SponsorBlock just to not hate the UX. And I don't begrudge anyone for trying to make it easier to watch YouTube.
But in light of all that, as a hedge, I want to make sure my content is also available somewhere else; something like a 'RAID 1' for my online video content.
Floatplane
Floatplane has zero ads and zero algorithms. Subscribers can download all my videos in 4K with no DRM, and even integrate my channel into their local, self-hosted media library!
I'll still upload everything to YouTube. Nothing's going behind a paywall.
If you haven't heard of Floatplane, it's one of a few creator-founded video hosting platforms.
It seems like any channel on YouTube that grows large enough eventually sets up shop somewhere else. And the biggest creators often build their own sites. Like there's Corridor Digital, Nebula, Dude Perfect, and of course Floatplane.
But on Floatplane, some creators are invited to create a channel, and people can pay to access their content. There are no ads, the user experience is centered around video, and most of the money people pay makes it to the creator.
People who are deeply invested in 'tech YouTube' likely know of drama surrounding Linus Tech Tips (which is Floatplane's primary focus), Gamers Nexus, and Louis Rossmann. I've never had any bad interactions with any of the above, so I have nothing to say about the drama. I approached Floatplane as a platform for my video content, nothing more.
(I did enjoy LTX 2023, and LMG paid for my flight and hotel to attend, just to be transparent.)
While we're on the topic of things that scare me, the whole idea that "you're either with me, or you're my enemy" permeating social media is a bit annoying.
The best thing about Floatplane (in comparison to YouTube) is there actual humans I can reach.
As an aside, while I love Floatplane's simplicity, there are some warts with the platform, especially from an accessibility perspective. I'm documenting those on my GitHub.
Why not Nebula?
When I initially announced this on Twitter, a few people asked why I didn't join Nebula?
First, it seems like Nebula is an invite-only platform (similar to Floatplane, though Floatplane has a form for content creators to fill out—which seems to go into a black hole right now).
Second—after one conversation with someone from Nebula about the possibility of my joining—I have three things that put me off, for now at least:
- Lack of enthusiasm for comments
- An exclusivity clause
- Potential reliance on affiliate marketing for platform income
Comments might be the biggest thing holding me back. Honestly, a platform like Nebula feels more like a Netflix or an Apple TV than a YouTube.
Half the things I learn from video, I've learned from the comment section, and I've had plenty of extremely useful conversations in comments (on my channel and many others).
It's really the community aspect I think is missing. Having to send someone off-site to Reddit or elsewhere feels wrong. This blog would be the natural tie-in, but the conversations had around written content and video tend to be different, and I'd rather not mix the two.
As an illustration: most of my blog posts, including this one, which closely follow a video's transcript, still have major revisions, as video is an entirely different mode of communication than blogs.
In other words, even through the strange parasocial relationship dynamics on YouTube, I like and respect the people who comment on my videos, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
The two other reasons are smaller but still important. From what I can tell, if you post videos on Nebula, that's the only place you can post them, outside YouTube. And exclusivity deals feel weird to me.
If I had to sign something like that for Floatplane, I probably wouldn't have signed up for it.
The last reason is on how creators on Nebula make money. This is partially speculation on my part—I need to talk to some Nebula creators directly about this to know more, but it seems like a substantial portion of potential revenue comes out of how many people you get to join Nebula.
I just don't like affiliate marketing. It's something a lot of creators do, and I don't think it's bad necessarily... It's just, I just don't feel comfortable relying on affiliate marketing for income.
"But Jeff!" I know someone is typing, "what about Amazon Affiliates? You have that blurb in the footer of your website!"
Yes, I'm a member of Amazon Affiliates, and I have been for over a decade. But let me introduce you to a great line from Technology Connections' recent video on how Algorithms are breaking how we think:
Wait. Nuance? On the Internet? THAT'S ILLEGAL!
I publish all my sponsorship, affiliates, and product sample policies on GitHub. If you have any input, please leave a comment here or on GitHub :)
What about existing Patrons?
And what about Patreon? I'll keep my Patreon (and GitHub Sponsors) going like it's always been. My goal online—just as it has been since I started allowing sponsorships for my open source work—is to give people the option to support me in what I do. It's less about benefits, though you do get access to my Discord.
Floatplane of course, is a little different. For me, it's kind of the emergency escape hatch (RAID 1 for my video content). But for people who want to support my video work, it has the side benefit of giving a better viewing experience—as long as you don't need closed captions :(
YouTube giveth, YouTube taketh
YouTube's been amazing for me. It's allowed me to finally pursue my passion of learning and teaching in a way I could've never done working in a traditional school.
YouTube is also the only reason I was able to repair this ridiculously over-complicated sliding door on our minivan a few months ago.
But that which giveth, taketh away...
Jeff, his face black, his eyes red.
YouTube, when the walls fell.
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