I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each wants some 10-20€ out of your pocket.
I guess that means back to ad blockers and piracy…
Yes, but we keep hoping something better will show up, it's just taking way too long.
I think something like Reddit/Lemmy needs to happen to YouTube, the content creators are just not at that point yet.
There is a fediverse version of YouTube already called PeerTube. But people are finding it's incredibly expensive to host video streaming servers and is a large part why it hasn't really taken off.
Well, that and a host of other problems with its interface. Nobody's very interconnected, so it's hard to find videos.
Not to mention you're paying for it, where the goal for making videos to to get paid lol. Peertube has no ability to monetize, so even if the hosting was somehow solved, the monetization would prevent it from taking off.
Less-corporate, creator-owned networks like Nebula and Dropout might be a potential route to a more sustainable and less centralized online video ecosystem.