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Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:

"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.

As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.

As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.

Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.

Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
    622·
    3 months ago

    I think that Chandra has a point - media platforms do often devolve into ad companies, once they rely on advertisement money to survive. Because once someone is paying for a platform’s continued existence, they can dictate the terms, by simply threatening to stop paying for it.

    And, granted, Odysee is a Nazi and crypto bro haven, but the point still stands - let us not be fools saying “Hitler ate bread so bread bad”, and ignore a message that also applies to environments that [correctly] tell the Nazi to fuck off.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
        51·
        3 months ago

        Regardless of why he’s saying that ads fuck up media platforms, the reasoning itself is sensible. And, while nobody in this thread is saying “ads good”, plenty people across Lemmy see advertisement as some sort of necessary evil when it comes to supporting online platforms, and they’re willing to compromise, even if that would be a bloody mistake.

        If he was making ad money he’d be saying exactly the opposite of all this.

        Then he would be saying something idiotic. (It wouldn’t be noteworthy.)

        Fascists don’t have any morals but power for power’s sake. That’s what fascism IS.

        It’s actually worse than simple lack of morals: they have fucked up moral premises, that are immoral for anyone with a shred of dignity.

        And even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, since Chandra got no financial support from ads, he stumbled upon a decent reasoning, regardless of doing so for moral or immoral reasons.

    • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      41·
      3 months ago

      As a youtube premium member i wish youtube could cut out all ads for everyone and just keep the premium advantages for members. But i’m sure it’s not that easy to keep the boat afloat. Hopefully they can get to a healthy balance of income for watch time and reduce ads for free viewers. But we all know they just want to see the line go up for the greed and would never reduce ads if people still watch with as many ads as possible.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
        6·
        3 months ago

        But we all know they just want to see the line go up for the greed and would never reduce ads if people still watch with as many ads as possible.

        Exactly - there’s no such thing as “we got enough income, so maybe we should be kinder to our users”, when it comes to Alphabet/Google/YouTube.

              • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                You’re welcome!

                The parent company is little known, because it’s relatively recent (from 2015) and keeps low profile, so I’m not surprised that you didn’t hear about it. I think that its main goal is to make it harder to sue Google for enforcement of vertical monopolies, given that other subsidiaries deal with AI and with broadband internet.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        I’ve had a YouTube premium subscription for a long time as well, what advantages are there besides no ads that are actually worth having?

        • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          Youtube music comes with youtube premium wich i use a lot, listening with the screen turned off wich i use a lot for music and asmr, i saw that they added some kind of upscaling on some videos that i think are under 1080p to 1080p with increased bitrate or something like that, they added games recently wich i could not care less about. There might be other stuff but i’m not sure what else could be premium.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            Yeah, I use YouTube music a lot. In terms of YouTube itself though, it’s basically no ads, and the creators you do watch get a bit more coin than thru otherwise would.

        • Tja@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Adding to what has already been said, offline viewing in the mobile app, while still synchronizing the status of watched videos when you go back online. Already existed with new pipe, but now the creators get rewarded.