Quick and dirty review of YouTube alternatives
I recently got banned from live streaming for a fucking absurd reason, so I'm expediting my plans to alleviate Hoax Wars of its gross infected dependency on the Filtered Video Platform known as "YouTube".
First step was to take a list of 10 of the top alternative video platforms, create a profile on each platform and upload a video.
Mandatory is the ability to live stream, deliver to mobile, and to allow embedding on an external site. It also has to look nice and be performant without too many bugs.
Here are 10 video platforms that may be able to serve as alternatives to YouTube, with a snapshot of the channel page and status of each services' embed, live, and mobile capabilities.
If you use any of these services I'd love to hear your opinion in the replies.
| Provider | Embed | Live | Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|
BitChute  | with plugin? | No | No |
DailyMotion  | Yes | No | OS, Android |
DLive  | with plugin | Yes | No |
dTube  | with plugin | No | No |
Facebook  | Yes | Yes | iOS, Android |
Gab  | No | Soon | Android |
LiveLeak (signup not working)  | No | No | Android |
Minds.com  | No | No | iOS, Android |
Twitch  | Yes | Yes | iOS, Android |
Vimeo  | Yes | Premium | iOS, Android |
Twitch
The good: Easy livestreaming w/ live chat, videos stored, easy video download, monetization (with 40-50% fee to Amazon), good app, good notifications, no censorship so far.
The bad: Owned by Amazon, many claim censorship is around the corner.
DTube
The good: Best potential monetization option, great community, no censorship, blockchain.
The bad: No app, difficult upload process, poor surfacing of relevant content, limited audience.
Vimeo:
The bad: Free option is useless (500MB/wk, 5GB total); $84/yr only 5GB/wk, 250GB/yr; $240/yr gets 20GB/wk, 1TB/yr. I couldn't justify the expense.
Facebook:
I don't use it because I would be banned very quickly.
Periscope (not mentioned)
I'm banned forever. Not a bad alternative if you can use it and free. No monetization, can't easily download previous shows.
Bitchute
The good: Automatic upload from YouTube, better UI than DTube, potential for "viral" videos, more view potential than DTube, no censorship, blockchain.
The bad: No monetization, limited reach compared to YouTube.
DLive
The good: Livestreaming on the blockchain, monetization, no censorship.
The bad: Can't multicast to DLive and Twitch/YouTube with Restream.io, which makes it useless to me. Very limited reach, no app, poor UI.
@lifttheveil411 THANK YOU. Awesome writeup, that was all the work I was about to do. You just saved me so much time. Mind if I put your notes in a column in the table in the article with credit?
Do that! Combine those notes.
Very good info that you and @lifttheveil411 put out there.
This is all so interesting I don't dare get in the way ; )
@steempunkmedia
Let me also point out.
It’s not a question of whether or not @frankbacon is running an operation, it’s about how many he happens to be running at any give time
Restream.io broadcasts to 30 different platforms at once, including Twitch from your list. Broadcasting on multiple platforms at once is definitely a way to fight back against censorship, it makes it orders of magnitude harder for The Powers That Shouldn't Be to silence you completely.
It's possible to configure Restream to output to Facebook, Vimeo, dLive, and others via RMTP custom platform. You have to pay for this but it's not much.Restream also has a URL chat feature which integrates chat from the different platforms into a single feed.
If you sign up for Vimeo Pro Live you can automatically stream to Facebook Live too from their interface.
I would add to your list:
Periscope (Twitter)
UStream (now IBM Cloud Video)
Livestream.com
Great info @steveouttrim. Have you tried Restream its D.Live? I've heard that's a potent combo.
Daily Motion is a good basic replacement for youtube for uploading videos. Don't know about live streaming as I don't do that.
DTube has a lot of promise but I've found it to be way too frustrating and unreliable.
I am only a viewer but Dtube freezes a lot, much like Steemit. Of course it is more irritating when you are trying to watch a video. If they want to grow they need to figure that out pretty quick or many like myself wont click any videos hosted there.
I agree, @practicalthought. Very frustrating when it takes hours to upload a fairly small project. Also, it's very odd that my chan was on a steady increase in STD - but before it hit a certain amount, it kept falling and stalling. Still doing same thing. Some group is artificially controlling the market so only they will profit, externally. The content providers seem to be getting the shaft. That seems very shady.
Sorry to hear about the apparent issues of manipulation. I can't say I am surprised. I have seen it here as well, but that is a topic for another time and thread so as not to hijack this one. No matter where you go there will be the schemers looking to see how little they can leave for everyone else.
dTube is very frustrating. I found a lot less problems using it with Firefox (on Mac)
I've been using Chrome. I'll give firefox a try and see if it works any better for me.
BIG QUESTION: What have you heard about alternatives to Youtube coming to Smart TV's and Streaming Devices? It seems horribly unjust - criminal even - that Google's Youtube (and Amazon in select areas) has the ABSOLUTE LOCK on this market. That is something we have to unite behind to change.
It took all I had to refrain from a long chain of swearing about this issue. Thanks for bringing this subject up. It's a good start.
You can run Twitch on Apple TV using Player2 app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/player2-for-twitch/id1176323841?mt=8
Thanks, @stevouttrim. I'm hoping they swiftly make some content available on all smart TV's and other streaming stix. Still, that's more than I knew about. It's a bit outrageous these monopolies exist at all and exert so much control over the masses. WE need to get some petitions going.
Nice list you got here with many different alternatives.
Just want to mention some that you didn't put on the list if people are interested what's out there.
Vidlii which is a clone of how YouTube look liked in 2008 and has a small but dedicated communtiy around it.
TheVlogs which is a site focusing on the vloggers that want to be able to speak their mind.
I have my sort list here if anyone interested:
https://steemit.com/dtube/@anderssinho/youtube-alternatives-diversify-and-backup-your-content
Hope you do a follow up in the future and see what's happens with each platform.
Upvote the post, even dough I see it's older than 7 days :/
Good work, nice one for putting this together.
All good options, apart from Facebook which needs to go away and die :)
WE need to get some petitions going. Anyone interested in helping with this project?
hoaxwars looks like you copy / pasted some content of this post from this article:
Playing Final Fight 2 on Super Nintendo
Please consider to avoid plagiarism!