> Too many people are leaving the platform

A quick google search shows the platform has 2 billion monthly active users[1]. A number that has only been growing. Why do you claim people are leaving? Is it because of a handful of high-profile cases, or maybe you live in a hackernews/techie thought bubble where everyone is annoyed at youtube? The claim that people are leaving, or will leave is just completely baseless imo. This reminds me of the saying "there are 2 types of programming languages: those that people complain about, and those that no one uses".

[1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/

>It’s just a trickle now but soon it will be a flow.

And soon after that it will be a torrential exodus. Myspace died within the space of a few months during my time in high school. YouTube could easily face a similar downfall.

I'm not saying "YouTube will die in a year!" I'm saying if they don't fix their moderation problems, their auto-bans, etc... they will start to lose bigger and bigger customers more frequently.

I claim people are leaving _because they are_. Just because people are joining faster than they're leaving doesn't invalidate the point that people are leaving the platform for a place where their channels won't get completely demonetized for background music that an AI flagged. Youtube has a serious moderation problem, and it will be their bullet wound when another competitor comes along.

I too don't see people leaving. We can complain all we like. Nothing will change until there's an alternative.

Eh, I've seen several content creators I follow make loud and pointed moves away from YouTube after they've been targeted or after a high-profile case gets some news.

People are leaving, and if YouTube doesn't fix its moderation, it'll only get worse. There are alternatives, just none that have done anywhere close to as well as YouTube does. It's a good product, it literally just needs to not be moderated into the ground.

We've all seen mighty platforms fall. Myspace at one time could've made the same argument.

You're not wrong, but that logic doesn't hold forever.

Where are people escaping to? Are people publishing their own content on Gopher or BitTorrent nowadays? These platforms have a perfect balance of usability and freedom. They can take over the world.

It seems like they are making their own sites. Nebula is one such place where a few of the higher quality content creators are going. I've no idea if it'll work, but they are trying.

https://watchnebula.com/

With a $5 monthly fee and no way to upload your own videos, Nebula is most directly competing against Netflix, not YouTube. A few top creators might be able to make that work, but most won't.

And no free trial w/o giving credit card info. Yeah, hard pass.

That is very normal. It’s to prevent people from just creating accounts multiple times to never have to pay.

A $20 gift card is great for those things. Then, it doesn’t matter whether you remember to cancel.

Use privacy.com. It's a godsend.

The problem with these techniques is discover ability. How do you build an online audience without paying google for advertisements?

Then perhaps the solution isn't for politicians to demand that YouTube be separated from Google/Alphabet, but instead demand that users on YouTube be able to discover videos on other sites.

I see no reason why the search feature within YouTube couldn't return videos that people were hosting on their personal sites or on competitors to YouTube (including Twitch VODs and livestreams). Even subscriptions and recommendations could work across platforms.

YouTube could still run adverts in/on the videos, and the revenue from that would be split with the site where the video was actually published. For a greater share of the ad revenue, YouTube could also offer to stream (a copy of) the video from their own servers.

Even if sites (or Multi-Channel Networks) had to pay a $1000 fee to be included in this system, and YouTube kept its rules about moderation and demonetisation, it would still greatly improve discoverability and hopefully competition generally.

Patreon and Twitch seem to be doing a better job of handling content creators needs. I've seen a few who do everything on their own website, too, but that is less common for sure.