I think it’s the same reason YouTube can keep shooting itself in the foot and still thrive: it’s where all the eyeballs are concentrated now.
I agree, I’m a “Have your own blog / homepage” proponent myself…
…but I got as far as a domain and have paid (cheap) hosting for a few years…then installing Wordpress and dang is it way clunkier to set up than I ever imagined. 🙃
I think YouTube is an interesting & dare-I-say necessary evil at this point tho. Hosting video is prohibitively expensive with all the codecs & bitrates + global distribution. Folks watch YouTube when bored or lonely & scaling that from a home network would put most creators out of business … especially if trying to compete.
…But plaintext? Even with images (reencoded with a few improved codecs like JPEG XL in a ``) is cheap. Especially if you have access to the router & a static IP or dynamic DNS, it can be hosted at home & unless you are insanely popular won’t even put a noticeable dent in one’s bandwidth.
I think it’s the same reason YouTube can keep shooting itself in the foot and still thrive: it’s where all the eyeballs are concentrated now.
Yeah…it is difficult to jump ships and try out another service - even when the other service is generally a better option than the previous one - if you don’t get an audience big enough to even bother starting with the otherwise better service.
I think it’s the same reason YouTube can keep shooting itself in the foot and still thrive: it’s where all the eyeballs are concentrated now.
I agree, I’m a “Have your own blog / homepage” proponent myself…
…but I got as far as a domain and have paid (cheap) hosting for a few years…then installing Wordpress and dang is it way clunkier to set up than I ever imagined. 🙃
I think YouTube is an interesting & dare-I-say necessary evil at this point tho. Hosting video is prohibitively expensive with all the codecs & bitrates + global distribution. Folks watch YouTube when bored or lonely & scaling that from a home network would put most creators out of business … especially if trying to compete.
…But plaintext? Even with images (reencoded with a few improved codecs like JPEG XL in a ``) is cheap. Especially if you have access to the router & a static IP or dynamic DNS, it can be hosted at home & unless you are insanely popular won’t even put a noticeable dent in one’s bandwidth.
Yeah…it is difficult to jump ships and try out another service - even when the other service is generally a better option than the previous one - if you don’t get an audience big enough to even bother starting with the otherwise better service.