They are, but even YT won't last forever. TikTok and IG are eating their lunch badly, and as YT continues to chase after that market and keeps neglecting and pissing off people that bring value to the platform, something just might crop up as an alternative.
I mean, a month ago many thought Reddit is irreplaceable, and now look around.
But reddit is fundamentally built different than other social media platforms. Reddit is more like a collection of forums than a social media platform. The only thing that keeps people on reddit is the content and that can be moved.
On Youtube its the Algorithm and the Content Creators that keep people to use the platform. PeerTube and LBRY simply don't have the creators Youtube has.
On reddit people choose what to see. On YouTube the algorithm simply is wayy more important than on reddit.
Exactly, it's about creators and content. If enough creators get ticked off, they move, content moves with them and users follow.
Let's not overestimate the algorithm too much. Big Tech thinks it's some godsend technology, but it's just another buzzword meaning "stream of content". If you don't have any special care about what you're looking at, then you can just scroll r/all or the TikTok front page, algorithm or not. And if you want some particular creators, you go where they go.
Nobody makes money off YT ads, all the creators who do content for money are paid from donations or sponsors. (Ok maybe not those who make just 30 sec clips. I mean people who make useful content.)
So at most this is meaningless. But it's not like YT is exactly friendly to creators. There are constant complaints about YT breaking shit, their inconsistent and unclear rules and overall incompetence.
One of these days YT will also piss off someone important who will move elsewhere with millions of viewers, and starts the flood.
It's not just about ads. Everyone knows Google is an extremely toxic company for all the parties except themselves.
I mean the revenue stream from YT is so unreliable. You say shit once in the wrong context, and poof demonetized. Or just for no reason. No creator of actual quality content really makes much from YT, because YT prefers to serve stupid consumer nonsense. A lot prefer to not have ads served on their videos at all (at least if that's still an option, I don't even know).
This is the inevitable problem with publicly traded companies in our lovely capitalist society. The line must go up, no matter the cost. Of course it makes no sense, they're just chasing the short term perpetually without ever noticing the cliff that just past their field of vision.
I'm also hopeful for more creator-owned services like Nebula and Dropout. They tend to run off extremely cheap subscription models (about $5 a month for Dropout, less than $2 a month for Nebula) and all that money goes to the creators with very little business overhead in the way.
True, but I don't thunk this will result in a migration to PeerTube like it was for Reddit to Lemmy. Instead it will make people put more effort into bypassing YouTubes adblocker detection efforts.