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"

  • RubyRhod@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Channels can still run they’re own in-video ads tho, yeah?

    It’s less so, but not incorruptible.

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Yes, but usually it’s the videos that are synced to Odysee directly from YouTube which contain these sponsored segments. I’ve never seen an Odysee exclusive video before that has a sponsored segment, because the platform isn’t big enough for advertisers to care.

    • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Tbh I’m OK with brand deals from creators I like, it’s the forced 2 minutes of unskippable bullshit I can’t stand

        • Noobnarski@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          It also breaks the flow of the video, which is why I have started skipping them. I noticed just how much nicer videos without any sponsorships are because you dont have to dedicate time to lead into and out of an ad and can continue the video without explaining everything twice.

          I also dont see any value gained by me or the creator if I fully watch the 100th squarespace commercial, as I dont get to hear anything new.

          But the most egregious videos are where they try to hide that they are transitioning into an ad, like by creating some minute long argument that leads from the topic to the sponsor. Which leads to me not only having wasted my time for the actual ad, but also the transition.

  • nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    I stopped looking into Odysee after I heard LBRY was shutting down. There doesn’t seem to be much transparency on what the future of the site is. Also echoing the concern that some have already raised, the complete lack of moderation is a double edged sword that seems to have fostered a home for right-wing extremists.

  • Eiri@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    How… How are they gonna pay for bandwidth if there aren’t any ads?

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Nice! Yeah, I use LibreWolf too and never saw them. I started using the mobile app recently which didn’t block ads though. I found them a bit annoying because the mobile app is very unoptimised atm, so the ads being there just made things worse.

      The way they worked previously was that they would appear in the apps interface. They wouldn’t play within the video’s themselves, and a small advertisement would pop up at the bottom of the screen which you could cross-off manually.

      • bruhduh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        I use mullvad vpn on mobile devices it has internal adblocker, paid with monero

        • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Good on you. I plan to pay for Mullvad VPN too when I can afford it again; with Monero too. Didn’t know it had an internal ad-blocker for mobile though, that’s awesome.

          • bruhduh@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            If you connect with openvpn you can add their custom adblocking dns to config and block everything on pc too, better yet, install openwrt on your router and install mullvad on it though openvpn with their custom dns server, they have in app adblocker too, if you use mullvad app

            • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 month ago

              I had plans to use Quad9 on my router when I get home WiFi back, and using Mullvad DNS on my Android phone, which Mullvad also blocks app trackers.

              With the setup you’re suggesting, does this make the VPN be “built-in” to the router and extend the VPN service to all devices connected to it?

              • bruhduh@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                1 month ago

                Yes, you can install vpn to router however, i did not tried yet, I’ve tried to share calyx vpn and it refused to, but i think with mullvad it’s going to be okay since they have official guides how to https://mullvad.net/en/help/openwrt-routers-and-mullvad-vpn , I’m in the process of modding my router right now so it’s going to take some time before i can test it, it have 18.04 version of openwrt and but compiled recent version, also ram and rom chips got to be upgraded to use it properly, today i upgraded ram, but for rom chip, i gotta read memory dump and write it to new chip so I’ll do that later

                • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  1 month ago

                  Thanks for all your suggestions mate. I’m going to favourite your comment so I can come back to it at some point to remind myself to look into them.

  • EnderWiggin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    How do creators generate income? Is it just Patreon type stuff? YouTube is probably one of the few services I actually don’t hate using other than its terrible algorithm.

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      I’ve never cared to generate income on my own channel, so I’m not sure how all of it works. But the main way that I know of is through channel tips. There’s a ($ Support) button below every channel and content upload, which lets you directly tip the creator. You can use Patreon or anything else if you want to, but the functionality is built in. Odysee gets a 5% cut of all the tips sent to channels. There may be other ways of making money, but I’m not aware of what they might be.

      Edit: Heres’s their help page about monetization: https://help.odysee.tv/category-monetization/

  • ulkesh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Sure looks full of MAGA garbage. Conceptually it’s a good idea, but I’ll be passing since I don’t need that trash in my life.

    • YTG123@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      It definitely is, but it doesn’t try to force recommendations on you like YouTube. You can mostly just subscribe to channels you like and view their content.

      • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        It doesn’t force recommendations on you, and channels you don’t like can be muted or blocked. I’ve only blocked a handful of channels (Most of them were synced from YT too). Than there are sections: if you only want to see content you like to see, use the respective sections. If you want to see technology content, you aren’t going to click on the spirituality section.

        Furthermore, recommendations aren’t actually a free feature (yet), as it’s still in early access and comes with Premium. 99.99% of the people who are upset about the “recommended content” being stuff they strongly dislike aren’t actually even being recommended anything to begin with. The videos that appear on the side are “Related” videos. Their system for determining related videos isn’t extremely comprehensive yet, so some other random content can slip through the cracks. For example, I was listening to a no-copyright music track called Icelanding Arpeggios, and I was shown a “Related” video along the side; a video synced from YouTube, which was of a man’s voice reading aloud Psalm 4 of the Old Testament with Icelanding Arpeggios playing in the background. The reason it was classified as “Related” wasn’t because some system was able to listen to the music in the video, but because the exact words “Icelanding Arpeggios” appeared in the description of said video about that Psalm. Here’s an example of “Related” suggestions. In this case they are working well and as intended, showing more video’s related to Solid-State batteries.

        So the current unfortunate reality is that a video about, for example, how gravity works, occasionally may suggest “Related” content on the side about gravity not being real, that the earth is flat, and that the sun is 3,000 miles in the sky. Because, you know, it’s about the sun and gravity. The video’s are technically related in some way, but most people who are learning about the universe don’t want to see that, because it has no real scientific basis, is not widely accepted, and gravity and the ball earth has already been proven to be true.

        After all, Odysee is still being developed, and their system’s for suggested “Related” content is still not fully matured.

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      I completely understand not wanting to see that there, and you don’t have to see it, and besides, I see that all over YouTube too when I’m not signed in receiving good recommendations based on what I like.

      I suggest reading my comment response to YTG123 (which is the other person who just replied to you), since you probably weren’t notified of it. Sorry to not reply directly, but I understandably don’t want to write another few hundred words, and the comment is relevant to you.

      • ulkesh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        Thank you for this reasonable response.

        Perhaps when things mature, I’ll give it another look. YouTube for me, when not signed in, does not have the sheer plethora of MAGA nonsense like this site does. Maybe it’s some regional algorithm, I don’t know, though I live in the south where MAGA idiocy runs rampant.

        I take the path of least resistance when it comes to filtering out lies and garbage from my life. For now it’s simpler for me to just not browse the site than to weed out such content.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Internet is full of MAGA garbage. Bittorrent DHT is full of MAGA garbage. What’s your point? There are ways to filter out what you don’t want to see.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          I can see it, I just want you to spell it out that you are a fascist douchebag (everyone who wants to censor other opinions is that).

          • ulkesh@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            So…being anti-MAGA makes me fascist. Got it. And I never once said I wanted to censor opinions. Stop making shit up, you sound like a MAGA moron.

            Good lord, they’re everywhere. Literal morons, everywhere.

  • 58008@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    It’s depressing that bleating “free speech” has become a shibboleth, betraying the speaker’s tedious far right contrarianism and a wish to express it without consequence. Racists, Nazis, x-phobes, bigots of all stripes; these are your target audience when your primary objective for your platform is supposedly “free speech”, especially when it’s in opposition to the censorship of your users’ bigotry on other platforms. I wish it weren’t so, but it fucking is, 100% of the time.

    It’s like on reddit, when you discover a splinter sub called r/FunSubReborn or something, where they post the same content as r/FunSub, but in this “reborn” sub you can also be an unmitigated cunt in the comments and make racist or phobic remarks without getting banned.

    Tedious, tiresome, clueless wankers.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Yeah it really does seem this way.

      I’ve never been a “free speech absolutist”. I acknowledge that censorship is problematic, but it seems much less so than the alternative.

    • sparkle@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      r/TrueUnpopularOpinion, r/TrueOffMyChest, r/GoodAnimemes (that sub was made after r/Animemes mods stated that “trap” was a slur, which made a bunch of manchildren angry who went to go make their own sub, so you can immediately guess how much of a misogynistic porn-oriented hellhole it is)

        • sparkle@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          Trap is a slur, especially used often by weebs. Describing gender non-conforming characters who look feminine as “traps”, including many canonically non-binary and woman characters, is pretty fucked up when you think about it. To them, “traps” and genderqueer people in general are sex objects, not characters with respectable identities. Most of the weebs that throw that word around are also the ones to do trans erasure, like denying that a character is transgender or otherwise gender non-conforming, instead treating any character implied not to be AFAB as a man; and then often ironically going crazy defending it as “not gay” because that’d be bad – there’s a reason “traps aren’t gay” is a meme, and it’s an unironically defended position by these people. They convince themselves it’s not gay by reducing queer people & characters down to sex objects, things to masturbate to, rather than people. If you don’t see them as an equal person, it’s not gay or immoral, is how they process it. Obviously they won’t say that explicitly if you ask them though, they’ll just say it’s not gay because being attracted to things that look like women is straight or something.

          That’s why it’s used a shit ton in, you know, porn. Not just hentai, but actual real porn. Usually in place of “bitch”, “whore”, or some other word used to dehumanize women. They’re used in the same derogatory manner. It’s pretty disturbing when men use “bitch” or “whore” to refer to women and female characters, it’s dehumanizing. And it’d be pretty disturbing to well-adjusted people if someone described anyone feminine genderqueer as “a trap”, but this is a slur that weebs are fine using amongst themselves.

          You would think those people wouldn’t equate anime characters with real people, but this mentality transfers between fiction and nonfiction unfortunately. Often times the way you feel about character identities in media is representative of the way you feel about the identities of real people – just look at the backlash of the gamergate people about the woke “ruining games and movies” by putting minorities and women in them.

          Now, I’m not saying everyone who’s ever used the word “trap” is a bigot or anything. People use words without realizing the way others see it, and the impact it has. I used it in my weeb phase. But undeniably, “trap” is a derogatory word and a slur used to objectify queer people, and it always has been – it originated in 4channers & internet weirdos getting mad over trans people being at gaming events, posting pictures and labelling them “traps” (“they’re trying to trick you into thinking they’re a woman to trap you into having sex with them, when they’re really not a woman”). It’s no different than other slurs for queer people (like “fag” or “sodomite”). It’s harmful and shouldn’t be used. Persistence on using it shows a lack of respect for queer people and their identities.

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      You cannot say things “uncontrollably” as there is still a community guidelines set of rules that just aren’t as strict as YouTube’s, plus the ability to report is there too. Despite being a free speech platform, it is still legally required not to host illegal content, and so these community guidelines absolutely must be there. If the comments or videos directly promote violence or hatred (just two examples), they are grounds for removal by site moderators. They are usually only removed when people report them, though, since the moderation team likely isn’t very large at this point in time.

      In my 2 years with Odysee, I’ve found one person earlier this year directly promoting extreme violence in a comment section. That’s one time too many; but it’s still a long time. I reported them, and they were removed. I don’t know how long it took for them to remove it though, because I only checked if the comment was still there after a couple of weeks; and it wasn’t; so I can’t speak for the swiftness of the moderators in their actions yet.

      • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        One problem is when sometimes reporting doesn’t work, and the shit stays there possibly forever, even after “human” review.

  • Sol 6 VI StatCmd@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    I just synced my youtube channel with odysee… Yeah a bunch of alt right trash is floating around but the only way to change that is to drown it out with actual content. The more normal content uploaded the less breathing room for the outrageous bullshit in feeds. Hopefully my library helps.

        • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Cool, yeah that’s fair enough. I was unsure about sharing my own channel here too, considering I’m very careful about my privacy.

          • Sol 6 VI StatCmd@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            Ditto lol I spent a long time changing accounts and setting up new ones to have a unified handle across the net I can just share my real opinions about lol gotta keep it up it’s hard work out here.

  • Shape4985@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Iv been using odysee for a couple years and never had an ad on the ios or android app. Nor in the browser. (In video sponsors dont count). Odysee ftw i much prefer when creators i watch use youtube and a alternative platform like odysee

    • DreitonLullaby@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Yes, I just remembered that I’m pretty sure the F-Droid version of the app on Android doesn’t contain ads, because F-Droid probably didn’t allow it; while the Google Play version did contain ads. I’m not sure why they didn’t appear on your iPhone though, I don’t have one to test that.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Not familiar with Odysse, how’s they’re content moderation? We don’t need another fascist platform.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    TIL Odysee had ads. UBO FTW

    Edit; tbf, I haven’t been on it in a long long while. Generally too extremist for me.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      That’s kinda the issue for a platform like that, at least in the early stages. You’ll get all the people who’ve been kicked off YouTube, and not the mainstream content.

      • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        Very true! Lemmy wasn’t super like that, but then again, reddit allowed nearly anything (apparently including csam to a certain degree). Then the API debacle, and that crap came here. Yt is more strict on certain things, which pushes those scourges of society to these platforms that are in their early stages, giving them an abysmal reputation.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Yeah, there wasn’t much that didn’t fly on Reddit, and banning a subreddit usually meant those users spread their bile elsewhere on the platform. The platform was self policing to an extent, in the fact that anyone too extreme became a topic of mockery elsewhere and weren’t really taken seriously.

        • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          I mean Lemmy was like that though. After the exodus from Reddit most major instances defederated from hexbear which is like the OG Lemmy instance

          • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            Lemmy got like that after the exodus. No? I mean, I saw some BS here and there, but not nearly as much as right before the hexbear nonsense. Granted, I wasn’t on here much, and using a now defunct username, but I still didn’t see nearly as much.

          • sandbox@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            This is ahistorical. The original Lemmy instance is lemmy.ml, and it was hugely tankie literally from the beginning - the .ml referring to marxist-leninism, years before Reddit’s API changes. It’s nothing to do with people being banned from Reddit, it’s just that the concept of a federated message board platform was appealing to communist software developers, who created and guided the project. If anything, the anti-tankie sentiment which is popular on instances like lemmy.world is what came to lemmy after the Reddit exodus.

            Tankies have never really been regularly banned on Reddit in any real extent.

  • shininghero@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    Honestly, after all the shit YouTube is pulling with their ad systems, I wouldn’t mind those old tiny banner strip ads that used to occasionally pop up at the bottom of a video. Compared to the current standard of 3 minutes of unskippable ads interrupting every other video, those little banners are downright unobtrusive.