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Let's see how this flies

No, despite the title, we're not talking drones today... we're talking about an attempt to sidestep and usurp one of the internet's largest defacto monopolies.

I'm talking about YouTube and its vice-like grip on the user-generated video content marketplace.

Yes, I've written about this before and I've outlined my concept of a system that will dismantle that effective monopoly but yesterday I published a video in which I presented the concept to a wider audience

In publishing this video I invited comments, critiques, suggestions and feedback on the idea.

As of 5:30am this morning (as I type this), the video has had over 7,500 views and has prompted nearly 500 comments -- that's a lot of comments for the number of views recorded.

Here is the video:

There is a good deal of support for the concept and quite a few have brought up valied concerns, which I hope I've addressed in my replies.

I've yet to find anything that would scuttle this model, every issue raised so far has a mitigation available.

As you'll see, right at the end of the video, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has announced a ramped-up use of AI for moderation and has an expectation that generative AI systems will result in a whole new generation of content-creators who will, in my honest opinion, produce little more than AI-slop.

Being able to conjure up fantastic images and scenes with a few text prompts does not make good content. The actual video footage is just one element of creating a good video so someone who lacks the necessary story-telling ability, planning, insight, imagination and creativity will not produce good content, regardless of the amount of AI that is used to generate the visuals.

Mohan either doesn't understand that or doesn't care -- because he knows that there's an audience for AI slop who will continue to fill YouTube's coffers with their coin.

Mr Mohan also seems totally unconcerned that one of the platform's biggest problems already is the unpredictable and often errant workings of its AI-based moderation system. Millions of channels deleted, many times more videos obliterated and demonetized -- simply because AI moderation makes mistakes, often lacks context and has no sense of humour. Appealing such bad moderation achieves nothing -- because it very much appears as if the appeal process consists of running the same video through the same AI system, a process that invariably simply upholds the original decision.

As a result of all this, genuine creators of authentic content are gagging for a new platform to replace YouTube. That platform must free them from the constant fear of demonetization or total deletion by rogue AI. That platform must also offer then monetization opportunities and an audience that makes their efforts worthwhile from an income perspective.

Viewers are also tiring of YouTube's infatuation with AI-slop and the relentless assult of ads, a very high percentage of which are clearly scams but continue to run for weeks and months after being reported as such. These people are craving an option that gives them more control over what they see and don't see (have you tried to disable "shorts" in YouTube search results for instance?)

Right now I'm hoping that we'll get a team of keen open source developers behind this project and that we'll be able to roll out what is an infinitely scaleable alternative to YouTube that restores control to creators and viewers alike, while also kicking YouTube's AI-slop to the curb where it belongs.

Wish me luck, I'll need it.

Carpe Diem folks!

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