Will the dinosaurs continue to rule?
The subscriber wars are clearly heating up with the big platforms Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. all diving in leaving companies like Patreon wondering about their ability to survive.
But these mega-platforms all still force you to copy-paste ownership of your content when you upload which they openly monetize, while having total control of your audience, able to pull the rug out from under you at any time, never mind the crappy payouts.
Do you think there is enough demand in the creator economy landscape for tools like MAVEN.video
where video creators can engage and charge their subscribers whatever they want directly, keeping true ownership of their content and subscriber email addresses
or will the dinosaurs continue to rule the earth?
I've been thinking about this lately myself. At the end of the day I also worry that platforms I use will run out of funding and cease to exist taking all of my content with them.
To answer the question: I think so, yes. It's easy: will people continue to go on a service in exchange of their data only? I think the answer is yes. So they won't pay for a competitor which provide the same thing.
It's changing though, slowly but surely.
This was my very subjective opinion. Objectively: I have no clue :D
Hi Greg,
Uclusion is almost done with a new website emphasizing video which you can see at https://preview.uclusion.com This definitely involved dancing with the YouTube dinosaur - for instance if I make those video iFrames any larger they slap a View on YouTube banner on my thumbnail.
I see you offer Video Hosting - can I replace YouTube?
Also if we continue making these videos and turn them into a video newsletter how would that beat putting them on YouTube? Either way we don't have the subscribers.
Thank you,
David
Hey David
Thanks for your feedback and questions
Depends on what you are replacing it for.
Discovery, less so much in this early stage as we are not a search engine but in that right, you also don't have to worry about competitive content to yours being immediately in the face of your customers like YouTube!
As for monetizing, absolutely!
You can earn far more with Maven than you can with ad revenue on youtube unless you are in the top 2% there - Only the top 98% earn more than $12,500 USD annually on ad revenue alone.
Imagine if you had 1,000 fans paying just $10 a month, or 100 superfans paying $100 a month, or both!
That being said, the smart play for most is to use the rented platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, etc as the discovery part of your funnel.
MAVEN.video is not a replacement platform for discovery as much as a new toolbox for better engagement and monetization of your already growing audience.
Point blank - if your fans are really fans and want to support you as a creator, the best Youtube can do is:
IF YOU HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT (not easy to do) they will let you charge a $4.99 subscription fee - that's the absolute best they offer so far as I am aware currently.
With MAVEN.video, what you offer and how much you price it at, is entirely up to you and you have up to 4 tiers of offers and pricing currently so you can mix and match offers and see what works best for you.
It's entirely your show. We just give you the tools to make it happen and get out of the way. We do nothing with your audience or your content ever.
YouTube will not only, never give you that level of control, but they will never give up the ownership you give them of your audience and content.
It's very unlikely they will ever give you your subscribers' direct email addresses either.
I hope that helps answer your questions. Please feel free to ask any more you have and I very much appreciate your feedback!
Cheers!
We could replace YouTube for now purely as a video player. You see the link above is to what will become our landing page. YouTube is still a little better than I can do with a home grown video player so I am using them. But it's difficult because they limit the size of the iFrame I am using (before they put their play on YouTube banner up) and I have set modest branding = 1 but they could change what that does.
If MAVEN.video competed with YouTube for marketing videos like ours it would be useful to us. We're never going to charge for our videos since they sell our product but building a subscriber base without the YouTube crazy would be good.
Yeah sorry, we are not trying to be a primarily free-video host, we are focused on paid subscriptions. Try Mux perhaps?