Any alternative to YouTube for free video uploading? Something that works and open source?
We need a nostr-based one!
Discussion
nostr.build
Working on it. It is HARD, that’s why so few are out there. Small scale, easy. Increase load and requirements grow exponentially and so is need to fund it. Until someone decides to invest into that and have a team work on it full time, I don’t see it happening in near future. Simple video upload, take Handbreak, encode video MP4 for web, upload to nostr.build, enjoy. Anything more than that, and we run into multitude of complexities. As an example, recent video that went semi-viral on Nostr, consumed about 1TB of data in one day, estimated to consume another 2-3. The cheapest CDN that is available will charge $5 per TB. Now do the math and multiply by number of videos and users. 🐶🐾🫡
I see :(
And that’s the problem, ain’t it?! 
YouTube when they started burnt through millions of dollars and was still in red when Google purchased them for 5B 🐶🐾🤯
Could IPFS (or perhaps a similar solution) help to solve the issue?
Same problem, needs hosting and paying for bandwidth which is not cheap. Nothing is free, nothing. You either pay in time, your attention, your data or money. 🐶🐾🫡
IPFS afaik is a solution for storage and bandwidth as that is dispersed among the provider nodes. The problem I see is that it just pushes the problem further into the future. You temporarily solve the issue by delegating the cost but at some point xou cannot scale any further because there is no incentive for provider nodes to give you storage and bandwidth for free. That in reverse could be solved via filecoin (or a similar solution), which would allow people to pay with their storage and bandwidth (which they usually have more than they need or use), or money if they don't want to provide those.
There is no need for a shit coin to pay for bandwidth and storage. We can do that with Bitcoin using lightning or chaumian ecash.
Problems are…
- not enough users will pay for content i.e. there is not enough money coming in to cover the costs.
- whoever provides the hosting may be made legally accountable for the content.
"...or another solution"
- You don't have to pay with money, just provide some storage and bandwith. instead, that's ok too. Or perhaps. ertain clients may introduce ad based monetisation models like the way users are currently used to and just pay for the storage and bandwidth through that. The point is, nothing is free, but there are more ways than the ones that are currently most popular.
You can be legally liable in some countries but, if the authorities actually try to enforce that. they will have a tough time doing so. It took a lot to take down even the most blatant copyright violatiors like Openload, Streamango or Verystream that afaik were all centralized and thus relatively easy to target. What are the state thugs going to do, if there are millions of small scale hosts dispersed across the globe?
not in a streaming environment where minimal buffer times are necessary, no. s3 with minio is about the best that i have experienced. ipfs just didnt cut it.
Me with almost minimal knowledge speaking, but has anyone checked out peertube or lbry (minus crypto and/or add btc)?
Damn I might become a ZapTuber if thus thing actually exists
#ZapTube #asknostr #grownostr
Can’t we use WebTorrent under the hood for this?
Sure, who is gonna run the main seed servers and pay for bandwidth? 🐶🐾🤔
Run initial seed servers like zap.stream. Top-up a balance of sats and pay for bandwidth. If done correctly, the initial seed should just bootstrap the distribution, no?
On mobile phones? Do you realize how much bandwidth is required to have a decent video hosting for even small audience of Nostr? Do you think you will be happy to pay telco for GBs of uploaded content ? 🐶🐾🤔
Hadn’t thought about the cellular data question… I’m spoiled with killer fiber at home
Well then the model still remains, but seed servers will have more traffic. Pay for bandwidth and use the rare Wi-Fi based desktop client help seed (for sats?)
How many sats are you willing to throw at the problem? Assume one video will spend about $1-2 in bandwidth on average, also assume about 100-200 sats per transcoded minute upfront, then throw development cost on top of that (YMMV) and you have a nice and unreliable YT alternative with 5% of features. Search is yet another ball game, then comes the DMCA and all legal battles because we live in the world of copyrights. The list goes on 🐶🐾🫡
I'd happily contribute some of my bandwidth. :)
Internet here in germany is still unmetered! ^^
There's LBRY. Not sure whether their API is open tho, but I suspect it is.
Did a little digging around.
- They claim that LBRY works as a protocol rather than as a service
- They rely on their own shitcoin blockchain and use their own shitcoin as a payment system.
If it could be replicated with bitcoin, while remaining economically viable, then I'd say it's an ideal candidate for nostrification.
I think Odyssee is open source. Not sure if it's 100% free and they are fighting the Sec lawsuits so not sure if they can sustain themselves.
Odysee is just a client for the LBRY protocol. It is definitely free both as a creator and a user. Their API is open (they even claim that it's not an api, that it's a protocol, gotta dig around more to verify it's not just marketing bs)
They however rely on their own shitcoin LBC and it's underlying blockchain.
I don't know if it can be useful, I found this even if it is based on a shitcoin...
this a youtube fronted like nitter for twitter https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped (is a mastodon thing)
On pinstr app, you can add video playlist
Most answers have been given but I favour odysee/lbry especially if we can get them to migrate to using #bitcoin instead off their lbc token. Otherwise bitchute might be an option.
That all being said zap.stream seems to be fulfilling that function on nostr.
This would be a great use case for the NIP-97 proposal:
I personally see video hosting as something that's likely to retain some centralization and I'm at peace with that
I like rumble, odyssey, bitchute currently
Also YouTube for less political topics
Odysee.com is best I know.
It was a front end for LBRY, but after the sec case they moved on with rweave. Check it out
So lbry is no more? 👀
Odysee.com
I think nostr devs should reach out to them and see what can be done.