I feel that between nostr, torrents, zaps and payment splits, the tools for building a better YouTube exist. Seeders could profit share v4v, users could pay or access for "free" via ads - both paying seeders and creators. Hosting burden is shared across paid users. Content ownership is easy enough with the crypto in nostr.
Discussion
"please share and subscribe (you get paid for sharing)"
Traditionally all that would require some software you run, but with nostr and torrents over web it can be just a web client. Imagine watching a video and seeing sats dribbling into your wallet, from the profit share of passively seeding as you watch.
Would quality in the viewing experience take any toll?
Would love to try out and test any proof of concept.🔥
Limestr or Nopstr?
P2P would be the best way but I’m not sure if it will scale and yield a good user experience. I will work in the direction of paid blossom servers for hosting. But I need to get the basics done first.
This is the killer app
"building a better YouTube'
My dude no. Not even remotely close.
Don't conflate usage policy with the tech stack.
Let's vibe.
Perhaps building on top of WebTorrent would be the best fit.
https://joinpeertube.org/ might be a good starting point
CDN would become irrelevant no?
Seeders > CDNs
Torrents and web are just not very compatible sadly, and i think its done like that intentionally
Have been using a service named put.io for almost da decade. Basically a glorified seedbox + media center + API service. Paid though.
Don't see why torrents shouldn't be completely usable via web frontends.
Setting up zaps is still the biggest roadblock.
that's was #cashu is for
better equipped for streaming micropayments over http also
it’s not in a trustless context
ecash tokens in http headers aren't easier than lightning payments?
The only case where they are trustless for the service is if the service operates the mint. Otherwise the mint could scam the service pfovider.
Congrats, you invented prepaid API keys.
I was assuming the service runs the mint
Ah, then it is pointless. Just use API keys.
With a mint you have round trips to another servicr and additional crypto overhead
consider the UX differences between:
- just showing up as a naive user to a web service with no account, no signup. you have an ecash wallet - it works instantly
- arrive, navigate signup process pay for X time or API calls, configure it, etc.
not to mention that with ecash your money stays in you control and you hand over micropayments on demand. a prepaid API key would hand over the whole prepayment up front and you'll never get it back.
you watch 1 minute of a 2 hour video and decide it's not for you. in ecash world you paid for 1 minute. prepaid API key you paid for 2 hours.
ecash is an issued token by a holder (mint)
lightning is also like this, except you can run your own cache, this is not really practical for a user to be a mint.
only onchain bitcoin is completely self custody by default, the key is the only proof of property.
you have an ecash wallet and the first thing you have to do is add a new mint and transfer your sats to it.
a service can as easily ask for an LN payment with your browser extension or mobile app
with ecash, mints can decide to not let you withdraw (like the service mint), and prepaid APIs can let you withdraw
Totally get you! API keys are way simpler. Minting just adds extra steps and crypto costs that aren’t worth it. Keep it chill! 🚀💸
zaps work just fine. I've been using zapstream for over two years and I don't see why it would need cashu
On Zapstream users get a custodian ZS wallet upon signup. No external wallet needed and the people who are already on nostr generally already have a LN wallet configured.
Could have a hosting meter and let your audience pay for your hosting costs too.
The future of video distribution is at our fingertips ⚡️💜
#nostr #bitcoin
I love the idea and think podcasting 2.0 has its spot in the formula as well... The result will be very different from YouTube as we know it, but this is definitely something.
"Hosting burden is shared..."
Again, torrent only helps very popular content, for the rest of the very long tail of popularity, the bandwidth is irrelevant, even a phone has enough power to serve your non-existent viewers, the hard part is the availability and reliability, which can't be attained without either becoming a sys admin, or paying someone to be a sys admin for you.
I already posted this answer elsewhere.
The problem is that we are stuck in the ideation phase. The sooner we launch a website or an app, the more clearly we will identify the challenges that may arise. We just need a proficient developer to organize this matter.
After the recent ban of nostr:nprofile1qyvhwue69uhkyat8d4skutndva6hjtnwv46r5dpcxsuqz9nhwden5te0vfjhgcfwdehhxarjd9kzucmpd5qzqxvfqd89dw8kqmrjfaz6zt8gfggcg93p4tm3s2slv4jrszuugfmt74rjkj on YouTube, this has perhaps highlighted this issue more than anything for Bitcoiners.
Yet they went back to YT and haven't seen them on ZS since then.
definitely. Was thinking about this for awhile. Just no time to work on it
The problem is that the hosting platforms are quite buggy. Nostrcheck would be the most trustable, but still a bit problematic.
That's what torrents fix
It is still not obvious to me how you can guarantee the video will be up 1 year from now.
And if I would have to pay to incentivise seeders to keep my video up, or I would have to seed it, its unrealistic to think people will use that.
The reason YouTube pickedup is because you post and forget, and most people are ok with the trade-off.
The content creator will always be seeding no?
With the paid seed incentive I'm also fairly sure some kind services will host.
I cant even guarantee I will even host my videos, let alone others.
its equivalent to if everyone would give a dollar. . . .
And if you say rent a VPS, we are back to youtube model.
My point is that I don't think normal people will pay for this, when youtube offers it for free.
Unless they post constantly banned content, youtube will work for most.
The problem IMO is that the incentive to store videos is not the same as storring the blockchain, even more it scales 10^N worst than the blockchain storage.
The problem is not the tech, is the conext, I think.
Nvm the fact that, if i do this as a youtuber than I will have lets ay 100 even more videos per year, and now I have to host all of them.
Bottom line is storage scales exponentially.
I'm with you, a better alternative approach prob exists, but I suppose it's like trusting a bank, email server etc, etc
Having other choices in the market is useful, especially if the content creator gets more of the value of their work.
I really want a solution for this, and I woud use it, even if not ideal just see what's what.
For the "real" solution we just need another Satoshi moment, so it should not be hard 🙃
You can just re-stream to an unlisted channel on YT for free VOD storage. If your other host goes down you can recover the media from YT and upload it elsewhere. It's what I do with zapstream.
So your solution for a decentralised and censorship-rezistance competitor to YouTube, is to use YouTube.
I really don't see how this is a solution to anything discussed in the thread..
So your solution for a decentralised and censorship-rezistance competitor to YouTube, is to use YouTube.
I really don't see how this is a solution to anything discussed in the thread.
I didn't say that. I have enough storage. But creators saying that they aren't publishing their content natively to nostr because of costs associated with the media hosting is pretty ridiculous.
Publishign is not the problem anyone can broadcast a note.
The problem is storing it where no one can take it down.
And cost is a problem if you want to scale something to 100s milions of users.
You just have a hacky workardound that works because you are not scaling it.
A 250$ mini PC should do the trick.
Storage is the relatively cheap part of video hosting. A single 20MB (tiny) video with 10M views is 200TB of traffic. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of videos, that becomes a massive amount. Nostr is tiny, so it is easy now, but to scale will require something new.
I really dont get why people here on nostr do not want to admint we dont have good solutions for almost nothing, just workarounds.
The only way we will find solutions is if we admit there is a problem.
I don't think you can incentivise people to store your videos, mostly because it scales WAY worse than storing the blockchain.
The main thing about poting videos you want them to be live years from now, and even if cost is low, mental cost is a problem.
We definetly have the tech for this, the problem is how do you make this in a thing that makes sense.
(bitcoin was in a similar position before it was created)
A gave this exact idea a few months ago
This is what needs to be built, but is complicated enough that it couldn't be vibe coded, so probably no one's going to attempt it 😂
Isn't the ad model what got us in the situation in the first place?
People want to make money and the ads on YouTube do that and come with a huge trade off.
Wouldn’t need to be ads, would it? Could it run on not needing ads?
Either ads or subscriptions but subscriptions don't help normies find your stuff unless you do some BS "Premium Content" thing where some of it is free and some paid for. I don't see how else you cover the cost of doing video hosting at a scale that BTC Sessions or others want without one or the other. Maybe if we get enough people running things like Blossom that can help their favorite creators cover the cost it could work but I think that has a limit. Or something like Primal Studio to host the content but that already puts the creator in the negative from the jump.
Any how just thinking out loud here like I do, but this does work on a small scale already. Shows like Bowl After Bowl take PayPal donations that helps to cover the cost of self-host their podcast. Does it cover the entire cost? idk but if nostr:npub1yvscx9vrmpcmwcmydrm8lauqdpngum4ne8xmkgc2d4rcaxrx7tkswdwzdu and nostr:npub19ha7tju4teqp3dmwv4p28wrcy9zd6h6hxkg5mwvjrlfycweazpkse2q0fa ever get in a pinch they just have to "ask" for help.
People will just have to build stuff and see what works...
We’ll build the path to find the way 💪💜
#nostr #devs #creators🔥
Add in payment splits for those who share links (ie referral link) and you have incentivized word-of-mouth
Someone could fork Tribler and add lightning. The rest is already integrated.
It has a “honoring” system (no crypto coin) to determine if you seeded enough to be allowed to download faster. This system was called Tribler.
https://repository.tudelft.nl/record/uuid:9a7bc08f-9f7f-43fc-a410-3961d13c6e8a