Alternatives to YouTube

If you are looking for a YouTube alternative, you are on the right page.

Content creators just want to express themselves.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall, the one who wrote Voltaire's biography, wrote the beautiful sentence:

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

And this is exactly the spirit that any platform that allows the sharing of content should have towards its users.

Problems with YouTube for creators and users

Unfortunately, more and more often we hear about YouTube removing videos, shutting down entire channels, demonetization, shadow bans and other unpleasant situations.

Whoever manages a YouTube channel in which is spent time and energy, knows how much it costs to bring quality content to their users and also knows that if YouTube were to decide to close all the channels in its niche tomorrow, the work of whole days, months, and in some cases of years, it could disappear into thin air without any follow-up or way to oppose other than to clash by legal means with the Mountain View giant.

If you are now on this page it is because most likely:

• You are looking for a space where you can express yourself freely and without fear of seeing your work demonetized or worse, removed

• You are looking for a platform that truly gratifies your work always and in any case, regardless of whether its content appeals to unspecified third parties

• You are tired of looking for a begged external sponsorships in the continuous search for indirect livelihood

Let me tell you that you are NOT alone.

Like you, thousands of other people every month begin to turn on their radars to run for cover by a platform that over time increasingly decreases the protection against users.

And this does not only happen for those who create content but also for users.

Have you ever wondered how exactly it’s possible to earn real money by making videos? Where does this money come from, how is it "produced"?

"If you don't pay for a product, the product is you"

⏤ Jason Lanier

Nowadays, almost all video platforms base their income on the sale of advertising space, of which it shares the revenues with some creators. Yes, that's right, not all creators have a return from their work.

A platform that focuses its public image on videos has an interest that these ads are as attractive as possible to its customers, but these customers are not the users of the service (as we might instinctively believe) but the companies are interested in associating their brand to a certain type of video and target of users.

The viewer then ends up finding himself in the position of the final product: invaded in his privacy and profiled, bombarded with increasingly targeted and invasive advertising elements with the aim of being directed towards the true focus of his attention, not the content he has chosen but the advertising that dominates it.

As a visitor, you are therefore on a platform that allows you to browse and take advantage of its contents without any other interest other than to forward you to their customers, in the most precise way possible: in short, a nice sorting center.

Videos with explicit content, controversial or not very much in line with the customers' brand are therefore kindly pushed into the background through shadowban and demonetization, in favor of more "sellable" videos that are instead promoted on algorithms.

“Demonetization” is the term which indicates that the creator will not receive any financial return from advertising while playing their video.

Advertising that will however be shown to the visitor.

This creates the paradoxical situation in which a creator, in order to have his work recognized, must reformulate and reshape his contents, often at the expense of quality.

A continuous race for the "monetizable video", that is the one modeled on measure so as not to break any of the invisible rules of this perverse game and in which the real content takes a back seat, in favor of the sellability of its advertising spaces.

An indirect form of information censorship and control, which for us of Etherna is inadmissible.

Etherna as an alternative to YouTube

Etherna is not there to partecipate in this perverse game. We believe that the combination creator / user is fundamental for the healthyness of the environment and that by encouraging freedom of expression and creativity we can go towards increasingly professional and well-finished contents, and on the other hand towards an increasingly informed and interested user.

We believe that every creator should be rewarded from his first video in a clear and transparent way, so as to encourage him to produce quality videos and not forcing him to hustle with external sponsorships or to take refuge in direct contribution platforms too.

A clear and clean environment

For Etherna, transparency is the watchword. We believe in it to the point of making our source code and our databases public: anyone can analyze them and look for the flaw in our good faith, we are ready to intervene.

Users and creators: a responsible combination / The strength of the community

The community is for us a strength and a guarantee of transparency: the continuous surveillance of an active and responsible community leads to a cleaner and tidier place. The dialogue leads to the implementation of new functions and the synergy that is created is a guarantee of consensus in our project.

Differences between YouTube and Etherna

Etherna was born from the union of creators and users of their contents

This is why we want to offer what we would have liked to receive: a stimulating environment with the utmost clarity, transparency, privacy and freedom of expression.

So if you are a content creator, use Etherna and sleep peacefully without the fear that your channel will be closed and your videos deleted at any moment.