Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
Thank goodness we have Lemmies ensuring no alternative tech can threaten YouTube. I was worried people might actually be against Odyssey in the comments
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You know that’s exactly what people say about Mastadon and in some cases Lemmy right?
Just a thing to think about, free speech is always going to appeal to Nazis, just as it should for most other people. Freedom of speech in the American sense where certain speech is not protected (such as screaming fire in a movie theater when there is no fire) is a right that we should continue to attempt to protect, even from people we disagree with (within reason, as mentioned above).
Sure. And Nazism is a direct threat not protected by freedom of expression.
I don’t disagree in the slightest, hopefully you understood what I meant though.
This scenario always reminds me of the very first part of this speech on free speech from Christopher Hitchens.
This Lemmy community is actually more pro-mainstream than Reddit and YouTube combined. Thank you for pointing this out. Time to go.