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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"

  • sapporoEnglish
    1418·
    4 months ago

    As if Youtube didn’t promote conspiracy theories and almost Nazi rhetorics that serve the country it’s based in. They do, which they don’t call as such. Everything else they’ll call conspiracy theories and propaganda.

      • sapporoEnglish
        47·
        4 months ago

        Nothing. But mentioning it, don’t forget to mention Youtube as well.

    • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.worldEnglish
      143·
      4 months ago

      I have no idea why you’re being downvoted since you’re 100% correct. I watch one video about gaming and YouTube’s recommendations are all alt-right anti-feminist stuff with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.

      Google surely knows enough about me to know I lean far-left but the algorithm is determined to feed me that slop.

      I have no idea from a technical perspective if Odysee’s algorithm is independent from or worse than YouTube’s, but the criticism of YouTube is completely valid.

        • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.worldEnglish
          54·
          4 months ago

          I didn’t read the argument as saying one platform’s behavior excuses the other. I saw it as saying that both are bad.

          It certainly doesn’t come across as a defense of either platform to say they’re both infested by Nazis.

      • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ruEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        I have watched super progressive content on Youtube but also watched conservative content as well. It’s possible there are a lot of progressives who also watch content from the other side so the algorithm pushes it.

      • sapporoEnglish
        31·
        4 months ago

        that’s why you should be logged out of Google and also delete your cookies periodically :) To reset the memory of Google

        • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          4 months ago

          The thing is that I do want to have my subscriptions and favorite channels, and as long as UBO blocks ads, I haven’t fully made the switch to a different front-end.

          But it still bothers me that it serves me far-right, religious, and conspiracy theory content given that I’ve never once engaged with any of those topics.

    • ArchRecord@lemm.eeEnglish
      114·
      4 months ago

      The difference between Odysee and YouTube is that YouTube doesn’t claim to be a free speech platform that allows any possible statements on, and does often take down a lot of the harmful content. You only see the remainder, not the whole.

      Odysee is quite small, and as such, could relatively easily moderate much more of the content on its platform, if they actually cared about doing so.

      Odysee explicitly tries to allow as much speech as possible, claiming that they totally won’t allow any bad content, while in reality, platforming LGBTQ+ misinformation, white nationalist rhetoric, anti-immigrant propaganda, etc.

      All of those violate their Community Guidelines, by the way. But remember, it’s guidelines, not actual policy as to what they remove.

    • RubyRhod@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      Fox news seems to own YT’s algorithm as far as I can tell.

      Never a click from me, but 6 of the top 10 news vids every time.