I got my subscription a few weeks ago. I’m kinda regretting going for a 1 year sub.
For one I thought both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey where on here only to learn they both backed out of the project.
According to Wendovers video https://nebula.tv/videos/wendover-how-a-small-group-of-creators-built-a-150-million-business/. I get the sense this happened around the same time they sold a good chunk of the company to Discovery.
Seeing all the creators hang out on a yacht isn’t exactly a selling point for me as a subscriber who’s struggling to make rent.
I’m also pretty disappointed by the lack of some features. Many of the videos don’t even have captions and the ones that do are using a poor quality auto capture. I also really want comments. I know YouTube comments are known for being utterly terrible, but education is a conversation and with channels like these commenters can provide a lot of added educational value.
Also the history feature would be pretty handy. I go down rabbit holes then totally forget where I left off when logging back in.
And even shorts, creators use those. I hate the YouTube shorts but if I where to abandon YouTube I’ll lose out on that content. By using shorts the content creators are keeping me going to YouTube .
I’ve also noted a lot of content is still formatted to YouTube. They have the click boxes at the end for more videos wich isn’t a function in Nebula. It’s like the videos are ending with a broken UI.
Overall I’m seeing a lot of effort to make the platform appealing to creators. However, there’s much less effort in appealing to subscribers. Long term that seems like it’s going to cause the whole thing to fail.
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A lot of this is on you. You don’t need to buy a subscription to check what creators are or are not on the platform.
Comments is a terrible idea. It’s very clearly a video hosting platform, not a social media platform. Just imagine the nightmares that would create. It’s another thing to moderate, another platform the Creator’s social media team needs to keep track of. These people have YouTube comments, twitter, Patreon, email, discord servers, subreddits, and probably more I’m not even thinking of. I don’t want to be paying for another unnecessary social media implementation.
Shorts are terrible. If they had them, I would be asking for a way to hide them from my feed.
The content being formatted for YouTube is on the creator, not Nebula. I’ve noticed most creators I watch tend to make changes for Nebula. Like instead of doing a baked-in sponsor spot, they will just thank you for watching on Nebula.
The whole point is that these creators aren’t gigantic multi-billion dollar media conglomerates with thousands of employees. These are small teams, or even individuals. I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to do that much more work. I’m paying to get rid of the ads and nonsense of YouTube, not to have them do tons of intensive re-edits for a different platform.
There’s room for improvement of course. I wish there were playlists and history. I wish the video player did a better job of resuming when I pause the app, do other stuff on my phone, and come back (it usually just freezes and clears my watch history). But overall one of my favorite things about Nebula is that it’s not trying to be anything more than a video hosting platform. No algorithm, no likes or dislikes, no comments. When I search it doesn’t just give me 5 results related to my search and then start just giving me random unrelated videos it thinks I might like.
First, it would take a lot to convince the CEO to allow comments, which I kind of agree with. I feel like pushing people to Reddit, Patreon, or Lemmy is better for the creator.
Second, I don’t see the creators hanging out on a yacht. If anything, they are moving around in other forms of transportation for our amusement as part of Jet Lag.
Third, I don’t think Nebula is trying to compete with YouTube, but instead is intending to be a place to create longer form content. Shorts is antithetical to that.
I think a lot of people are looking to Nebula as a way to replace YouTube when that isn’t what Nebula is trying to be.
For one I thought both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey where on here only to learn they both backed out of the project.
It is probably better that those two backed out. Based on comments from the creators that remained, both Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey weren’t good partners and seemed to want to make the business a lot more exploitative of the other talent.
I also look at it like this, Grey has had over a decade to build the kind of business Wendover has but didn’t. Grey has posted 6 videos in a year. Wendover IndustriesTM does that in a slow month.
Why they hell did you buy a year?
They had a really good yearly subscription price at one point.
It was like 30 bucks CDN about the price of a movie ticket or a pizza
The adages of not pre-ordering video games applies to all content— why would you pre-purchase a year of content of a service before you are able to determine the quality?
I can take some comfort that having used to provided link I supported a content creator. Though I’m aware there’s probably better ways to have done that.
And a 1 year sub honestly cost the same as a theater ticket. As long as i get about as much entertainment as movie from the exclusive content then it’s not really a waste.
But it’s going to take some effort if they want anything more from me
If you can justify the cost so easily, why the regret? It’s not an ideal value proposition, but as you said, if you get more than 2 hours of entertainment value, then did you waste your money?
Ultimately, though, as you said, there’s better ways of directly supporting your favorite creators.
My regrets are more around supporting a project I no longer think is going to be sustainable after seeing that video. I still really like what the platform is trying to accomplish.
The world really needs a platform for educational content that’s not tied down by “the algorithm”. But I’m questioning if this one is going to accomplish that, or if it’s going to just fail like the others.
I’m also concerned as if content creators become dependent on the revenue from this thing and it flops, that’s going to be destructive to a lot of educational content.
As for my complaints. Well complaints are a sign of passion. I value this and want it to succeed. Folks are apprently equally as passionate about defending it as my post gets downvoted to hell.
Part of my job involves finding potential user complaints in applications. I can’t turn that off.
And we do get complaints at my job and we all groan and mumble about it. But it’s valuable feedback and appreciated. Complaints go a long way in determining the roadmap, as they make devopers more critical of their own work, and look at things from alternative perspectives. But perhaps they are not as appciated in this particular venue.
The downvotes here are mild compared to what you’ll get elsewhere.
