VidMe or Why Platforms Aren't Your Friends

Folding Ideas · 1M views · 2017-06-15 · 15:47

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Overview

Folding Ideas uses the rise and fall of the YouTube competitor VidMe to examine why platforms are not friends to creators. It argues that alternatives to big platforms tend to attract the users banned from the original and lack a core vision.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it whenever a thread asks why clones of or alternatives to YouTube, Reddit or Twitter fail or turn toxic.

Recommended by 8 HN people across 8 months · HN mentions 2017–2023

Topics

Internet culture & memes Tech industry & business models Product, marketing & sales

What people said

MrRadar · 2019-12 · Strong recommendation
Any "Reddit alternative" will have a hard time gathering users as long as Reddit exists (and doesn't alienate a critical mass of their users ala Digg). Dan Olson of the YouTube channel Folding Ideas made a very insightful video about the problem of setting up "alternatives" to popular social media platforms (having lived through several painful platform transitions himself): [VIDEO] The tl;dw is that if your "alternative" platform doesn't launch with unique and valuable features of its own to attract users away from the original platform then you will only attract toxic people who get kicked off the original platform as the first users of your "alternative" platform (because they are the only ones really in need of an "alternative"). This creates a self-reinforcing pattern where non-toxic users are repulsed from your alternative platform by the toxic users so growth only comes from more toxic users. You can clearly see this in the dynamic between Reddit and Voat.
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pdkl95 · 2017-09 · Strong recommendation
> Vid.me Unfortunately, simply cloning youtube isn't a competitor without also cloning youtube's bankroll. For a very good explanation of why, see Folding Ideas video essay "VidMe or Why Platforms Aren't Your Friends"[1]. [1] [VIDEO]
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6D794163636F756 · 2023-06 · Recommendation
Folding ideas has a video on vidme that goes into this. A competitor that can't sell itself on features will inevitably gain traction most with those banned from the original platform. Currently that means a new platform will have very angry, very extreme voices. That is a terrible way to start a platform. Here is the video: [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Folding Ideas, played through YouTube.

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