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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"

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    That was never the purpose of the platform, otherwise it would have been marketed that way.

    This implies that marketing is always or usually honest. I would argue that the exact reverse is true. In fact I was involved once in a series of marketing meetings where a marketing guru who had worked with some huge companies said flat out that “marketing is a lie” and he meant it literally. He explained that you’re selling an idea, and thus it wouldn’t be possible for it to be actually honest. Since you cannot buy a product that will solve all your problems, and yet that idea is implied in most ads. Happy smiling people somehow result from anything you can buy? Pfft.

    Obviously that’s not going to be how you market a video platform exactly, but also they were never going with a tagline like “Because YouTube doesn’t allow bigotry!” whether it’s true or not. Facebook doesn’t market their service as a way to monetize your personal data despite the fact that it’s exactly what it is. Marketing is inherently misleading at best.

    The platform allows more content than YouTube does

    That’s just a different way of phrasing what was said and you seem to be disputing…