@lislegaard I haven't been gaming too much lately, but he started talking about Death Stranding, and I thought, "now THERE'S a game that would be cool to play!"

I went to see how much it cost, and lo and behold, I have it in my Steam Library already.

Instead of taking it as a sign that I might have early onset dementia, I will take it as a sign that Nebula is cool.

@tsrono @defaultmediatransmitter

@alisynthesis @tsrono @defaultmediatransmitter

positive take

Holy shit people, my first Nebula video starts with a BANG! It's a video by some guy named Jacob Geller who may or may not be super famous (can't tell b/c there is NO VIEW COUNT!) talking about the first episode of The Twilight Zone.

You can watch one video without signing up: https://nebula.tv/videos/jacob-geller-the-future-is-an-empty-room

Seriously, if this is indicative of the Nebula experience, it's exactly what I was looking for.

@alisynthesis

yeah that's the thing! i just learned about it last week. which is you know, very symbolic of the whole situation.

people like you and me should OBVIOUSLY know about it, right? how do we "promote" it?

maybe we need to hire some anarchists to pirate everything they find interesting and not slop or ragebait, pirate it and put it on a peertube for us to watch.

@lislegaard hey, if I have to be delusional to be happy, so be it.

@tsrono @defaultmediatransmitter

@alisynthesis killed my YT sub just recently, signed up for a year of Nebula (less than half the price iirc).

Nebula's good & has a lot of good stuff but it's going to be much, much more narrow than YT, & that's what's killing me... this seems obvious but after a week or two of Nebula-first viewing, i'm still kicking back to YT (now w/ ads!) regularly; for various music stuff, mostly.

sigh.

@tsrono @alisynthesis
After years of curating the YT algorithm (as best as I practically can), more than half of my Recommended feed is music. Some old, some new.
Mostly obscure music from specific genres, on YT channels that rip & upload in good faith. Some of it's also on Bandcamp, but most of it was never reissued since the original (cassette or vinyl) release. Not major label.
Until a few years ago, I could stream from these channels for hours at a time. No mid-roll ads, maybe one pre-roll.

@tsrono @alisynthesis
After years of curating the YT algorithm (as best as I practically can), more than half of my Recommended feed is music. Some old, some new.
Mostly obscure music from specific genres, on YT channels that rip & upload in good faith. Some of it's also on Bandcamp, but most of it was never reissued since the original (cassette or vinyl) release. Not major label.
Until a few years ago, I could stream from these channels for hours at a time. No mid-roll ads, maybe one pre-roll.

@alisynthesis
I’ve subscribed to Nebula for a year, then let it lapse. There’s some good content on there, but so far they’ve kept it pretty limited/aren’t inviting the creators I’d like to see there. The quality is definitely better than YouTube for what is there.

I’m guessing it is probably more effective to subscribe to the Patreon channels that are most interesting to you. But I haven’t used patreon yet.

@neverbeaten @alisynthesis
You just reminded me of why I didn't jump at Nebula when I first heard about it (as the sponsor of a YT video from a niche tech video creator): their invite-only policy for creators, which was touted as a feature in most of the Sponsor sections. As in: its not open, but also new creators can't apply to join.

If that's how Nebula curates their platform, that's their choice, but it just didn't sit right with me (for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on).

@alisynthesis @dec23k it's such a huge resource for so much obscure music, no doubt. i've heard of others like you working the feed to give them good stuff but i imagine that's had diminishing returns over the last couple years - i've seen my feed get better in some ways but worse in others. ‍️

@alisynthesis In the same position here! Everything else is relatively easy to do without (except when *bad people force my into a shared g00gled doc). No answer outside of PeerTube but I hope someone posts some good info we can all benefit from.

@alisynthesis @dec23k it's such a huge resource for so much obscure music, no doubt. i've heard of others like you working the feed to give them good stuff but i imagine that's had diminishing returns over the last couple years - i've seen my feed get better in some ways but worse in others. ‍️

@tsrono @dec23k at this point, for me, it's really not about privacy or mental health anymore. I'm doing this despite wanting to see YT videos because I don't want to give money to fascists anymore.

I'm definitely not trying to judge people still using it by saying that...I guess I've just reached that point in my personal timeline and understanding of things.

@dec23k I can understand how that might feel weird. I will say, though, that I don't generally have a problem with curation, and I honestly kind of yearn for it at this point. I'm interested in how they picked their content creators...but so far I like the results of it.

Of course, there should be totally open platforms too! But it's kind of a relief for a human being to decide what I'm looking at instead of an algorithm, with all that that entails.

@neverbeaten

@alisynthesis @tsrono
There's definitely signs of a more adversarial approach being taken to the audience with ads on YT now.
I will never pay for Premium.
So, I reject playback a few times until I get either a short pre-roll or none, and if that doesn't work I just skip to the next video that I might want to watch.
Mid-roll ads show up now in almost every video that exceeds 8 minutes, sometimes less than 1 minute in. There are some long-form creators whose videos I just had to stop watching.

@alisynthesis @neverbeaten
I'm not against curation; I do it myself!
And wide-open platforms can have their problems.
But the Nebula approach seems to be "don't call us, we'll call you", so I was idly wondering how does their talent spotting work. How do they surface creators worth signing? Maybe they notice the most successful niche channels on YT (and maybe other platforms) by seeing Number Go Up, then cherry-pick those who haven't mentioned Curiosity Stream (or other commercial platforms).

@dec23k @neverbeaten that's a great question, and I'm super curious about that as well.

@alisynthesis @neverbeaten
It also kind of raises further questions about YT apparently spending years sleep-walking their way into the situation we're in now, with VPN and ready-meal sponsors in so many regular videos, and tech creators like Fran Blanche literally singing "Down In The Patreon" at the end of every one of her videos. YT seems to not care enough about creators, in so many ways.

@dec23k @alisynthesis
I spend most of my professional days working on content for maybe one of the largest unmonitized YT channels. I’ve wondered if they demote our content because they aren’t directly profiting from it.