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"

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    There may be content generators on there you can label that way, but that doesn’t make the platform neo-nazi.

    You take all of the stuff excluded from a big platform and put it on a small platform, and it’ll swamp every other topic out. If as a platform runner you feel that you should not censor others, then this can happen.

    On the flip side, there’s nothing stopping other with less controversial opinions to post there as well. Nobody is going to be told their channel about supercars isnt racist enough, or their politics channel is too-left communist.

    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Strongly disagree with you. If you have a bar that tolerates Nazis, you’ll find that bar becomes a Nazi bar over time. To commingle with Nazis is to accept them and their ideology.

      I’d have a very hard time sending people to my videos if they sit next to a white replacement theory video.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        5 months ago

        I think Odysee has created far fewer Nazis than sites with addiction exploiting algorithms that say they remove such topics.