Can online platforms like Youtube and Facebook really be decentralized?

[X-ray]

To be honest, I think the use of p2p technology is perfectly well suited to some applications for video streaming. Streaming video is too resource intensive and services that need reliability better than youtube are already utilizing the resources of their users to spread their content and reduce usage of their servers' bandwidth and processing power. For this, we are already seeing major providers such as TV channels using it in their websites. We don't need a cryptocurrency attached to these IMHO. If somebody wants to watch free content online, then contributing some bandwidth could be an option.

I thought this was the case with plex where you can be your own server and provide people with your resourced or the other way around but I can't see it any more efficient than the traditional thing called youtube. The thing is, people want the implementation of blockchain into this streaming platform which blockchain is not suitable for in my opinion. Imagine if the size of every content takes up an entire gigabyte and then it accumulates that'd be sill. Also the method you mentioned some torrent apps are already have the feature of streaming torrent nowadays so it's no different than creating new ones.

[Hallmader]

To be honest, I think the use of p2p technology is perfectly well suited to some applications for video streaming. Streaming video is too resource intensive and services that need reliability better than youtube are already utilizing the resources of their users to spread their content and reduce usage of their servers' bandwidth and processing power. For this, we are already seeing major providers such as TV channels using it in their websites. We don't need a cryptocurrency attached to these IMHO. If somebody wants to watch free content online, then contributing some bandwidth could be an option.

But it needs to be a different model than youtube, because youtube hosts lot of low value content, without very advanced content promotion, so it's hard to see a competitor to it that could host large amount of data for free.

With content that has more value density, with paid streaming it could be workable, as nodes that host / stream the content can be rewarded on the streaming value.

Paid streaming and watching has been an idea behind certain altcoin projects. But I guess they all went unsuccessful quickly.

In a centralized setting, there will be no central controller that would screen and review the videos being submitted. This will somehow encourage many people to flood submissions with many of them actual low-value and low-quality videos.

[IadixDev]

To be honest, I think the use of p2p technology is perfectly well suited to some applications for video streaming. Streaming video is too resource intensive and services that need reliability better than youtube are already utilizing the resources of their users to spread their content and reduce usage of their servers' bandwidth and processing power. For this, we are already seeing major providers such as TV channels using it in their websites. We don't need a cryptocurrency attached to these IMHO. If somebody wants to watch free content online, then contributing some bandwidth could be an option.

But it needs to be a different model than youtube, because youtube hosts lot of low value content, without very advanced content promotion, so it's hard to see a competitor to it that could host large amount of data for free.

With content that has more value density, with paid streaming it could be workable, as nodes that host / stream the content can be rewarded on the streaming value.

Paid streaming and watching has been an idea behind certain altcoin projects. But I guess they all went unsuccessful quickly.

In a centralized setting, there will be no central controller that would screen and review the videos being submitted. This will somehow encourage many people to flood submissions with many of them actual low-value and low-quality videos.

I started a project like this for music before, already was into this years ago, even before YouTube

But its a tough thing, most content producer are tied for life to a distributor ( even on some planet not yet discovered for some contract) , and there are very few good quality producer who are independant, and distributor generally took the habit to hate internet and in the end no real plateform of decentralized content distribution really existed. Majors did everything they could for this not To happen.

And now with competition as YouTube which is totally free with gigabytes of low value content uploaded / seconds, its hard To really compete with a serious plateform, either it will be free and based on volunteer and not very stable or professional, or it needs To be non free, and will be hard to attract users.

Even kim dot com wanted to start being a content distributor before he got arrested.

I stil think the current state of things with content production/distribution is not ideal, and blockchain could add a stone, but it would need some user attracting content producer associated to it that user would pay for. Lot of labels and producer are starving as well, so they could take any solution that bring them profits.

The main income from YouTube remain ads and it would be hard To force people To watch them in decentralized setting. Maybe it could be linked To a faucet and people would require tokens To watch certain content.

But it would need something différent than YouTube anyway.

[magneto]

Not entirely. But there are significant progress made in terms of striving towards decentralisation.

You look at projects such as Steemit, which used to be extremely hyped up and had actually a lot of quality content, but as soon as the money incentive dried up there is now a lack of users for the platform which is concerning.

Perhaps new innovations can come that solves this issue, but I doubt it'll be the near future. I think decentralisation of ideas is certainly a needed concept though.

[IadixDev]

Not entirely. But there are significant progress made in terms of striving towards decentralisation.

You look at projects such as Steemit, which used to be extremely hyped up and had actually a lot of quality content, but as soon as the money incentive dried up there is now a lack of users for the platform which is concerning.

Perhaps new innovations can come that solves this issue, but I doubt it'll be the near future. I think decentralisation of ideas is certainly a needed concept though.

The main problem of steem IMO is it lacks good content and users indexing, all the rating is uni dimentional, without proper indexing/category its very hard to find the content and users you can be interested in, and the rating is mixed with ROI for whales and it doesnt help.

[coin-investor]

thanks guys, but no reply really answers my question how this would look in detail

I've checked all the post and your post so far you have not come back, to clarify if any of the answers suffice already suffice you, both social media have no hint to become a decentralized platform because they are successful on what they are doing, maybe in the future, this can change, once they faced a competitor that is using a decentralized platform, and this posed a big threat to their supremacy

[boris singer]

only affects the reaction of the trust of users and shareholders, more matters relating to monetization will be the main obstacle. But for system changes it is still possible, like many other comments about p2p etc., But still this is not possible because they are real business products and have binding rules regarding limiting ideas from the use of alternative systems.

[josephsonand]

I think this is theoretically possible, but difficult. In addition, not everyone wants to use such a service. These are large platforms that do not want to lose their good reputation, so it is unlikely that in the near future there will be any steps in this direction.

[Kevondo]

If somebody wants to watch free content online, then contributing some bandwidth could be an option.

It could be an option moving forward when some application comes up with a p2p model and bittorrent is trying for a similar model and if they are able to fulfill that then it would be a great success, the original team tried the p2p streaming model but they did not succeed completely and now and different team is working towards the goal, lets see how that goes.

@OP youtube and facebook as a centralized company will be making use of the decentralized network to power their servers and services round the clock but do not expect them to change their financial model .

This will happen soon because what a man can think, he can achieve too and once this happens, things will change for p2p lovers. With Facebook and YouTube, the decentralized world is their opposite. Moreover, they wont implement such a thing for their servers. It has some risk involved certainly. These companies cannot survive without keeping track of every single event that happens in their vicinity.

[sapnu]

If somebody wants to watch free content online, then contributing some bandwidth could be an option.

It could be an option moving forward when some application comes up with a p2p model and bittorrent is trying for a similar model and if they are able to fulfill that then it would be a great success, the original team tried the p2p streaming model but they did not succeed completely and now and different team is working towards the goal, lets see how that goes.

@OP youtube and facebook as a centralized company will be making use of the decentralized network to power their servers and services round the clock but do not expect them to change their financial model .

This will happen soon because what a man can think, he can achieve too and once this happens, things will change for p2p lovers. With Facebook and YouTube, the decentralized world is their opposite. Moreover, they wont implement such a thing for their servers. It has some risk involved certainly. These companies cannot survive without keeping track of every single event that happens in their vicinity.

I dont think that is gonna happen, we know that these two social media platform has an organization or group of people who are managing that particular platform, so it is not possible for them to be decentralized. If that happens, it is not good, no one can regulate everything especially data that are coming, we know that facebook is known or famous and used also by children, what if there are malicious data that are being uploaded, no one can really delete that. That is why regulation in some platforms is good giving some laws that we have to obey to keep formality.

[Nhor1011]

 I think it will never happen that Youtube and Facebook become decentralized because it is an organization managed by a group people. They have rules and regulation to be follow. Also become decentralize of everything is not good  because decentralization has a both good and bad effects to us and to our government.

[TIDOVEE]

The decentralization simply means not restricted to certain region or group to be in total charge. It is opened to many other hands without discrimination.youtube and facebook operation is decentralized but is under the control of certain groups. Although, anyone can make some ways from their advertisement.nothing should stop both from been decentralized too as long as it will not bring negative effect.

[Agarthian]

Its not a question of can anymore.

They can they should and they will.


The corporate and illumens use google & fbook to further their mass mind control agenda over humanity.

Control the flow of information and you literally control a person's reality.

[Agarthian]

I started to learn about crypto two months ago. Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum etc. make total sense to me.

I can't, however, understand why it would make sense to decentralize large online platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Or let's say: I don't understand how this could work.

Bitcoin has a decentralized ledger where all transactions are stored. How would that ledger look for a decentralized Youtube or Facebook?

Or am I missing something? Does decentralization mean something different in this regard?

Thank you!

PS: I'm asking because I again and again read headlines that say something along the line of "everything will be decentralized".

to answer your question.

Facebook esp n youtube has special teams in place and special algorithms to censor information they dont like from public view.

Decentralized network would mean they cannot censor any information as everything is decentralized and in the public's hand.

Ofcourse I know many people in the world would kill to make sure decentralization alternatives of facebook n google dont manifest.

[ntsdm1]

I started to learn about crypto two months ago. Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum etc. make total sense to me.

I can't, however, understand why it would make sense to decentralize large online platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Or let's say: I don't understand how this could work.

Bitcoin has a decentralized ledger where all transactions are stored. How would that ledger look for a decentralized Youtube or Facebook?

Or am I missing something? Does decentralization mean something different in this regard?

Thank you!

PS: I'm asking because I again and again read headlines that say something along the line of "everything will be decentralized".

I will try to answer Your question.YouTube as a service does not need to be decentralized. But the traffic with which the content is broadcast can really be decentralized.The technology by which this can be implemented is described on this site:https://noia.network/

[cutesgirl]

I think it will never happen that Youtube and Facebook become decentralized because it is an organization managed by a group people. They have rules and regulation to be follow. Also become decentralize of everything is not good  because decentralization has a both good and bad effects to us and to our government.

Youtube and Facebook both media social platform where they not available for investing, both of them just an entertainment and not decentralized for investing like bitcoin and altcoin, but Youtube and Facebook are giving best solution how to promote and make bitcoin become popular in the world by giving opinion about how using bitcoin as currency payment and investing way.

[mdgabrielzim]

The answer is no. Facebook is so centralized that in the current scenario is buying all competitors to set up a monopoly.

[NavI_027]

Youtube and Facebook both media social platform where they not available for investing, both of them just an entertainment and not decentralized for investing like bitcoin and altcoin, but Youtube and Facebook are giving best solution how to promote and make bitcoin become popular in the world by giving opinion about how using bitcoin as currency payment and investing way.

Yeah but you can still earn through those sites by getting your channel monetized. The more famous you are, the more you can get likes, views and comments thus more money in return due to the high traffic you create (which is a better place for advertising).

Anyway, I don't think Youtube will attempt the decentralization simply because FB somehow "failed" in their attempt of creating their own digital asset (though backed with fiat ). So I think much better for them if they solely remain as big social media companies, they're already good in that field.

[EdvinZ]

I think that such decentralized platforms can work on technology close to torrent technology. In addition to the lack of censorship, such platforms can be attractive in that no one will be able to delete your content, channel or video. I think in the future we will be able to see a full-fledged decentralized video platform and peer-to-peer social network that can compete with existing flagships in this industry.

[Aaroenz0r]

I started to learn about crypto two months ago. Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum etc. make total sense to me.

I can't, however, understand why it would make sense to decentralize large online platforms like Youtube and Facebook. Or let's say: I don't understand how this could work.

Bitcoin has a decentralized ledger where all transactions are stored. How would that ledger look for a decentralized Youtube or Facebook?

Or am I missing something? Does decentralization mean something different in this regard?

Thank you!

PS: I'm asking because I again and again read headlines that say something along the line of "everything will be decentralized".

I think I and you have the opposite of the theory of decentralization. In my opinion decentralization is one of the platforms organized to transact directly and there are no rules there. For example, exchange platforms in the US such as Nasdaq are decentralized and they do not have a rule about the liquidity or the price of stocks traded by businesses in a day. In general, all is free.
And for YouTube and Facebook, there are rules and are controlled by the people who created it. It has its rules and if you don't comply then you lose your account.