Not all windows are open

A reader asks about the possibility of disrupting YouTube:

I just finished Stefan’s podcast with you about Capitalism. The thing that really struck me is that one always has to be on the lookout for opportunities, something my dad always told me, but you resurfaced. And the example that struck me was Gab. In hindsight, it was an obvious decision. Everything lined up perfectly for its launch.

Which brings me to Youtube. A few months ago they launched their Youtube Heroes program, which is nothing more than an attempt to censor wrong groupthink under the guise of “preventing harassment”. However, alt-teching Youtube would have a much larger capital requirement than Infogalactic or Gab. I could easily see burning through $20k in hosting fees per month with no end in sight. So I was wondering:

  1. What is your opinion on such an endeavor?
  2. Technically its not too difficult, but without external VC, what would be a valid startup strategy?
  3. What happens when the SJW police deem it to be “Youtube for racists” and advertisers are bullied to pull out?
  4. From the financing side via donations do you see a donation model working with the much larger capital requirements?

I know that Vid.me made some passing comments on freedom of speech after Heroes was launched. However several high-profile accounts were suspended or shutdown this week for wrongthink. And they have yet to jump on such an opportunity.

 In answer to his questions:

  1. I think disrupting YouTube is biting off more than the Alt-Tech community can presently chew.
  2. Backers with deep pockets. This is the sort of thing that the rich Republicans who finance think tanks and political action committees should be doing, but they’re not, because they fail to understand how technology and culture drive politics. For the money that was wasted on Jeb Bush’s futile campaign alone, both YouTube and Facebook could have been disrupted. The reason the Right has been losing the culture war for decades is because it has been stubbornly determined to fight the Vietnam War with WWI tactics.
  3. Bully right back. Go after the competitors advertisers; it’s not as if they aren’t supporting pedophilia and a whole host of dyscivic and even dyscivilizational sins considerably worse than “racism”. Concerns about “racism” are so 1980s, they’re not even remotely relevant to a multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious society now engaged in bare knuckles identity politics.
  4. No. It’s a chicken or the egg situation. Like VC, donations tend to flow most freely when they are totally unnecessary. For example, Infogalactic’s donations presently run about 1/2500 that of Wikipedia. We’ll beat them anyhow, thanks to the Original Galaxians, the Techstars, and the Burn Unit, but it’s a bit ironic that people are least inclined to donate when the Alt-Tech organizations need it most. Once Gab and Infogalactic have successfully disrupted Twitter and Wikipedia, that will be the time bigger prey can be targeted, because more people will believe it to be possible.
Timing is everything. It’s the right time to disrupt Twitter. It’s the right time to disrupt Wikipedia. It’s too soon to disrupt YouTube or Facebook. They’re simply too big and insufficiently vulnerable to credibly take on at the moment. But, it’s true, their censorious actions tend to indicate that they will be vulnerable to an alt-teching in the future.

And, of course, I would be remiss if I failed out to remind you that you, too, can be a part of the Great Disrupting by the Alt-Tech by subscribing or donating to Infogalactic. I’m informed that Infogalactic is currently at 8.5 percent of the Phase Two goal, and 15 percent of the inital goal of a 1000-strong Burn Unit. The good news is that the Techstars are getting close on the phase one speedups that Infogalactic needs to become functionally competitive with Wikipedia.

You know how everyone says “someone ought to do something?” Well, the Infogalactic team is doing just that. Be a part of it.