YouTube might be the biggest challenge yet given the extraordinary amount of storage needed to recreate it.

I literally have like 1TB of video stored on YouTube and privatized. Google is making $0 from my videos, but they still have to store them and have them available if I want to watch it (it’s all of my Twitch VODs). Meanwhile websites like Streamable perma-delete my 5MB video after it gets 0 views in 2 milliseconds.

YouTube is a behemoth that will not be replaced.

I frankly don’t see a way for federated video to happen unless uploads are severely limited or it’s paywalled. Even with YouTube’s wild compression, you’re looking at several gigs for a single 4k video.

Honestly the fact that YouTube exists is a miracle. Video is still just monstrously large.

lol reddit is still kicking, people. Don’t count your chickens yet.