My counter argument is it can be nearly impossible to build an audience outside of a kingdom. Many popular YouTubers will try and splinter off and create websites where they can monetize better. I'm even subscribed to one of these websites because I really do want to support the Creator, but I still consume almost all of their content on YouTube. YouTube makes it very easy to upload something and for people to consume it.
If your video on getting better gas mileage is on GasBro.net I'll never find it. If it's on YouTube I might .
Just bait and switch. You don't have to be loyal to the platform that helped you grow, because it has been using you from the beginning. It has always been a mutual relationship, but people somehow realized it late.
YouTube being the most profitable platform only means that people will consider it as /a/ primary target, but nothing prevents them from using other platforms. As long as the cost is justifiable, multi-platform approach is always better. Luckily, operating on multiple platform is extremely cheap.
Additionally, often there is only a single kingdom for a given type of audience. One can't simply migrate to another kingdom, and it's very difficult to create a new, viable kingdom.
One of the ways these kinds of problems could be addressed could be through laws that limit the speed and the degree to which monopolistic platforms can unilaterally change their terms and conditions. Other kinds of laws could help protect creators that earn a living through these platforms, such as laws mandating a certain rudimentary level of customer service for money-making creators. Hopefully these kinds of laws would reduce the number of horror stories where a platform simply decided to ignore a creator's customer service request to the point where they lost their source of income, oftentimes due to a technical problem caused by the platform itself, and which the platform was unwilling to have an actual human look into.
"I'm even subscribed to one of these websites because I really do want to support the Creator"
This is exactly what my article is recommending. You build a funnel. You put a lot of cool loud stuff on Youtube. But you also build a loyal customer base who will support you on a personal site.
Whoever this creator is that you are supporting is doing exactly what I am recommending.
Historically almost everyone built their castles in someone else's kingdom. The barons may have complained a lot, but in practice they were much more likely to build another palace in the capital than in some remote swampy place where the king's writ ran less.
Ok but trying to lure people to your own site they've never heard of is much more difficult than luring them to your twitter or discord. Creating a community that spans multiple widely used platforms is much more effective than just shouting into the abyss for people to come to your bespoke solution.
Choose both a registrar and top-level domain for your domain name carefully. Neither your registrar nor your chosen TLD registry should be in the habit of suspending domains at the drop of a hat, or be at risk of going out of business suddenly.
For TLDs, I have said before¹ that if you mostly trust your local government, your national ccTLD should suffice. In fact, it should be your default choice unless you have strong indications it does not fulfill the above criteria.
If you buy everything from one hand at once (server space, domain, associated email), make sure you have a way of changing provider and keep domain and emails without it being a hassle.
Word. If you have regular backups, and if some downtime is not really a problem, it might be fine to use web server hosting, e-mail (and in extreme cases even DNS hosting), from some fly-by-night el cheapo provider. But your domain name registrar? Pick them carefully, don’t skimp, and make sure they have good support. Because when things go pear-shaped, you really want to be able to actually talk to someone to change your web server or e-mail DNS records (or even DNS servers) to somewhere else.
Full disclosure: I work at such a registrar. No, you’re probably not in our target market.
I'd argue that on today's Internet, if you don't have a .com domain, you do have an exotic/fancy TLD and therefore need to have the .com domain live and redirecting to your exotic TLD.
IIUC, there are many such TLDs, but you should really only use these if you yourself are a citizen, and your organization is based in the country in question.
Note that .us and several other ccTLDs have the unfortunate disadvantage of not allowing "private registration", forcing you to either expose your real name, address, phone number, and email, or violate their terms by providing fake information and risking suspension for that reason.
Unless you somehow live in two countries at once, there should only be one obvious option for you. However, if what you are asking is: “If my local ccTLD is not trustworthy, what TLD should I choose?”, then unfortunately I don’t really have an answer for you.
This is why open standards like podcast are much better than being in a walled garden. Monetization will be based on the quality of content and your own efforts towards it and not instant.
Look at the ease to exit just like the ease of entry.
Author here. Hey whoever linked to my article thank you for post. I just got notified of this.
To answer the most common questions, I am not advocating "build your own youtube."
Instead I advocate what @notTheAuth said below. Basically treat youtube and twitter as my commercials. I don't care who follows me on those two platforms, they are just the entry point. The following that I truly care about is my mailing list and my own personal site. Those are my owned platforms and that is what I care about.
Think of it like the old days of TV. If I am advertising on TV channels and it goes out of business that isn't that bad. Oh shoot I can't advertise on there anymore. It would be worse if my TV show was hosted by that channel because then my TV show isn't there any more.
This lesson extends to almost everything in life. Too many people wrap up their goals and aspirations to things that are really someone elses thing at the end of the day. It frequently doesn't end well.
Well it's easy to say "don't build your castle in other people's kingdom", but when 95% of people live in someone else's kingdom and like it there it's much harder to actually pull that off.
The author laments content creators trying to bring viewers into their discord or twitter instead of personal website but conveniently ignores the fact that people are much more willing to go to and likely to return to sites they already visit.
I don't think content creators are especially happy to be reliant on youtube, or twitch, or whatever other site they're on. But the reality is that's where the people are. When creators have left those platforms they've consistently lost the vast majority of their viewers, because the reality is that there are plenty of other creators on the platform for viewers to migrate to.
The article discusses that. The idea is go where the people are and try to get them to come to your own kingdom. Use their platform to advertise your platform. I'm sure this is harder than it sounds, but it's pretty amazing the size of the organizations that don't even seem to be trying.
> when 95% of people live in someone else's kingdom
Everyone lives in someone else's kingdom, except those people who own kingdoms.
Articles like these, repeated on HN year after year because they represent popular fantasies (and are thus always voted to the front page), are universally misleading and wrong.
Challenge someone to list how they plan to build a successful business, starting from scratch, outside of existing kingdoms. You'll get a lot of evasiveness in response in terms of answers.
It applies to online businesses as well as offline businesses.
Need advertising? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need marketing? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need cloud hosting or services? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need access to the Internet? You're going to span numerous kingdoms that you don't own. Need to process payments? Again, multiple kingdoms you don't own. Need a domain or access to an app store? Kingdoms you don't own. Need retail goods to put in your store? Numerous kingdoms you don't own. Need manufacturing for your widget? Numerous kingdoms you don't own. Need delivery services beyond local? Someone else's kingdom. Need utilities for anything? Someone else's kingdom. Need government licenses for anything? Someone else's kingdom. Need to travel at distance, by train or plane, for sales or similar? Someone else's kingdom. Need teleconferencing? Very likely someone else's kingdom. Need to sell something online? Someone else's kingdom (most likely; even if you just use Shopify).
And on and on and on it goes. The alternative scenario of trying to do everything yourself is hell.
A better premise would be: be careful where you build your castle, and consider putting it on wheels.
Sadly you can't build apps that can send notifications on the most popular phone on the planet without subjecting yourself to arbitrary censorship by Apple and a 30% cut of revenues.
You also can't build apps that use decentralized backends that receive notifications on that platform. All notifications have to come from the centralized app developer.
I did hold that belief for some time, but I solved it with the most reliable notification-method I came across thus far, and that's plain simple email from my own domain.
I understand this is not possible for specific apps that need smartphone notifications to function properly, but when you think about it: a lot of (web)apps don't need that.
In general, one might need less notifications than one thinks.
Definitely, it's not only about games, and not even only about marketing your content of whatever topic on SM.
Somewhat also applies to buying your stuff mostly on Amazon, hurting your local business. Or any other business that also knows how to deliver its stuff inside a package to your door.
(Just in case it wasnt obvious: Not my blog, just following it)
>Somewhat also applies to buying your stuff mostly on Amazon, hurting your local business.
What if you can't afford to buy real estate in your local community, and don't own any stake in any local businesses? How does spending more money, and driving 20+ minutes, enrich your experience in any way?
Seriously that talking point of "buying stuff on Amazon hurts your local businesses" is such an incredibly false dichotomy. The stuff on Amazon has long often been from a local business, often one you haven't heard of because of its obscure but cheap location.
And that is before getting into the other trade fallacies, opportunity costs, and relative advantages.
Nice article, but some of the writer's earliest examples are "rug pulls" that happened 10+ years ago... surely the "new" generation of creators have ingrained these lessons already?
As a follow-up, I'd want to hear the writer's opinion on how to filter the corrupt kings from the "safe products". MailChimp and Squarespace are easy examples, but are name brand ecosystems like Steam and Spotify necessary evils, or would the writer encourage sticking with indie alternatives like itch.io and Bandcamp?
It is going slower than one would expect (or desire), but I do think technology is bringing us to an ecosystem that is more equitable for creators. Personally, I'm interested in the rules and expectations for tools that would be equitable to creators while remaining sustainable. It seems like there are offerings beyond web hosting and e-mail distribution that are worth exploring.
> MailChimp and Squarespace are easy examples, but are name brand ecosystems like Steam and Spotify necessary evils, or would the writer encourage sticking with indie alternatives like itch.io and Bandcamp?
The author does not say you shouldn't use other kingdoms. To the contrary he says you should use the heck out of them. Just don't set up your whole castle there.
Here I am reading, following this reasonable argument and... boom pop-up "call to action" interrupts the hell out of it.
I realize the conversion rate could be lower, but why not put this CTA in a non-pop-up form at the end of the article? If I really enjoyed it, that seems like the point where I'd be on board with signing up.
Yep. Jump in my face, and I'm not only not going to sign up for your newsletter/install your app/whatever, I'm going to actively avoid ever visiting your site again.
Your metrics may show that you get 0.2% signups with this method rather than 0.15%, but they likely don't show the much larger number of people who won't be coming back to your skeevy site, ever.
I think that's the key distinction. On mobile you would navigate and dismiss the same way.
On a web page, I tend to scroll using a single finger or knuckle on the arrow keys. Requiring a mouse at that point (or extra keypresses, if those even work) breaks the reading experience.
If this is a castle, it's not a very inviting one.
Readit News
If your video on getting better gas mileage is on GasBro.net I'll never find it. If it's on YouTube I might .
YouTube being the most profitable platform only means that people will consider it as /a/ primary target, but nothing prevents them from using other platforms. As long as the cost is justifiable, multi-platform approach is always better. Luckily, operating on multiple platform is extremely cheap.
Decouple. Take advantage of network effects. Model income generation wide and deep.
It’s all about extending social geometry.
One of the ways these kinds of problems could be addressed could be through laws that limit the speed and the degree to which monopolistic platforms can unilaterally change their terms and conditions. Other kinds of laws could help protect creators that earn a living through these platforms, such as laws mandating a certain rudimentary level of customer service for money-making creators. Hopefully these kinds of laws would reduce the number of horror stories where a platform simply decided to ignore a creator's customer service request to the point where they lost their source of income, oftentimes due to a technical problem caused by the platform itself, and which the platform was unwilling to have an actual human look into.
This is exactly what my article is recommending. You build a funnel. You put a lot of cool loud stuff on Youtube. But you also build a loyal customer base who will support you on a personal site.
Whoever this creator is that you are supporting is doing exactly what I am recommending.
> Rule #2: SHAMELESSLY USE THE OTHER KINGDOMS JUST LIKE THEY ARE USING YOU!
Choose both a registrar and top-level domain for your domain name carefully. Neither your registrar nor your chosen TLD registry should be in the habit of suspending domains at the drop of a hat, or be at risk of going out of business suddenly.
For TLDs, I have said before¹ that if you mostly trust your local government, your national ccTLD should suffice. In fact, it should be your default choice unless you have strong indications it does not fulfill the above criteria.
1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614298
If you buy everything from one hand at once (server space, domain, associated email), make sure you have a way of changing provider and keep domain and emails without it being a hassle.
Full disclosure: I work at such a registrar. No, you’re probably not in our target market.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us
This is why open standards like podcast are much better than being in a walled garden. Monetization will be based on the quality of content and your own efforts towards it and not instant.
Look at the ease to exit just like the ease of entry.
Amen.
To answer the most common questions, I am not advocating "build your own youtube."
Instead I advocate what @notTheAuth said below. Basically treat youtube and twitter as my commercials. I don't care who follows me on those two platforms, they are just the entry point. The following that I truly care about is my mailing list and my own personal site. Those are my owned platforms and that is what I care about.
Think of it like the old days of TV. If I am advertising on TV channels and it goes out of business that isn't that bad. Oh shoot I can't advertise on there anymore. It would be worse if my TV show was hosted by that channel because then my TV show isn't there any more.
This is a really great article.
The author laments content creators trying to bring viewers into their discord or twitter instead of personal website but conveniently ignores the fact that people are much more willing to go to and likely to return to sites they already visit.
I don't think content creators are especially happy to be reliant on youtube, or twitch, or whatever other site they're on. But the reality is that's where the people are. When creators have left those platforms they've consistently lost the vast majority of their viewers, because the reality is that there are plenty of other creators on the platform for viewers to migrate to.
Everyone lives in someone else's kingdom, except those people who own kingdoms.
Articles like these, repeated on HN year after year because they represent popular fantasies (and are thus always voted to the front page), are universally misleading and wrong.
Challenge someone to list how they plan to build a successful business, starting from scratch, outside of existing kingdoms. You'll get a lot of evasiveness in response in terms of answers.
It applies to online businesses as well as offline businesses.
Need advertising? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need marketing? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need cloud hosting or services? You're in someone else's kingdom. Need access to the Internet? You're going to span numerous kingdoms that you don't own. Need to process payments? Again, multiple kingdoms you don't own. Need a domain or access to an app store? Kingdoms you don't own. Need retail goods to put in your store? Numerous kingdoms you don't own. Need manufacturing for your widget? Numerous kingdoms you don't own. Need delivery services beyond local? Someone else's kingdom. Need utilities for anything? Someone else's kingdom. Need government licenses for anything? Someone else's kingdom. Need to travel at distance, by train or plane, for sales or similar? Someone else's kingdom. Need teleconferencing? Very likely someone else's kingdom. Need to sell something online? Someone else's kingdom (most likely; even if you just use Shopify).
And on and on and on it goes. The alternative scenario of trying to do everything yourself is hell.
A better premise would be: be careful where you build your castle, and consider putting it on wheels.
You also can't build apps that use decentralized backends that receive notifications on that platform. All notifications have to come from the centralized app developer.
Sharecropping is beginning to be the only way.
I understand this is not possible for specific apps that need smartphone notifications to function properly, but when you think about it: a lot of (web)apps don't need that.
In general, one might need less notifications than one thinks.
Somewhat also applies to buying your stuff mostly on Amazon, hurting your local business. Or any other business that also knows how to deliver its stuff inside a package to your door.
(Just in case it wasnt obvious: Not my blog, just following it)
What if you can't afford to buy real estate in your local community, and don't own any stake in any local businesses? How does spending more money, and driving 20+ minutes, enrich your experience in any way?
And that is before getting into the other trade fallacies, opportunity costs, and relative advantages.
As a follow-up, I'd want to hear the writer's opinion on how to filter the corrupt kings from the "safe products". MailChimp and Squarespace are easy examples, but are name brand ecosystems like Steam and Spotify necessary evils, or would the writer encourage sticking with indie alternatives like itch.io and Bandcamp?
It is going slower than one would expect (or desire), but I do think technology is bringing us to an ecosystem that is more equitable for creators. Personally, I'm interested in the rules and expectations for tools that would be equitable to creators while remaining sustainable. It seems like there are offerings beyond web hosting and e-mail distribution that are worth exploring.
The author does not say you shouldn't use other kingdoms. To the contrary he says you should use the heck out of them. Just don't set up your whole castle there.
I realize the conversion rate could be lower, but why not put this CTA in a non-pop-up form at the end of the article? If I really enjoyed it, that seems like the point where I'd be on board with signing up.
It seems you've answered your own question.
Your metrics may show that you get 0.2% signups with this method rather than 0.15%, but they likely don't show the much larger number of people who won't be coming back to your skeevy site, ever.
On a web page, I tend to scroll using a single finger or knuckle on the arrow keys. Requiring a mouse at that point (or extra keypresses, if those even work) breaks the reading experience.
If this is a castle, it's not a very inviting one.
I got a good chuckle out of the unintentional cognitive dissonance of this phrase.