I know Nebula is not exactly open source, but it is pitched as a creator-controlled (or, at least a creator-centric) platform.
YouTube is my main platform of media consumption, and I would prefer to find other avenues that are not quite as monolithic.
Has anyone here tried Nebula? Is it worth it, and is there anything sketchy about it I should be aware of?
I have been using Nebula for years and it has replaced most of my use of YouTube. Whether it is worth it for you or not depends on what you watch. You can see what content is on Nebula without subscribing to get an idea of what is there.
The biggest problem I have with Nebula is that it is advertised as a “creator owned” company, but that is not actually the case. Here is a blogpost that goes into more detail about that. That being said, from what I am aware of, Nebula still pays creators more than YouTube per view. I just wish they were more transparent about their business.
I think it’s really important that we stop talking in terms of payment on a per-view basis - Nebula does not pay on a per-view basis. Nebula uses the same model as music streaming companies, i.e. a pro rata stream share model. This means that creators get paid based on how large of a percentage of the total streaming time was on their content. No additional money is generated for each view, it’s conceptually still a fraction of what you pay monthly. The more content you view on the platform, the less each view conceptually pays.
Wait so YouTube premium actually has a better pay split model (per view.)
This is a bizarre turn of events. The only reason I was interested in nebula is because I thought it was paid by my personal watch time.
No, YouTube premium is the same.
From what I’m reading it’s split based on my watch time instead of doing a global pool like Spotify. The language is confusing though
It’s a bit hard to tell from the public information on the subject, but either way, it’s not a per-view model - which cannot exist in a fixed-price all-access environment for practical reasons.
I’m not sure how practical it would be to do the royalty payments on an individual user consumption level, but I have little insight into the implementation here.
“better” is subjective. There’s a pie, and creators get a portion of that pie depending on their portion of the volume of total views. It’s a pretty fair and sustainable way for the company to pay creators decently.
So they do get paid by your personal views, but your subscription isn’t individually divided. Every subscription is.
The better part comes from, they get paid more per view than from YouTube.
From what I’m reading, the pie is just my subscription and watch time. The language is confusing though, I may be wrong.
This is exactly the information I was looking for.
It seemed like the key points from the medium post were:
Nebula creators don’t actually own any of the company, but are promised a portion if the company is ever sold.
They are likely funded by venture capitalists, and are masquerading as a form of co-op
The sales pitch to subscribers is disingenuous because content creators are claiming to have 50% ownership, when they actually have 0%
I think you summed it up well. According to that post, they are a better option than YouTube, are friendlier to content creators, but are in serious lack of transparency
Came to say the same. It’s probably a step in the right direction, but for me at the moment, as much as it might be a slap in the face to all the creators who’ve infested their time into it, I’m inclined to say “not good enough” and learn to organise better if you want proper independence.
AFAICT, just providing some actual share ownership and decision making mechanisms would have made the difference.