Some journeys (aka odysseys) can last a long time while others, not so much. Similarly, my try out of the alternative de-centralized version of YouTube called Odysee, has come to a quick self-determined end as I bid “odyios” (intentional misspelling of adios) to the platform.
The cons far outweigh any potential positives. For one, it seems the site has gone through growth spurts via the YouTube syncing mechanism (something that YouTube also tried to make more difficult early on). But during that initial phase, it turned out many large creators were simply syncing to Odysee from YouTube and not really engaging on Odysee itself. The proof are in the view numbers. If a creator that pulls huge numbers on YouTube is only managing several hundred to the low thousand views on Odysee (with low comment count), smaller channels are going to have a far more difficult time building a decent sized engagement. The end result is traffic dropped off over time.
I also came across a whole bunch of Twitch streamer VOD’s. Similar to how Twitch streamers utilize YouTube as a VOD archive (exporting them directly from Twitch to YouTube), it seems some are directly uploading to Odysee. On YouTube, the lack of engagement on these type of videos causes this content to fall into the algorithms blackhole (which can have an impact on the further discoverability of that channels other content). In Odysee’s case, they show up on searches because the site doesn’t have the sort of constant inflow of new content to be discovered.
Similarly, this recent spurt (caused by the whole YouTube age verification drama) has caused another round of syncing, but not actual prioritization of uploading content first on the platform and engaging with channel viewers as a whole. Sites like this need more than just churn; they need a constant inflow of user generated content so that the feed of videos doesn’t look sparse.
But one of the biggest turnoffs for me is this being yet another echo chamber. This was not surprising given what I mentioned in my original posting about such platforms being a magnet for extremists (in the case of Odysee, a lot more right-wing folks, crypto bros, etc). The divisive chasm is so huge now where this idealistic fairytale of open dialogue (free of most censorship) being able to create meaningful interactions, rings hollow when it is the same old name calling. When reasonable people observe this, they are going to prioritize their time and not waste it on remaining on that platform.
Once I saw enough of that, I knew that as awful as YouTube is, that fringe alternatives like this will lack the ability to retain the folks who just want to get away from that type of rhetoric no matter which side of the spectrum. And thus my pretty quick end of this try of the platform.
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