Embrace Piracy, Kill YouTube: A Decentralized Video Protocol \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Embrace Piracy, Kill YouTube: A Decentralized Video Protocol

1491 sats \ 14 comments \ @klk 14h bitcoin

What if a platform instead of fighting piracy started monetizing it?

The Radical Idea

Instead of fighting content piracy, let's weaponize it. Build a decentralized video protocol where anyone can re-upload content from YouTube, Netflix, or anywhere else - and get paid for it.

Here's the game theory:

Re-uploaders earn sats for providing ad-free versions of popular content
Viewers pay 10-100 sats to watch instead of dealing with ads or hunting for free copies
Storage providers earn sats for hosting
Best UX wins, not biggest legal team
Content creators join the platform under their own terms

Why This Kills YouTube

Current model: YouTube subsidizes "free" content with surveillance ads and takes 45% from creators.

Our model: Pay 50 sats for any video, ad-free, downloadable. Content uploader keeps 70%, storage provider gets 20%, platform gets 10%.

The math: Why spend 30 minutes hunting for a free copy when you can watch instantly for a few sats?

YouTube's business model collapses when their content appears ad-free elsewhere for near-zero cost. They either match our pricing (impossible with their overhead) or lose viewers to superior versions of their own content.

Technical MVP (Already Possible)

Built on existing infrastructure:

Nostr + Blossom + Lightning

Upload any video to Blossom servers (decentralized storage)
Publish metadata as Nostr event
Viewers pay via Lightning to unlock viewing
Automatic sat splits between uploader/storage/platform

Simple flow:

Someone uploads YouTube video to protocol
Sets price (e.g., 50 sats)
Viewers discover via any front-end platform
Pay once, watch forever, download if wanted
Uploader earns sats for providing better UX

The Network Effect

Phase 1: Popular videos get re-uploaded ad-free for micropayments Phase 2: Viewers prefer paying pennies over watching ads Phase 3: Creators realize they earn more from re-uploads than original platforms Phase 4: Creators publish directly to the protocol Phase 5: Traditional platforms become content farms for the decentralized network

Natural Law vs Copyright Theater

This operates on pure market dynamics. If someone provides better access to content (ad-free, downloadable, uncensorable), they deserve compensation. Copyright becomes irrelevant when the friction cost is lower than enforcement cost.

The protocol doesn't care about licenses - it cares about who provides the best user experience.

The infrastructure exists today. Plebs.app (#1019627) already demonstrates Nostr+Blossom video hosting. We just need someone to build the pay-per-view layer and embrace the inevitable.

Who's ready to make piracy profitable and kill YouTube's business model?

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99 sats \ 0 replies \ @aljaz 13h

i think blossom gets a bit misunderstood here - its not just a random decentralized storage, it clearly exposes the person hosting it so you have the same problem with this as having a ftp server.

nostr solves discoverability to some extent since people could mirror blossom servers and they could keep popping up, but unless they are tor only its just a whack-a-mole game

its clearly doable, theres large projects like a annas archive and libstc doing something similar with different approaches to discovery and hosting, but the file hosting is a very big part of this problem

35 sats \ 3 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 10h

Maybe I'm not thinking about this correctly.

Just rip all your DVDs (if you are old enough to have a stash) and set up a Plex media server. Get a local library card and many have DVDs for rent. Rip them and add them to your own library to stream on your own devices. No need to share. You could provide access to your server, though that may violate terms of service for Plex. Jellyfin or Emby I think are open source and Id be surprised if they police sharing of content/selling access as much as Plex but I don't use them. Then use tools like meTube to gather YouTube vids which rips out the ads. Add them to the same server. It's not as challenging to build and host your own media and cancel streaming subscriptions as one might think.

Could probably then do set up P2P lightning payments and access if you are inclined. Or if you make an individual library for each piece of media, you then create a marketplace where individual hosts can list available content and set prices, and the "order" is routed. No downloading, but free decentralized P2P streaming on an individual piece of media basis.

This is a half assed idea literally written from the shitter at work and I have 2 mins before my next meeting. But maybe I'll ponder on it more later.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @klk OP 10h

🤣

Well it's about completely changing the incentives to “fix” those platforms. Something similar to what SN tries to do.

Currently YouTube videos are designed to be more than 10 minutes so that they can fit more ads. And most videos embed some kind of paid promotion on top of that.

The whole platform is designed to maximize the time you spend on it. It's not designed to maximize the value provided to the user. Or to make short and to the point useful videos. It's designed to maximize ad revenue.

Would be great to turn things around.

28 sats \ 1 reply \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 9h

I think it would be interesting if people could just host their own media servers (decentralized) and use a marketplace to sell temporary access to it. It's the platform incentives that lead to the 10+ minute videos and embedded ad reads. I haven't used Rumble, but I assume it's likely got similar incentives to YouTube in that way, could be wrong. I imagine the fact that if there is no centralized hosting service and the content is on each creator or curator's server it maybe potentially shifts the burden of managing/risking DCMA violations to the host? Like I could host a library of content only I either created or pirated that I wish to risk/share and charge per stream. If a bunch of people did that, you could have a nice little platform front end that routed content P2P? Wouldn't it also be harder for those media companies to figure out potentially where the user and hosts connect and serve violation notices? I know little of what I speak, and even less of how to explain a coherent thought haha. I simply host a media server at my house for my own personal use, but I know I can grant people like family/friends in other houses access to stream off my server. I imagine there has got to be a way to do that in mass across many users. Like torrents, but for streams.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @klk OP 8h

There's WebTorrent, that enables streaming from torrent seeders. It's pretty cool, but YouTube is much more than a video streaming service. People use it for the recommendations.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @purpurato 13h

I would definitely use this, and I believe most SN users would, but we're a fringe minority and we would be paying to NOT see the ads and all the privacy creep. I think most people don't care much about this (yet) and they're willing to surrender all their data and watch all the ads.

I was talking to a friend of mine about how I de-googled my phone and the fact that he would have to install something instead of just turning on the phone and be fully plugged into the matrix made him roll his eyes in boredom "I just don't have time for that, and I don't have anything to hide"

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 14h

One of the benefits of this is that it puts pressure on the current providers to behave better, so even people who are uncomfortable with “piracy” will benefit.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 14h

Who's ready to make piracy profitable and kill YouTube's business model?

You mean who's ready to risk their freedom for a few sats?

Criminal Penalties

Copyright violators of the DMCA face large fines and imprisonment. A defendant faces a fine of up to $500,000, up to five years in jail, or both a fine and jail for a first offense. Repeat offenders may be fined up to $1,000,000, as long as ten years in prison, or both a fine and prison. Criminal violation of the DMCA occurs when the defendant willfully violated the law for commercial or personal financial gain, such as selling "cracked" copies of copyrighted software.

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @klk OP 14h

Sure. This problem is as old as the Internet.

The difference is that now there's a way to make censorship resistant payments.

What's the point of having freedom money and privacy tools if you are just not going to use that freedom and privacy anyway? (exaggeration)

The concern is valid. What's left to figure out is how to do it without that risk. Or in a way that the cost of enforcement exceeds the benefit (as in a lot of random plebs all over the world).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nichro 2h

I wonder if it's possible for Bitcoin, Nostr and BitTorrent to have a glorious pirate baby

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @rblb 11h

looks like the only one that doesn't win here is the content creator

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @klk OP 10h

Probably the content creators would end up doing some kind of agreement with distributors to where they establish their share. Users would lean towards providers that offer their subscriptions fast and that share revenue with the creator. As long as the cost for the user is not too high.

Something like this would benefit more niche content creators that are close to their audience. Precisely the type of channels that are currently unprofitable in large platforms.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @klk OP 14h

Interested on your view on this @Luxas

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Luxas 1h

I definitely think there's potential here, but more so for Nostr to be the discovery layer of torrent links.

As someone mentioned above, blossom servers are still exposed. Whether that's through takedown of domain or the server itself.

And if we use Mega Upload as an example, we see the MPAA and RIAA have deep pockets to twist the FBI and other three-letter agencies to their will when it comes to making arrests and shutting down pirated media.

I'm not sure most blossom server hosts would want to have such risk. It'd probably be best left for hidden tor services or spreading torrents as mentioned above.