How I tried to compete with YouTube and Google with Livevideo.com
This article should say - you can't compete with google using google.The "final blow" was adsense being cutoff. Their revenue model to compete with google was ... adsense. OK.Their traffic model was google search. Ok.Between the lines it sounds like some aggressive SEO, and maybe the network click bounce thing (you click on one video, and then it clicks through to another site etc). Be curious what their content moderation story was.Seriously, if you are building a google competitor, you probably need to use something other than adsense. And a reminder, adsense is a key revenue generation value add.The paying of creators definitely anti-competitive. I do think there will be a youtube alternative (small scale) eventually.The problem is a lot of these "competitors" get filled with absolutely trash / hateful content right away because the first people to use them are the rejects from youtube and the moderation teams are so glad to have someone show up they don't moderate heavily enough. Checkout some of the reddit competitors, total disgusting trash.