Is Dtube Scamming Creators Out of Rewards?
It is common for people to get a little bit confused about how the Steem blockchain operates. Upon first joining up to Steemit, like many users I did not understand that Steemit.com was different than Steem, the blockchain. Now my eyes have been opened to the fact that anyone can build a website or platform that uses Steem's ecosystem. Dtube is a "decentralized" app created to complete with YouTube within the age of online censorship. After only a few months of operation, many complaints are going upon deaf ears and creators are getting rewards taken while being given nothing in return.
The problems started months back with videos not loading. No communication was made between DTUBE staff and creators about this issue for a very long time. What was said basically was to "shut up and continue posting". As time went on, the retention slowly got even worse. Up until today , if you uploaded a Dtube video, it will most likely either be immediately deleted or deleted within 24 hours. So one must ask, why are creators still allowing DTUBE to take 25% of curation rewards if they don't even host the videos? Wouldn't a better solution be to simply embed a YouTube video, or post to a platform that doesn't steal curation rewards from creators?
Dtube has not kept up their end of the deal. why didn't they tell creators this right away? I think we all know the answer to this question. They wanted to take the rewards without investing any time, money, or effort involving education and building user hosting tools. They choose kept the creators in the dark about how their P2P technology works. Another major problem is Dtube chose to use premature technology without understanding how it works. IPFS isn't ready, and could possibly never be ready. Torrents are mature, and already have every tool you could ever need already built and ready to go. Torrents work great for streaming live and uploaded video. You can find this demonstrated by Bitchute's website. I've used it for a while now without any issues. This demonstrates Decentralized video can work, not to mention the past 30 years the wazez scene have operated in a decentralized manner.
Even the Dtube name is a misnomer. Dtube was never decentralized. Only a tiny sliver of creators knew how to run IPFS nodes, making Dtube the only host of the videos. And you cannot make the arguments decentralized technology is not mature, because most of the videos on Bitchute are truly decentralized and user hosted. It's quite obvious Dtube's videos are not. Because if they were, they would actually load. You can find out for yourself if Dtube or Dlive is really decentralized by simply downloading a video. If the video has one peer, it's centralized. It is that easy. Just because a video is hosted with IPFS does not mean it's decentralized. Just like torrents, if only one seed exists, it is still centralized
Toady, I must ask everyone posting videos to Dtube or up-voting content to consider the things I've mentioned here. You must think about the projects you would like to see around, and how you want people treated by these DAPPs. This is a dangerous trend to continue and it has already damaged Steemit's branding to a respected journalist. Tim Pool said this about Steemit, because of Dtube's recent actions inside our community.
Our videos load, we succesfully solved issues earlier last week.
We do not take 25%, we redistribute it through dtube.rewards to increase curation rewards for people.
Facts
Still a noob, so take with a grain of salt. I have noticed some videos not loading.
I think the bigger issues with the videos is that the entire framework where stuff is paid out in a week is a disservice to videos that may still hold relevance 6 months later... But, that's the system.
No experience loading videos or anything myself though.
I agree the 7 day limit is bad for videos.
Old videos that were uploaded before last week will still probably fail to load through ipfs.io or take a long long time, but things will get better now ;)
I have seen the dtube curation payouts in many wallets, so it's good to know that's where the 25% goes (and I know, it's not exactly 25% with SBD>$1), but the simple fact is your videos don't load still, which is the base feature for this service IMO. You could have abysmal communication, horrible interface, no curation reward feature, and many other things wrong, but if I can find and watch videos older than a week, it would be a viable service for me to use.
To give an example, just yesterday, I left a 4 day old video in a browser tab to load for hours because I really wanted to watch it, refreshed and let it load some more, and never got to watch one second of it. This is the most base level I expect from a video hosting service, and without that ability I cannot recommend anyone use it.
Those are good things to hear! I know this must be frustrating for you, I do hope everything continues evolving as it has been.
Curious on the direction of file hosting? Will you continue with IPFS? And will there be a way of helping host files? We do have a node for the #OneLoveDtube community videos if there is a change repurposing would be feasible.
I have had far too many issues with Dtube right from the get go, which made me move my video posts over to Dlive and as you astutely mentioned, just host them on Youtube (which is a shame).
I'm really hoping things change or that a genuine decentralised video app that is deeply integrated with Steemit comes along soon...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it...
Blissful blessings and smilesin joyNathanNK
Thank you for the kind words and blessings :). I also think some really great apps are coming down the pipeline.
Oh, that’s exciting! Can’t wait for that! It’s be great to completely let go of the giant corporate social media’s like YT.
Have you heard of any particular ones in the pipeline?
I like what I've seen from @heimindanger, but I have been avoiding dtube for the past few months. I skip all dtube videos I see on my feed because I know the chances of them even loading are slim, and I won't even bother uploading to there unless I plan on hosting the video myself, which makes the 25% cut they take completely ridiculous.
Making a dapp, managing it, and communication with customers is exceedingly hard. There's a reason why not everyone is doing it. But, that doesn't excuse what is expected at a minimal level by most users, and what we see with dtube.
I agree r0n. Building a site is incredibly hard. And when you compete with players who have billions of dollars.. And your user's expectations are based upon that , really makes it next to impossible.
While I agree there are concerns I don't think scam is called for, the day you posted this was one day after one of the worst days I have had personally with DTube so that said I understand the frustration. This whole team needs to work on outreach, if people are hearing about @OneLoveDTube before they hear about @DTube and ending up at our discord server asking if it is the official one chances are that is a good sign the #OneLoveDTube community is doing more on the visibility end. How? By asking our members to promote openly and to giving them media to use with our branding, everywhere you look there is a onelove something. The big difference I see is founder activity, the founder needs to be on the front lines with a backup team for outreach. @Dlive has a great team on outreach and working towards improving it further with mobile apps, this is the model DTube needs to pursue and I think if they openly asked for talent to get the job done it would happen a lot quicker then the current surprise model. I mean we have started creating our own portal to function through the DTube system even paying them rewards still just to attempt fix some of the functionality of the webpage, I guess our web designer was met with resistance to his ideas for solutions thus starting something completely new.
Thanks for the reply D00k. It's a rough subject to cover that is for sure. I agree that having someone over at dtube do community relations would help a lot to retain users.
No Worries, I am by nature a loyalist and tend to stick with what I first start with yet I find myself everyday wondering why I choose to stick with DTube? Luck of the draw? I do know that when I first started on Steemit DTube was the only video platform and DLive was no completed then my relationship with @Dnews brought on the #onelovedtube community... so is it just branding? Very well could be, but also my first experiences with DLive were not good... we had our “From The Heart” videos go missing from their database due to size! So there are situations on either side of that equation where people have been scared from both platforms but I do see how DLive is attempting to meditate these situations with transparency and communication rather then secrecy and surprise.
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Good topic @gray00. I wasn't aware of any of this, apart from the removal of vids and difficulty uploading. I recently placed a video on there and it went well, but I had expected to see a few more extra features that would help edit the video. I only really use it to support the steemit community, but this sounds as though it isn't really that innocent.