Read Part 1 HERE
https://153news.net
Summary: This site is very good if you want very minimal censorship as it's specifically designed for "truthers," by a "truther," so there's no risk of mainstream narrative-toting hordes migrating here and starting a PC-police campaign for censorship. The main issues are that you'll be preaching to the choir and there is no means to monetizem, neither of which are likely to change in the future. But 153News is a good place to, at the very least, host your more 'controversial' videos. Then you can use other methods to spread your 153 links such as commenting in threads or private messaging on other platforms, even creating video 'teasers' on YouTube because I don't think there's going to be a lot of organic views coming at you from people just happening to stumble across 153News videos because it's not properly integrating into a major search engine like Google (as of yet). Generally speaking, there's a lot more features here than DTube and BitChute, and you'll probably enjoy the community more. It's still a very new platform so I'm only going on my 1st impressions with limited experience and understanding of it; consider it one of the dark horse candidates.
Technology Used: Renting multiple servers and hosting, at least this is what I've heard. I could be wrong, but here is a statement from Jason Boss it's creator:
Welcome everyone. My name is Jason Boss and I am the private individual who built 153news.net. I lost my 20,000 subs and 1400 videos on youtube as I exposed the Las Vegas hoax. I have been in IT all my life and even spent 4 years working at Google in the Oregon data center. I know how to build servers, networks, I am tired of the people telling the truth being silenced. We are in dark days and the only way to fight this kind of war is to be able to fight the suppression of information. I have come to meet and know alot of people I had never heard of on YouTube. Brothers and sisters who keep getting silenced and harassed by a company whose motto is "Dont be evil". I don’t think our civilization has a ton of time left if we can’t stop the slow kill that is happening to us all.
As vid.me is turning itself off after 9.2 million in funding, I am nervous that it only cost $5k to build 153news.net to this point. Imagine what a group of patriots could do with that kind of cash. The limitations we will always have will be upon scaling the infrastructure. Right now we have a few aces in the hole because I own an ISP and can use its resources to help build this but if this gets to big to quick, we may have some issues.
Because I know these servers will probably be raided, seized, and hacked by the alphabet gangs and those who hate the truth, I have multi continent backups. They can destroy our entire server infrastructure and I should still be able to rebuild the database and files fairly easily. I am ready for this kind of war.
I have brought a partner into 153news.net. Someone alot of you probably know and someone who I respect highly. FromDeath2Life is the official partner of mine in this quest for the truth endeavor. We have no funding, no big pockets, but we believe that if we build a platform that isn’t sold out, that isn’t scared to fight, and that will let truth reign supreme, the funding will take care of itself. Till that day we have dedicated what we can into keeping your videos safe and censorship free.
Cons:
The name 153News might be hard for people to remember.
I could not find any videos in a Google search in regards to the "Videos" tab. I did see some of the videos come up in the "All" search, but since it's not in the videos section you will not see the thumbnail for the video and for this reason people might miss it if they don't search through the regular results.
Despite claiming an allowance of up to 5GB per upload or 320min in duration, I cannot not get any of my longer videos to upload. I have several that are about 120min and 3-4Gb, none of which will upload. Hopefully this issue gets resolved, but I did notice other videos that were 2-3 hours long, so I'm not sure what the deal is exactly. I did test out a much shorter video (about 5min long) and it uploaded fine.
Some links are broken or have empty content. If you try to register it will say "registration temporarily not allowed." They'll ask you to email: [email protected] to set up an account. I got an email response relatively quickly asking for a user name and giving some basic info about how it's a site for "truther" content only. So don't go posting any of your videos on celebrity gossip, you might get censored faster than a 'David-Hogg-is-a-crisis-actor' video on YouTube.
There is no monetization, so if you want to go that route, you'd need a Patreon account or some form of donation link set up. Not sure if the videos would embed into the Patreon feed, let alone other platforms. I know they do not work in Steemit posts at this time; I've tried––even when using the embed code in the 'sharing' option.
You're gonna be preaching to the choir. I'm not sure how accessible it will be in web search results and since it's an independent and low budget project at the moment. I also don't know if it's gonna have much of an advertising campaign. This could also be seen as a good thing if you don't want a lot of attention from bigger entities who might have the power to organize a take down of the servers or some other form of attack, it really depends on your perspective.
Despite having "truther" content, there can be some less than insightful videos; like people just selfie-vlog-ranting about NWO stuff, which can get old quickly in my opinion. And of course you can't get away from the "he/she's a shill" accusation videos and commentary, most of which are based purely on speculation and loose connections––just like conspiracy theorists are often accused of doing!...way to represent. An unfortunate byproduct of being in the "truther" world is there are those stereotypical "conspiracy theorists" who are overly paranoid and just jump to preconceived conclusions or don't properly vet data; we've all been there, but some choose to remain there in ignorance and make it a daily ritual to relish in it whereas others (I'd like to include myself in this) are trying out best to not "be that guy" despite having our occasional failures.
When I subscribed to someone on 153News I kept getting email updates whenever they posted a new video. This becomes annoying in my opinion and I did not see a way to turn off these notifications; maybe I missed it.
Pros:
There are playlists! YES. Unfortunately not being able to upload my podcast videos at this time doesn't really allow me to utilize them. There's also the ability to upload photos and put them into playlists, I'd like to see the ability to upload documents like PDF's.
There's a private messaging system built in which allows for a lot more communication between members.
The built-in search works pretty good! I searched some key words and the appropriate videos came right up. You can also search channels and photos aside from videos.
Probably most importantly, the message from the creator is anti-censorship. Post all you want about crisis actors, fake shootings, WWII revisionism, anti-Zionist sentiments or criticism of Israeli foreign policy––you will be all good. Ironically, if you post "normie" stuff then that's the probably the only threat to be censored; that and pornography. There is a flagging option, but I could only see it being used if someone creates "truther" bashing troll accounts, which would be more difficult because you have to get approved via email––or if someone decides to post some 'kinky' stuff.
Generally speaking, it would be a good place to connect with people, get away from anti-conspiracy trolls (hopefully anyway), and to find unfiltered content. 153News serves as a good "base camp" (to use a war analogy).
Contact support has been decent in my experience, you can email them at: [email protected] or [email protected]
Miscellaneous Comments/Conclusion: I'm hoping some of the uploading kinks get ironed out. I'd be happy to upload my content here as a back-up, and to help gain support of other "truthers" + alternative media folks, but as of now I'm not going to invest much until it's able to evolve a bit. I currently contribute a small amount on Patreon to 153News because the creator seems like a good guy and they could use the support. I've had several email correspondences with them and I get the notion that they are very busy but try to answer all responses and to be attentive; easier said than done but what they've got so far I am impressed with. If you'd like to do the same visit their Patreon page here. They are also requesting help from people with "hacker" skills. Here's the message of their plea:
Hackers of good...I know you guys are out there, if you find an exploit of any kind, please please please email me at [email protected] and let me know what the exploit was. In our endeavor for truth and waking people up, I know most of you hackers are out for the same things we are out for and this is your chance to help us get secured and stand a chance against paid hackers that will be coming.
https://real.video
Summary: This platform has not been released yet and is a another potential dark horse candidate. It's creator is Mike Adams, known as the Health Ranger. On the surface, it seems like a place geared more towards conservative and/or Alt-Right viewpoints, but I'd advise you to hear Mike Adams out before you go running for the hills if you're not an Alt-Right fan. His website can be found here and his Vimeo channel can be found here. Apparently he had over 1,700 videos and more than 350,000 subs on YouTube before he was shut down. Here is an article on his site discussing Real.Video. The potential pros and cons to this platform are a bit more tricky to describe, because a lot of it will be dictated by your perception of its creator and the affiliates he endorses. I personally have no major issues with Mike Adams; I generally like his vibe; he seems like a genuine person despite what many claim to the contrary. But I'm not super familiar with Mr. Adams other than hearing him talk on a few podcasts. Based solely on that, there are things that I can agree with him on, there are things I don't agree with him on––'nuff said. That's the kinda dude I am; I'm not one to cry "shill!" at any given opportunity whenever I disagree––even vehemently––with someone in the "truther" world's viewpoint. You might feel otherwise; you might see some pros as cons or vice versa, but I'll try to give an honest assessment of some potential issues to consider once this platform commences.
Technology Used: Peer to Peer––Decentralized.
(I don't pretend to understand these sorts of things, but here is a Wikipedia article describing P2P technology)
Cons: (or pros to some)
Mike Adams appears to be generally pro-Trump; at least that's my perception at the time of writing this. He also endorses Alex Jones who, to many, is the quintessential example of a controlled opposition "shill." Adams also endorses some other big names in the alternative and Alt-Right media whom you may or may not have an affinity for. Here is a list of them according to Real.Video's web page:
Confirmed partners already too many to mention... channels being reserved for all these and more: Natural News, Gateway Pundit, Activist Post, Next News Network, InfoWars, All News Pipeline, SGT Report, Ben Swann, Greg Hunter, Breitbart, Milo, Loomer, Shapiro, Coulter, Quayle, Southern, USA Watchdog, Green Med Info, and many more...
So essentially, those are the alternative media figures who will be, more or less, the "all-stars" of the platform. If you loathe political fidelity intermingled into "truther" content, or if you can't––at the very least––tolerate Alt-Right viewpoints, then your probably gonna be up sh*t creek without a paddle on Real.Video; those views will be (most likely) the most predominant views on the platform.Adams says he will censor "leftist" or "Marxist" content; to what extent that means, I'm not sure. Here are some exerts from his Natural News article linked in the summary:
Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are at war with human freedom. They’ve decided to selectively terminate content based purely on political bias, wiping out extremely valuable channels of human knowledge and freedom in the process. Understand that freedom of the press is now being utterly destroyed by these techno-tyrants that have been infested with radical left-wing crybullies and snowflakes who now serve as “trusted flaggers” to selectively censor their targets.
This system is not a “free for all” that’s open to any content creator, by the way. Content creators must be invited to have access to the system. This means that anti-liberty left-wing cult members who hate freedom and democracy will not be infecting this network with their delusional, anti-reason rhetoric.
The only channels invited to use this system will be those that are aligned with the core human values of individual liberty, human dignity, freedom of speech and the right to share human knowledge. This excludes the political Left, which has devolved into a radical, anti-Trump hate group that despises knowledge, facts and freedom.
So what this seems like, on the surface, is engaging in the same behavior that you're complaining about: selectively terminating content based purely on political bias. Bear in mind, I'm not complaining about this, in fact I'd love to not have SJW "crazies" anywhere in sight. I'm just saying that even though it's his prerogative (as he is the creator of the platform) I can also see how it could be a turn off for some, based on those statements. Having said that, I think he articulates his positions MUCH clearer in this video (around the 13:00 + 30:00min mark), and based on those positions I wouldn't really worry much about it too much. After hearing his views in this interview I'm actually rather excited about his general viewpoints on free speech and what his platform espouses. I'd highly suggest you watch it.Adams has spoken about monetization not being something that is on his radar due to "tax issues." I don't know much about the legalities of these things, but perhaps he might change his mind on this. I guess it looks like (for now) yet another platform that one would have to rely upon a Patreon account or outside-source funding in order to gain some monetization for their content creation using Real.Video. He does state that he will allow people to advertise and have outside links to places where you can sell content/services or receive money. Peripherally, to the tax issue, he says it will help weed out people who are strictly for monetary gain and uses the click-bait example as people trying to generate hits to receive more ad revenue. What might be a better idea is to find a system where you can privatize videos and link them up to an outside monetary exchange such as PayPal; that way people can receive paid subscriptions through Real.Video that are tied to an external financial exchange, but are connected to the platform in such a way that certain videos become accessible once they have done so. I'm not sure the logistics of creating such a system from a programmer/designer's point of view, but if it wasn't overly difficult it might be worth considering.
Pros: (or cons to some)
Mr. Adams states that he won't censor any coverage of shooting/terror events, whether they believe them to be false flags, staged hoaxes or using crisis actors––or any mixture of the two. This seems to be at the heart of what most "truthers" are upset about when dealing with YouTube. I've heard him say in interviews that he is 100% for free speech with certain limitations such as no porn, no death videos, death threats, etc. ; i.e. basic common sense stuff. Of course there's still the extreme leftists censoring issue that has been previously mentioned, but I think it needs to be put in context. In fact, in this interview (which I linked in the cons section), Mike Adams clarifies a lot of things for us and alleviates most of my concerns [again around the 13:00min mark and the 30:00min mark he talks about these issues]. He says the extreme Alt-Left already have their platforms: YouTube, Google and Twitter; they can talk all they like on them. He's offering an alternative for voices that aren't able to be heard on those platforms, so the idea behind keeping the extreme left out who won't even allow for others opinions, well, it makes sense in that regard. He also says Real.Video will be a place where people can debate about gender, vaccines, politics or whatever; it's just that you can't debate those things rationally on platforms like YouTube (in Adam's opinion) and any views opposing the Left will be shut down and censored. Mike Adams also states that you can make videos criticizing him or even calling him a CIA agent or shill, he says: "that's fine, that's their free speech"––pretty bad-ass if you ask me.
Additional pros for me would depend mostly upon Real.Video's features. Since Natural News is an alt-media giant (granted small potatoes in comparison to corporate media giants) the potential for more financial backing and hosting influential figures could mean more bells and whistles along with more exposure; i.e. the potential for an all around better platform with more of the luxuries that something like YouTube provides––minus the censorship. I'm hoping this becomes the case.
This might also be a good place to get noticed more since people like Adams and Jones have more connections that cross over into mainstream audiences. Someone talking about the corruption of Hilary Clinton is more likely to be seen and received by people "in the matrix" rather than a video breaking down the Gematria of her campaign and examining the astrological correspondences of her speeches if you catch my drift.
If you're an Alt-Right type of person to begin with, then I'm sure most of the potential issues I mentioned in the cons section won't even matter.
Miscellaneous Comments/Conclusion: If you are interested, you can pre-request an invite via email at Real.Video. Obviously, if you hate Alex Jones, or think any of the popular alternative media folks are "shills," "disinfo agents," or "controlled opposition,"––especially ones supporting Trump––well... obviously this isn't going to be the place for you. If you can allow for a disagreement with these types of folks, but allow to co-exist with them on a platform where they might be the more prominent voices, then I wouldn't think there would be much issue. I'm much more of the latter when it comes to this kind of stuff, despite myself not having much faith in Donald Trump as a vehicle for grandiose change for the betterment of humanity, but I am hopeful that Adams and his team will only be leaving the crazy SWJ-PC police at the door and welcome everyone else; seems to be the case so far from what I've heard. I'll be happy to give Real.Video a go if the platform has a great interface, great functionality, is intuitive and has useful features; especially if they are ones that I've found lacking in other previously examined platforms. I sent a request, so we'll see what happens.
https://www.vimeo.com
Summary: Vimeo is another platform that is not for everyone in terms of content creation. As a viewer, it will function just fine and it's free to sign up, but there's not going to be much of a community there––at least not at this time. This could potentially be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your perspective which I'll explain shortly. If you're looking to sell your work and take a more professional approach while simultaneously having a spot to host and provide the infrastructure, then Vimeo might be a great choice; but it can be expensive. Censorship issues seem to be neutralized here, but that could change in the future seeing as it's a more corporate platform and tied into a lot of mainstream networks and professionals. Since you pay for the upload space and additional features, I would think it'd be against Vimeo's best interests to play the PC-censorship game.
Cons:
Right off the bat, it's the only choice on the list that you will have to pay for to upload any substantial amount of content. To find out what you get with the free account click here. You essentially get a maximum amount of 250Mb per week for video uploads; it caps out at 5Gb total. Unfortunately 250Mb per week and 5Gb total uploading space is peanuts compared to the size needed for longer or more high quality, HD type videos.
The plans can get quite expensive; for that reason alone Vimeo is geared much more towards professionals and businesses. Information on the paid plans is here from Vimeo's site, but I'll summarize them for you:
• Vimeo Plus - $84 per year - 5Gb per week with up to 250Gb per year of storage - It can be month to month for $12 per month.
• Vimeo Pro - $240 per year - 20Gb per week with up to 1Tb per year of storage.
• Vimeo Pro Unlimited - $ 399 per year - No weekly limits with up to 3Tb of storage.
• Vimeo Business - $600 per year - No weekly limits with up to 5Tb of storage.
• Vimeo Premium - $900 per year - No weekly limits with up to 7Tb of storage + live streaming.
Bear in mind that the differences between plans is not limited to storage and the features widely vary which we'll get into later. There are also coupon codes you can find to help reduce the price. I found one discounting the Pro package by 25% making it $180 instead of $240. Google or web search "Vimeo coupon code" to see what's currently available; usually Retail Me Not has some decent codes. I'm not sure if these can be used to renew plans though, I'd have to look into it further.The storage options within the plans is a bit random and seems strange to me. For example: I can have the Plus or Pro plan and have an unlimited amount of potential storage; the catch is that I have a maximum amount per year that I can upload. Comparing this to a plan that is more expensive, such as Pro Unlimited, I can upload as much as I want per week and my space will eventually cap out at 3Tb. So while yes, I can upload without weekly restrictions using Unlimited, but with regular Pro I can upload a maximum of 1Tb per year, let it reset the next year, while still being able to keep what I had previously uploaded––then repeat. My point is that after 3 years on Pro, with hitting my maximum 1Tb cap each year, I will be able to upload more content than the higher tier plan over time. If I upload 1Tb each year for 10 years, then I will have 10Tb of videos which out-performs even the highest level plan––Premium––that allows for 7Tb; the difference is that I had to be restricted by yearly increments. Obviously, 99.9% of people aren't going to need anywhere near 10Tb of space––that's a boatload of data––but the point is that the storage plans just seem kind of abstract without a clear picture as to why.
In terms of features, you cannot change the video speed like you can on YouTube or even DTube and Bitchute. Not a big deal for me, but others might like that feature. Vimeo also will not save your spot like YouTube does; I give the free platforms a pass on this because, well... they're free. Since you pay for Vimeo––and quite a lot I might add––it should have the bells and whistles of a free platform like YouTube.
The upload time takes a while and is comparable to DTube and Bitchute. Again, this is an issue because you are paying for the service and YouTube's upload time trumps all of these platforms. If I upload a 3.5Gb video on Vimeo it takes roughly 40-45min vs. on YouTube it will take roughly 20-25min. That's half the amount of the time in comparison to a platform that is completely free!
Vimeo can be a bit hard to navigate and organize sometimes. There are some good organizational options, but the interface can be a little confusing and your channel's main page doesn't as have many choices on how to present itself in comparison to YouTube; most notably the lack of ability to put selected playlists on your front page.
There is no real community on Vimeo like you'll find on YouTube. You'll rarely find comments on videos and it's not the place your going to be able to organically build a following. You'll definitely need to create a following elsewhere, or go on some popular podcasts to promote your work. This could be a blessing or a curse depending upon the perspective; I'll elaborate on this in the 'pros' section.
Vimeo takes a cut of your monetization and they will only pay you through PayPal once a month; so if you need the money right away, you will have to wait. While this would still be considered a 'con,' its natural that a cut is going to be taken; it's actually a better deal than DTube or YouTube ad revenue as far as I understand it. Vimeo states that you get 90% of the sale after taxes/fees. Here's how it works according to their site:
We'll notify you every time you make a sale, and you'll get 90% of your sales after transaction fees in a PayPal payment once a month.
For example, a $10 VOD purchase from a buyer based in New York would get you about $7.80. (Taking out transaction fee of $0.48, applicable tax of $0.85 and the revenue sharing of $0.87).
So in this example given, you get to keep about 78% of your TOTAL sale price (meaning after ALL fees have been accounted for). I have not had experience with Vimeo payouts, but I wonder if there's additional fees with using PayPal. Vimeo's calculation above for the transaction fee is not correct. A $10 sale would be subject to 2.9% + .30¢ per transaction fees for PayPal; so $10 x .029 = .29¢ + .30 = .59¢ total––NOT .48¢ as Vimeo was suggesting. I'm not sure if the .48¢ is an additional fee or if they just miscalculated (hopefully in ignorance or the article was written when the fees were lower). I've experienced frustration with PayPal transaction fees when receiving money; it ends up being more than the 2.9% + .30¢ per transaction. There are reasons given for this, but I have been within the corect guidelines where it shouldn't be more than that. I know this is a PayPal issue, but Vimeo pays you through PayPal and there's no other way; I wish there was an option for them to simply mail you a check and avoid PayPal fees altogether. In the end, if there are indeed other additional fees through PayPal I'm guessing you probably get to keep about 70%-75% of the total sale at the least; hopefully it would be a few percentage points more like Vimeo projects
For a more applicable example, lets say you sell a Vimeo subscription that your viewers pay $5 per month to have access to a series of content. Let's say you have 300 subscribers: 300 x $5 = $1500 | with 70% of that going to you, you'll get at least $1,050 (again, hopefully more), but if those potential fees apply, then losing $450 of your $1500 sales kinda sucks. I guess that's the price you pay for Vimeo and PayPal as they are the ones providing the infrastructure; it's certainly better than losing 40-45% of DTube revenue and whatever conversion fees you might accrue transforming your Steem into US dollars.Sometimes when viewing multiple thumbnails for a large album/playlist or organizing them, well... it can be taxing on your CPU processor and take a while to load things or move videos. YouTube seems to be a bit more smooth in this regard.
Pros:
It's very easy to create a free account to just to be a viewer and to be able to comment/download videos.
You can save videos to a "watch later" playlist and "like" or "favorite" videos which are also saved to a playlist. Unfortunately there is no "history" playlist where you see the list of videos you've previously watched, which can be handy if you forgot where you found a particular video and you'd like to go back and find it again.
You can make "collections" which comprises of a few different options; I'll also give Vimeo's comments on each:
• PORTFOLIOS: The first option is being able to make a portfolio which is used for external links or websites to promote your work. Here's what Vimeo says about it in their help section:
Create fully customizable websites to showcase and share your videos with potential clients, collaborators, and more. You can personalize your portfolio according to your taste, and even remove the Vimeo branding.
• ALBUMS: The second option is being able to make "albums" which are essentially playlists (thank god). If you're on the basic free membership you can only make 3 albums. If you're paying for any plan (even the lowest, Plus) then you can create unlimited albums. An example: here is the album for my Occult Science series.
• CHANNELS: The third option is being able to create "channels." The difference between a channel and an album is that the channel is a bit more 'pro' looking and people can actually just follow a channel vs. a user's entire Vimeo catalogue which might contain several channels within it. This is pretty cool because I could make an astrology channel and a guitar channel, and keep them separate. Now people who like the astrology content don't have to be subject to updates on guitar videos, which they might not be interested in at all, or vice versa. The channel appearance is different than that of the album; there's the ability to make a header image, although the image appears to be kinda low quality so it can look a little strange compared to a nice HD video thumbnail just below it. You can also 'browse' the channel's videos which makes the thumbnails smaller and easier to navigate throughout numerous videos. You can also view all the users who are following you channel. The channel is more geared towards a particular theme and a unique category to search for on Vimeo. It's more for showcasing and you can add a custom URL to a channel which you cannot do for an album (as far as I know). An example would be a channel I created for my Proud 2 Be Profane Podcast which you can find here.
• GROUPS: When you create a group, this is more of a collaborative effort. So lets say I wanted to join forces with other users who had similar content, you can create a group and all add videos. This group can be public or private, so if you were more concerned about privacy for sharing 'controversial' videos, you can do so; it would require the videos to be private as well. This way you could have a "conspiracy" group to build your own private community. I don't have a group of my own yet, so I can't give a proper example, but here's what Vimeo has to say about it in their help section:
A Group is a mini-community within Vimeo that allows people to interact and share with one another. It’s different from a Channel, which is user-curated destination to watch videos. The main difference between the two is that a Group is intended for users to collaborate, share, and discuss videos with other members, while a Channel is intended as a place to watch videos.
A final point on Vimeo collections is that you must be signed up for a paid plan to gain access to portfolios/channels and you can only create a limited about of groups/albums with a basic free account.A shining feature of Vimeo is being able to sell your content in their "On Demand" section. You must have at least a Pro account ($240 per year) to do this. The On Demand has so many options. I'll give a brief overview, but you can also read more on this at Vimeo's help page here:
• You can set a price for a single video to either rent or buy or both. You can set the duration of the rental period.
• You can set a price for an entire playlist if you have a series of videos to sell. You can still price out individual videos to rent/buy/both, but also set a price for renting or buying the entire series. There's so many different options to consider which I think is really fantastic to have all of this customization available.
• You can offer a subscription based service for a monthly fee, the tricky part here is that it's only for a single series. If I create multiple series, the subscription can only be applied to one of them. Perhaps a way around this, if you wanted to allow a subscription to all your On Demand content, is to create a series that includes ALL of the other On Demand series videos you have but just make it subscription only series. I'm not sure if it's possible to have the same video on multiple On Demand playlists; this might require further inquiry via Vimeo's support team.
• You can sell your videos through your own website outside of On Demand. I suppose you could set up a subscription service on your own terms outside of Vimeo if my previously suggested plan doesn't work. I believe Caravan to Midnight does this because when I was subscribed and watched an episode in video format, I noticed it was using a Vimeo player.
• You can also create coupon promo codes for a variety of discounts, such as a free one-month subscription or a free rental. Unfortunately selecting a certain percentage off a video or series (such as a 25% off code) can only be used by someone paying in a currency foreign that isn't US dollars which I don't really get why. Hopefully they will change this in the future because it's restricting a HUGE audience from being able to use % off coupon codes by excluding the United States. You can also offer VIP coupon codes for giving out free subscriptions for more than 1 month.
As you can see, Vimeo provides a pretty solid infrastructure for those who feel intimidated by the burden of creating your own website, hosting it, and dealing with monetary exchange for your content.There are multiple privacy options for videos, channels, albums etc. and you can password protect content. This is excellent compared to platforms like DTube and Bitchute. You also have most of your viewing hidden from others, but people can see who you are following and videos you've liked; I wish you could at least have the option to hide them. There actually is a way to hide them but you must go into "private mode" which basically removes all of your content from public view; you also lose all your comments and messages if you switch back. I guess the benefit of private mode is if you're selling or showing your content through a website and you only want people to view the videos through your site.
This might be considered more of a con because of the price, but there is the ability to live stream if you have the Premium package which is the most expensive at $900 a year. That's a lot of dough, so you'd have to be pretty damn serious about your channel or well off enough to not care about that kind of money. At least you'd be getting the maximum benefits of Vimeo with this package.
Vimeo creates an RSS feed that can be used through Itunes. Obviously the only issue here is that if you're doing a podcast it would be in video format making it more difficult for someone who just wants to listen by having them eat up lots of data or having to download a larger file onto their phone.
The player is easy to embed into websites and blogs (such as this one!) It's a slick looking player and very professional; I like it a lot.
You can download videos if people allow for the option. This point is more for the listener/viewer, but there's also a Vimeo app for iPhone that you can download videos while connected to WiFi and then watch/listen to them from your phone without eating up data on your plan. The only catch is you cannot put your phone on lock and still have the audio running from the Vimeo video when using the app; this is annoying if you just want to listen to the audio only and save on data. The only way around this is to download a browser like Dolphin, find the Vimeo video in Dolphin, play it, lock your phone, THEN swipe up while locked and click the "play" button icon; but the fundamental issue remains, which is you'll be eating data. That might be confusing to some, but it would be nice if you could just play audio from the Vimeo app while the phone was in lock mode.
People can message you privately and comment on videos if you allow for the option.
Any potential censorship issues on Vimeo might have a lot of factors at play. For one, I'm guessing that since you're paying for the ability to upload they are going to be much more lenient towards 'controversial' content vs. YouTube which is allowing you to use it's platform for free. The other factor is that it's more of a platform for artistic videos which might include some pretty hardcore scenes in terms of nudity or violence. It's hard to justify attacking someone making a video on a false flag shooting when you allow for hosting movies that might include graphic rape scenes or brutal gun violence. I've also seen plenty of "truther" content on here such as We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook which has remained intact for 3+ years. I touched upon how the lack of community might be a con, but there's also a pro side to it: if you don't have "truther" content spilling over into trending search results and established communities who comment often––like on YouTube––then there's much less risk of the PC police hunting you down. I feel like most people kinda stick to their own business on Vimeo and I rarely find videos that have comments on them. Of course if you're looking to grow your audience organically this isn't going to be helpful; but if you're looking for a place to host, have monetization options and you have an external audience/following, then I think it's a good thing that there's not a ton of intense discourse and comment activity on Vimeo like there is on YouTube.
There is a support team that I think is pretty good based on my limited interaction with them. The response time to your inquiry will vary depending upon your plan. Obviously the more your pay the quicker you get a response. I made an inquiry about the logistics of a Pro plan vs. the one I had at the time which was Plus; I made this outside of business hours (starting on Friday night) in which I got a response back the following day. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that even though their promised time to respond wasn't until Monday, they got back to me on Saturday––not bad. Here is the info for their support system.
Miscellaneous Comments/Conclusion: Vimeo has a ton of unique features and many different options for customization, but you're gonna have to pay for them. If you're someone who wants to simply watch videos and support content creators, then it's easy to make an account and to do just that. If you're just the average video maker who likes to throw stuff up on a platform and have people organically find you, Vimeo is probably not the place for you; even less if you don't want to pony up the cash for the adequate data storage. If you're looking to take your work to the next level and create a category specific thing like a series, podcast (especially one with visuals/slide shows), or create laborious videos that have quality and substance, Vimeo is worth considering. Unfortunately you'll have to try to find your audience outside the platform, but if the content is worthy I'm sure you can get an appearance on a popular conspiracy podcast to help promote your work. The next level beyond that, of monetizing and creating a business out of your content, well Vimeo is specifically tailored to help you if that is your end goal.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
I have to admit, I was quite accustomed to all of the bells and whistles of YouTube; most notably for its fast upload times and organization options. It's very frustrating for me to have to worry about the censorship aspect now (whether for my own content or looking at others) and YouTube seems to be upping the ante each day; for they are now cracking down on firearms videos and these issues are beginning to trickle over into the 'gaming' world of 1st person shooters. This is obviously a problem that is not going to go away, so I'm planning my exit strategy now and I hope that this evaluation of YouTube alternatives has been helpful for you doing the same.
Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/15461107907
Ditching Your Cable and Supporting Alternative Media
I think at this time we're going to have to start investing in each others content with some form of monetary or service support in order to offer quality alternative viewpoints to monopolized mainstream institutions. A lot of people in the "truther" world start to get pissy and even accusational when others begin monetizing. Usually this is because the accusers have no content of their own or do not understand just how long it takes to put videos and information together that have even the slightest degree of production quality to them. "The truth should be free" is usually the battle-cry, but ironically we are already paying for overt lies, NWO propaganda and manipulation, why can't it be the other way around? When you don't support creators financially you are forcing them to work more hours on a job that typically benefits the system, just to get the resources to make the content. You should be helping them avoid those "system" hours by monetarily supporting their work, which will help the creators pay their expenses for equipment and living expenses and give them more free time for content creation. Yes a lot of the platforms that allow support for these people are tied into the system such as PayPal, Amazon, Patreon etc., but at least it gives the alternative media the ability to get something back; it's better than nothing at all and the content will be better for it. You cannot fully disconnect from "the Beast" if you want to provide a place where information can be easily accessible; this is just the unfortunate nature of our reality.
Here's how I view it: the mainstream media and similar controlling systems force you to pay out the ass for their services; their employees, especially on the higher levels, get insane amounts of money in the process. You might pay anywhere from $50-$250 per month for cable or satellite television for whatever additional channels are offered. In this case you are paying for your own indoctrination and brainwashing that mainstream media offers, not excluding the social engineering done through Hollywood and the entertainment industry when you pay for movie tickets or online streaming via Netflix or Amazon. Most '"truther" content starts at a meager $5 per month for membership or sometimes even less; many are only asking for a $1-3 per month donation on Patreon to open up more content. The more people are supported the better their content will get; it's pretty simple. If you got rid of a cable television plan that costs you $50 per month (lets say that excludes internet costs that might be bundled), you can sign up for somewhere between 10-12 different programs and still keep your Netflix; and this is for getting rid of only the cheaper end of television packages. You'll gain access to content that will bring you news reporting, health information, financial analysis, history, political analysis and even sports in some cases––granted through a very different lens––but at least you're getting multiple viewpoints instead of one homogenized mainstream narrative that barely changes from station to station.
No, the alternative media is not perfect––in fact it gets a lot of things wrong––but even if the information isn't always the most accurate or unbiased at least you'll see a wide variety of perspectives; a much better option than being subliminally brainwashed, exploited and given the exact same narrative on every single story that is put out there. Ironically most of the alternative media will tell you the mainstream media's perspective anyways, so you can kill two birds with one stone if you wish. But the best part of ditching the cable and substituting for alternative media is that you actually get to choose your content providers vs. a cable package which chooses for you.
Closing Comments
I hope that these posts were helpful for those looking to migrate away from "ThemTube" as James Corbett calls it. It probably seems like an excessive amount of information for simply choosing a new platform, but if you're like me and have a lot of content and greater plans in the future to do more with it, then many of these points are critical things to think about. Far too often (especially in the corporate world) I see initial issues being ignored which then build up over time into a much larger problem; by then, if you want to address it, it usually means going through an extremely painful process and sometimes an expensive overhaul to sort out the issues; think about the people who made a living off of YouTube ads and got their monetization shut down due to their topics suddenly being deemed "inappropriate for advertisers"––perhaps this was the trap that was set by having a free platform controlled by the Google monster with all the bells and whistles; let's try to learn from these mistakes if we can.
I think we now have some unique opportunities to steer where a lot of this goes. The controlling forces have revealed their hand. What the mass censorship really says is that the alternative media has become so dangerous to their end-game that they have to completely shut it down from their platforms instead of simply conditioning others to mock and ridicule it. We can get depressed and defeatist about platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter castrating the "truther" world, or take action and find ways to work with each other outside of them, despite our differences, to help build a new and better structure out of the ashes of the censorship fire. The choice is ours. Let's not let petty differences and in-fighting over things that don't matter get in the way of understanding the fundamental issue that we can all agree upon: that the mainstream media has been manipulating and deceiving us for far too long and that it's the main tool in the coordinated effort to create a one-world government based on esoteric Occult principles that are disguised as light, but are darkness at it's core. We must always remember that whenever we argue over ridiculous issues; get back to the common bonds before pushing any debates on our differences into hostility and refrain from crossing into the territory of completely disrespecting one another.
Self-Devouring Nature
This is what the NWO Occultists expect from us: they expect us to devour ourselves in "Saturnian" fashion while they transmute the "lead" that we've created into further advancing their goals while we've all been duped by paranoia, finger-pointing and the "Satanic" [by definition] accusations and slander of our fellow brethren. Let's not give them that and start behaving with a higher code of conduct and a better understanding of what's at risk for humanity if we don't start figuring out how to work together productively despite any differences of politics, religious beliefs, if people died or not at a mass shooting, or on the shape of the earth. We spend so much time complaining about the controlling system, but what do we have to offer in return that's any better? Especially when some of the ugliest forms of human behavior come out in the "truther" community when we all turn on each other and point fingers at everyone else but ourselves? I guess this censorship is going to force us to see what we are really made of, and perhaps it's a test of Divine origin; seems that way to me.
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