Odysee Goes Ad-Free: How This Bold Move Challenges the YouTube Empire

On August 5th, Odysee announced that advertisements had been completely removed from the largest web3 video-sharing platform.

The decentralized video-sharing platform boldly claims they “don’t need ads to make money as a platform.”

Odysee confidently claims to have developed monetization programs that will “help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive”.

No further details were shared about these “monetization programs”, but one could reason that Odysee’s recent transition onto the Arweave blockchain has opened up other revenue streams and allowed for the platform to cut off advertisers.

“As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.

As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.

Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.”

• Julian Chandra, Founder and CEO of Odysee

In the world of video-sharing platforms, there is no bigger fish than YouTube.

There are not many platforms that can even call themselves a rival to YouTube, but Odysee is surely one of them.

Back in October of last year, YouTube made a surprising decision to crack down on ad-blockers.

Now, we see YouTube double down even further on its hunt for ad-blockers, as the video-sharing giant is reportedly “experimenting with server-side ad injection.”

Essentially, this means that YouTube is injecting the advertisement directly into the video stream; which could prevent ad-blockers from working on the platform.

As we see YouTube ramp up advertisement efforts, Odysee has gone in the complete opposite direction by removing all ads.

It will be interesting to see if this move will distinguish Odysee from YouTube enough for users to consider making a switch.

If you are interested in checking out Odysee, why not use my invite link to join: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@ZeroRequiem:7

Do you think this decision to cut ads will bring in new users to the platform?

What would actually make you consider using Odysee over YouTube?

What are your thoughts on this news? Join the conversation below!

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