YouTube vs Patreon

I have to say I am amazed at the progress of the YouTube channel. I launched back in late October and about 3 months later we have crossed the 1300 subscriber mark! I'm sure for truly successful YouTube channels those numbers are a joke, but my channels caters mainly to people using TrueNAS on their homelab, so to say I have a niche audience would be an understatement.

The doesn't mean YouTube is perfect. In fact, I am having some problems with the platform that are more than minor annoyances. I have been overlooking them since the reach of YouTube is unbelievable. Many people don't realize YouTube is the third most trafficked site on Earth and gets hits from literally almost every country on this planet. As such, any content I upload is truly global and I have received messages from more than one international subscriber.

What has been the most rewarding is people reaching out and thanking me for the content. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think the videos are all that good. When I watch channels on my feed like Craft Computing and Techno Tim, those guys have production value. What I am doing is basically what I do when I'm working a Teams meeting where I explain something to a client. Not exactly riveting stuff. So it means the world to be that the low-grade content I produce is helping people out there. That is of course the reason I do this.

Now I have to branch out beyond YouTube. The reason for this is YouTube's Community Guidelines. I have had videos taken down which YouTube claims violate its guidelines, which is complete nonsense since when I do videos that are controversial, I always use content which is in the public domain. Either way, what I have learned is there is no arguing with YouTube. The appeals process is also a joke.

I have a bunch of content, many videos which have been highly requested, which I cannot upload to YouTube. As such, the platform I have chosen to host is Patreon. Patreon is way less strict about hosting as compared to YouTube so I feel so much better about hosting video with them.

The thing which gives me pause is Patreon is not free. However, since this content will be some of the most useful content I publish, I think charging a small fee either per video or for a monthly subscription to the channel is justified. These videos will be more detailed walkthroughs of containers and integrations with real data, not just stuff on test boxes and VMs. To many users, this will be more helpful as it mirrors real-world application much closer.

I want to thank the people in the community I am trying to build for being a part of this. Too often I hear horror stories about the way people new to this field are treated and it makes me sad because I was also once new to this an endured the same treatment. I don't want that to be what Serves@Home is about - I want this to be a place where new people can come and talk or ask questions about things without being vilified for simply not knowing. Thanks to all the people being kind and for the guys who have stepped up to moderate the community in the same spirit.