There is a ~new-ish website called Odysee (odysee.com)

It is a video hosting platform on the same idea as YouTube.

It also has some kind of art/image hosting functionality. Some people keep uplading there, I couldn't figure it out how that's done. Maybe just some sort of insider/premium feature?

I am aware about this site since 2022. Back when I checked it out, it was quite barren yet.

Anybody on there, or in the know? Is it any good now? Is it the YouTube AND DeviantArt killer that everybody is looking for, in a combo? I don't hear much  talk about it.

good, but my Channels there lack any followers

if you're wondering about @Masonicon">one of my Odysee channels

my mega-crossover's channel in odysee

A friend tried it last year and gave up after a single day: uploads require a crypto buy-in, only to receive no exposure (I wasn't even able to watch the video). Most of the commentary I've come across is about two years old now, but the general consensus seems to be it's useless if you're not an established personality, it runs on tokenomics gamified out the wazoo, and pulled a bait-and-switch with early promoters by tanking promised rewards.

It also doesn't help that like most aspiring alternatives^*, either by inaction or intent, it's infested with the sort of extremism and conspiracy-mongering kicked off YouTube with cause.

* Credit to this post for the original citation.

As an Odysee user, I got little to no interaction there. Yes, you require it's crypto valute to upload videos tho I am still unsure how this thing actually works. 

Considering video uploading, it takes time and sometimes it does not work for whatever reason. This might be when I downloaded my video from youtube and tried to upload it to Odysee, but apparently URL upload is possible... untile Odysee recently released their notice that Youtube started to block that feature, so you need to upload videos on Odysee manualy. 

Thumbnail uploading is practical since you can chose it straight from the video... but after uploading the said video, if you want to edit the thumbnail you'll need to put it manualy- and by manualy I mean by browsing trough files on your system trough Odysee, if you know what I mean.

There is no Shorts support.

Posts can be made but those are stashed alongside uploaded videos so... there's that. I don't know if they have the Poll option.

I only made Odysee since it was the only "Youtube alternative TM" that seemed promising, but judging my my own experience, if you don't already have an audience on a large scale, chances are you ain't get any recognition in there.

Odysee speaks about itself as a "wild west", but to this day I have no idea how to get any... correspondance with anyone. Also, I am unsure if that's changed, but commenting requires payment in their crypto too. Again, I am unsure how any of that works and while trying to study it in order to get a proper idea of it, Odysee team claimed that 'you don't need to understand how their crypto valute works in order to use Odysee', at least that's what they claimed at that time...

I will try to check and understand it's interface again in order to say more since right now I barely use it. 

In their latest news they got rid of the ads and, according to them, exposed a large crypto scam. For now that's all I have.

@Thorvald

Yeah, the NFT stuff. I purposefully didn't mention that, because it can generate neurotic responses in advance.

The site has some potential to be ...good? ...competitive with the main platforms? - at least I'd like to think.

I don't care about the crypto aspect of it, as I wouldn't do anything with that anyway. Unless there is something foul built into the system. Would have to do a deep dive into the Terms of Service to know, if I was to be active there.

@NosaneTryhard

Made a new account (forgot what was the old one) to check what you said, and oh wow! Things sure have changed.

Remember in when 2022, I tried to upload a video, it could be done freely (it just required the video file to be in a very specific format.)

Now, you can't do ANYTHING without buying their crypto currency!

Welp, it's not an alternative, it's a paywalled garden.

If it helps, it seems that crypto currency "refills" itslef over time. I don't know how nor I do know how many of their crypto currency is required for uploading content in general since, as for me, it's never bigger than 0.02, but my videos aren't longer than a 2 minutes anyway. 

On the side note, crypto doesn't necessarily mean it's NFT, I haven't ecountered anything NFT related yet in there on that regard. Tho crypto is the gray area itself, my biggest issue with Odysee is lack of correspondance since within 2 years of being in there, I gathered merely 5 views in total of my content. 

Here is the crypto scam Odysee supposedly exposed. 

Here is the request for manual upload of the content in there.

Other than that, there is nothing much I can say 'bout it...

apparently, the crypto's cost for uploading videos on Odysee are dirt cheap and cryptos in odysee user account can refill itself

That's one way to combat AI bots, I suppose.

Hope it is at least ad free/light on ads.

Myself will not make a bank account, just for the luxury to comment or upload shitposts to some random website.

In all honestly, I mostly use Odysee as a place to also upolad videos online (alongside Rumble), I'm also planning on making my own Peertube website at some point.

(I sometimes get comments and likes on my videos, but I don't really care about that stuff too much tbh.)

I even mirrors at least some of my youtube videos into Odysee