I watched the video and tried it. My first 2m with it wasn't awesome. The source plugins are waaay too hard to find. Once I found them on my PC, scanning the QR codes didn't work, so I had to navigate to the plugin page on my phone and open the link for (ex) YouTube in the app. I didn't notice I had to enable the plugin until I couldn't find any YouTube creators. It should be enabled on install. Why would I ever install it and leave it disabled?

So there's room for polish. That said I think it's a fantastic idea and the model is better for both creators and users. However, I think there's an underestimation of the realities of demand aggregation, platform ownership, and what lengths the current platform owners will go to in order to ensure stuff like this is never allowed to exist (if it gets popular). The Facebook email where Zuckerberg was talking about the risk of living on someone else's platform [1] is a great example.

> We are vulnerable on mobile to Google and Apple because they make major mobile platforms. We would like a stronger strategic position in the next wave of computing. We can achieve this only by building both a major platform as well as key apps.

Seeing the effort Google and Apple are making to make Facebook blind to advertising analytics (aka tracking), and not believing the excuse they give about protecting user privacy, I wonder how long they'll tolerate an app that directly threatens their (aka YouTube aka Google) platform control if they're willing to wield their platforms like a weapon to disenfranchise a traditional competitor as big as Facebook.

I think anyone that wants to build a product that lives alongside platform owners needs to ask "how do I do this so the platforms can't kill me if I get popular?" For example, even something as simple as federated logins or OAuth for channel verification / account recovery leaves you vulnerable to the platform owner. I'd love to build something that uses federated logins and OAuth to enable features, but what happens if Google, etc. decide to revoke my API key? Anything built on top of that is ultimately living at the behest of the platform owners in my opinion.

The second question I'd ask is "how does this impact the platforms owners?". There's no way YouTube is going to tolerate an app that blocks their ads while streaming videos from their platform. I'd get rid of the ad-blocking ASAP because it's the best excuse YouTube has to act against the app. If ads are left in and YouTube still works to damage the experience of the app, there's a case to be made for Google / Youtube abusing their market position to prevent competition. That won't go anywhere in my opinion, but the fewer excuses they have, the better.

The last question I think should be asked is "what kind of users do we want to attract?". Teasing ad-blocking as a feature attracts the kind of user that's also going to be interested in things like sponsor block. Rather than shifting users from YouTube to other back-ends that allow more direct support of creators, it might end up being a userbase of freeloaders that are hated by creators.

For creators, I think it's better if they can gain access to multiple platforms as-is. The ads and sponsor spots on YouTube benefit them, so don't take that away. Why would a creator promote the app if it offers users a simple way to opt-out of monetization the creator might be relying on?

If it were me, I'd try to have zero impact on the monetization strategy of platforms that are offered as official plugins. There's a ton of value in becoming the aggregator of the existing platforms. Trying to kill ads while starting out and building on platforms that rely on them is a mistake.

If it gains traction, I would suggest giving creators the option of linking channels across platforms and letting them rank/order platforms used by viewers with the highest ranked platform being used exclusively. That does a couple things. It's better for creators to be able to drive traffic to a specific back-end and it's easier to build if there's no need to de-duplicate content between platforms.

Until it gains traction I would suggest focusing on features that don't rely on Google or Apple to exist. I was able to use the app without logging in or anything, so I assume that means I was using features that don't require the blessing of Google, etc.. I'd avoid putting anything that requires OAuth, API keys, etc. into the core app. Maybe it's already like that. I didn't look at the source (yet).

Overall, I think it's really awesome to see creators working on stuff like this. I'll buy it once I figure out if there's a better way (for the app owner) than using the Play Store.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33538742