For anyone interested, in regards to the employee abuse claims. A 3rd party law firm was brought in for an investigation at the expense of LMG. 8 months later the results of the investigation were posted here:

https://xcancel.com/LinusTech/status/1793428629378208057

Some of the highlights are below:

In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.

Or more specifically the investigation found that:

Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.

Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.

Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.

There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.

Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.

Streaming video is expensive. LTT did it with Floatplane, even going so far as to develop their own backend. Watcher and some other YouTubers did it with Vimeo as their backend, but Vimeo still takes a large cut.

At the end of the day, people are doing this, but YouTube still offers a compelling value compared to other platforms. It’s hard to beat their scale, sophistication, and the discoverability of their platform.