Nebula got me

Thursday, October 24, 2024

A few weeks ago, I tried the Nebula streaming service. I even wrote a blog about it. At the end of writing that post I noted that my thoughts on Nebula were complicated.

Once my week long Guest Pass was expired I was again thrust back into the arms of YouTube, a service that I have many gripes with but find myself using, a lot, because like most of you, I expect, I don’t have a good alternative.

I think a combination of trying Nebula, at the same time as being waist deep in reading about Minimalism, and because of this being on something of a purge, made me change my feelings on YouTube. When I logged back in after, essentially a ‘week off,’ I was thoroughly annoyed by it.

As I said in the last post, I have made YouTube more than tolerable on my laptop by using browser plugins to remove shorts, comments and those odd ‘gaming’ banners which are new. The issue however has always been the less-desktop-ish devices which I use. My iPad is used basically as much as my laptop and often is even a better tool for the job (drawing) but being a more mobile-themed device it expects me to have an app for every occasion and once you install the YouTube app, you can’t coax away the annoyances. No sponsor blocking, no comment blocking and no Shorts removal. YouTube on my phone, or iPad, is a damned mess.

The issue is that most the times I want YouTube is to provide entertainment while driving (screen off, obviously) and when I’m relaxing (or on the loo.) Not times I want my laptop. It has always been this way but I had become somewhat immune to the annoyances because they were ‘standard’ and felt reasonable.

After a week with Nebula though, I had tasted something sweeter, and I liked it.

Just a week after my week of Nebula, I was missing it, which is mad because I originally argued that I didn’t need it. The truth however, was more that I was simply desensitised to how bad YouTube was.

A great deal of the long-form content I have always listened to on YouTube has Podcast alternatives. I knew this but never reached out for it. It was time to make a change.

I added a bunch of the theology channels I like to the Apple Podcast app. I then removed the YouTube subscriptions. While it as looking at my subs, I started removing anything which wasn’t a positive to my life. This got my total subscriptions down to about 25 items. I added them to Reeder, my RSS reader of choice, and closed the YouTube app.

After a few days of not using YouTube, I decided that, while I didn’t miss it, specifically, I did miss video media. I wanted something to watch while eating toast, or not feeling great, or when I just wanted something stimulating to watch. My RSS subscription solution was ideal for keeping up to date with the channels I care about but terrible for discovering new content. Apple Podcasts has a good library and recommendations system, but I was very aware that with the ‘new’ way of doing things I had implemented, it wasn’t likely that I would see new, random, interesting things.

Not the end of the world, I know. But… Nebula exists. I hated the idea of adding an ‘optional’ subscription to my life. I resisted, or planned on it. As it happens I had come into a little bit of ‘extra’ cash. Not loads, but I had sold some unwanted electronics, as part of my minimalist fuelled decluttering. I had a couple of hundred English pounds which had made their way to my bank, which unusually, were not earmarked for anything.

The resistance was futile. I knew I wasn’t likely to get ‘undirected’ cash again in the near future, and, I had no imminent need for anything ‘useful,’ so, I sunk the reasonable sum of money required to get a lifetime Nebula subscription. Time will tell if it was smart of stupid. The platform appears to be stable, growing at a reasonable rate, and most of all, has zero annoyances which detract from my viewing enjoyment.

Nebula has orders of magnitude less creators than YouTube but curate their catalogue carefully. Even the older videos I have watched are interesting (aside from hot topic stuff like news) and there appears to be more discoverable evergreen content.

I am, at this time, not unhappy with my impulse buy. Aside from the YouTube channels which I keep watching via RSS link (which takes me into the video directly, landing in the YouTube app) I have resisted the urge to browse YouTube.

The more curated Nebula library has been great. I have watched a lot of things I wouldn’t have found usually, simply because it is so much more enjoyable to browse the content. I am hit with no like or subscribe buttons, no comments and thumbs of any sort to smash.

I sincerely hope Nebula continues to grow and that it will fill enough of the soft-void that I will be able to resist scurrying back to YouTube as a default.

In short. Nebula’s guest pass system ‘worked on me.’ Good job Nebula. Now all you have to do is keep getting better and don’t be dumb!