Is the idea you have to run your own site first. If the idea is you can convert followers and engagement from a big platform to your own, then you should be able to do it after you have a large following on a platform as well.
That way you can find a content market fit using a big platform then move people over and monetize.
There are clearly a couple issues with this now. Is the main problem here not having a host your own version of all the mediums creators use to get an audience? Ghost solves this for blogging, but I don't know anything for tik tok or Instagram or twitch.
Or is there a reason you couldn't move over a lot of audience late in the game? And if not, why not/would the reasons you can't stop you from building an audience in the first place?
"but I don't know anything for tik tok or Instagram or twitch."
Remember, its worse than just a lack of software. Text is dirt cheap (not processing text mind), whereas images, videos, require several orders of magnitude larger data, and several orders of magnitude more processing power.
CDNs are one bit of the puzzle, large specialized providers which will cache and store images around the globe for you, but those require obviously dedicated servers, associated hosting fees...
The other portion, then obviously, is bandwidth. Even if you can get away without a CDN, you still need good up/down speeds, as do your users. The solution is/was partially to use bittorrent or other file-share protocols to offload your bandwidth. OFC, then come issues like defending your work from theft, etc, all of which are issues with the simple centralized system as well, not actually at odds with file sharing (you can implement DRM over bittorrent if you wanted to).
No, here you can squarely point at RIAA, MPAA, US Congress (Interpol in the EU), and blame them for the current state affairs, bad policies having caused media monopolies. Until you strike down some of their more nonsensical decisions and bring the world back to file-sharing, alternatives to popular, performant, and widely available image/video sharing applications are not going to exist.
These are the main problems as I see it: 1) Content creators are busy creating content, they have little time to create an independent membership site. For streamers, beyond the streaming there isn't a whole lot that one could offer on a membership site. Twitch owns you. Maybe game coaching? IDK. For a recipe creator on Tiktok, a membership site makes sense. You can offer full recipes and full walkthroughs with engagement on recipes. 2) You don't own your followers list - it's hidden behind by the social media company. If the algo changes, if you get a violation of ToS, and so on. You have no idea when you might lose your audience access. Owning the list protects you.
That way you can find a content market fit using a big platform then move people over and monetize.
There are clearly a couple issues with this now. Is the main problem here not having a host your own version of all the mediums creators use to get an audience? Ghost solves this for blogging, but I don't know anything for tik tok or Instagram or twitch.
Or is there a reason you couldn't move over a lot of audience late in the game? And if not, why not/would the reasons you can't stop you from building an audience in the first place?