ProtoPlay aims to compete in a space that is DOMINATED by YouTube, Vimeo, and others and I'll gladly pay $15 for that ambition. Their vision is to put creators in the driver's seat with respect to content and earnings. I'm a sucker for big vision and getting back at the man, so I'll gamble. Although it all sounds nice, they need users, eyeballs, and high-quality creators with enough clout to sway their audience. It's not to say there won't be any homegrown talent here but odds are that's not how the platform is gonna moon in the near future.

I'm not a creator myself. I just wanted to support and honestly, I just wanted to have a place to upload all my favorite videos of my dog and for that purpose, ProtoPlay is spot on. However, from a user and marketer perspective, there are a few things here that I think would be critical for the next update. They are a small team and I appreciate their honesty in the Q&A, that alone makes it easier to throw some weight behind these guys.

I hope you guys make it - although you answered scaling and longevity concerns, being able to move fast and execute in this niche is critical. First impressions are everything and creators looking to bring their content to ProtoPlay will be drawn by the monetization model but the UX will ultimately negate any consideration. Best of luck, gents!

👍 The good
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✔️ Quick uploads with good quality rendering
✔️ Unlimited channels
✔️ Unlimited video and photo uploads (I'm assuming there's a soft cap somewhere)
✔️ Transparent, ambitious, and responsive developers

🤷‍♂️ The meh
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😶 The main site/trending area leaves lots to be desired - would be more useful with trending content segmented by categories and hashtags
😶 Imageboard is just a mess - filter by hashtags, trending categories, etc.
😶 Descriptions don't show automatically, you have to expand the text area
😶 Weird UI - it's not really intuitive where you access your account settings and subscription info is contained in the same menu where you upload your content - I think it's the ( + ) icon that implies uploading content that does this for me. I think this stuff would be better served in the main navigation

⚠️ Please fix this ASAP
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❌ No bulk uploads
❌ No thumbnail generator - I wanted to upload from my phone but the process tedious is too tedious right now
❌ Mandatory fields for uploading content like thumbnail, title, description, category, etc. YouTube allows you to just upload and fill these in later
❌ Email address for each contact is default to account log in with no way to change
❌ You cannot delete content right now
❌ No quick share links, you need to go to the content public page to get those
❌ No alternative views for managing content - everything is in a list and accessed via drop-down menu - would be better if it was tabbed or there was a dedicated Creator Studio area