First time I hear about Nebula, and seemingly the website doesn't want to tell me what it is. Looks like a YouTube alternative?
The FAQ mentions that it's owned by CuriosityStream, which I've heard about before, founded by John Hendricks who also founded the TV channel/network Discovery (now Warner Bros something something).
As far as I've seen, CuriosityStream is mainly about "popular-science" stuff and over-dramatized American "documentaries", is Nebula something in the same vein? Would be weird to see Grady over there if so.
Nebula is really nothing like CS. It's a video streaming service which many online creators (most already on YouTube) post. Currently a lot of Video Essays. Many creators choose to publish simultaneously on YT and Nebula, but Nebula has no ads and they can rely on sane applications of fair use policy.
Creators often also post exclusives or early releases.
Curiosity Stream has a minority stake. The subscriptions used to have a significant discount if you bundled them, but starting last December, Nebula decided they wanted to be more premium. https://blog.nebula.tv/unbundle/
That is rather unfortunate - if you were so inclined, you could contact their helpdesk <help@nebula.tv> as mentioned at the bottom of that FAQ page and tell them about your experience
Regrettably, I have been following Nebula from its early years, so I don't have the elevator pitch to offer other than "videos on YouTube are dictated by YouTube, videos on Nebula are dictated by their creators" plus the obvious ad-free experience. This is some inside baseball from the channel that I recall introduced me to Nebula https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alqt6RCEWdM
As for your popular science concern, in general my answer is "no," it's not marketing drivel designed to inject ads into your eyeballs. However, since it is just a video platform (err, and also classes, news, and podcasts) the content quality is ALL OVER the place. That was actually why I didn't subscribe for such a long time - it was like those "web 3" video platforms - only fringe stuff was on it, so it wasn't worth my time or dollars. Since then, they have gotten a lot more content that I value so I pay by the year now
Merely as a frame of reference, here are some of the channels that I follow
One thing a of the makers push is that they can make videos on controversal subjects without fear of being demonetized like they would on youtube. This can be things like the current middle east conflict or some more adult channels. But they are not going for the more radical "banned by youtube" makers.
Thanks so much for the recommendations, those do seem like something I'd enjoy!
It also highlights another aspect of a non-adtech owned platform: I can watch videos without fear that they're going to poison my feed and cause some topic that I was merely curious about to suddenly fill my homepage
The FAQ mentions that it's owned by CuriosityStream, which I've heard about before, founded by John Hendricks who also founded the TV channel/network Discovery (now Warner Bros something something).
As far as I've seen, CuriosityStream is mainly about "popular-science" stuff and over-dramatized American "documentaries", is Nebula something in the same vein? Would be weird to see Grady over there if so.