Floatplane… is actually kind of a bad product.

Yes, a youtube alternative would be nice. That is not at all what FP is.

Floatplane is closer to Patreon than Youtube. Videos are paywalled by default (design?). That is fine if you are doing a sponsors only stream or posting the studio tour that your patrons unlocked. That is horrible for building an audience and any creator who overly relies on it will likely get wiped out in the next “cull” caused by a big name starting up a patreon or a youtube.

That is why Ian at Forgotten Weapons almost never mentions it (I also wouldn’t be surprised if “Gun Jesus who has confederate ass facial hair and lives in a compound full of guns” is told to not push too heavily) in favor of Utreon and the like. Because he needs the revenue from people watching his videos and to build up his audience.

You would basically need to be Pokimane levels of massive to justify Floatplane as a platform. And even then, she would need to make sure she keeps doing twitch streams and collabs and instagram posts to keep those numbers up.