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Hello everyone,
Exactly one year ago, I stated my intentions and long term vision for VidLii. In essence - I want VidLii to become both the best classic YouTube website, and the best community focused social video site. This year, I want to narrow focus to a few important areas to ensure that VidLii can continue operating smoothly while also introducing more fun features.
Firstly - I want to focus on improving the video player and adding annotations. As we did with contests, we plan on adding our own twist to annotations to make it unique to VidLii. Annotations have been promised for a very long time - stretching all the way back to before I owned it. We spent most of 2025 focusing on boring but important tasks such as improved moderation tools and bug fixes. This meant that we had much less time to work on features like annotations. The good news is: all the work that went into bug fixes and general site improvements has given us a more stable foundation to build more features faster and with fewer bugs.
Secondly, and importantly - I want to focus on making VidLii sustainable into the future. This year, VidLii will turn 9 years old. It's rare for a site like ours to last so long, and I feel a responsibility to keep it alive and to preserve all the history it carries. From its acquisition by lolwut in 2022 up to the present day under my wing, VidLii has not earned a single cent. Making the site sustainable means that it cannot run at a huge financial loss in perpetuity. As much as I'm happy to continue paying for the site out of my own pocket - the only way to ensure that it can stand the test of time is to make it self sufficient.
We have had many discussions over the past few months about how we should approach monetizing the site. The way I'm most in favor of - one suggested by AriaCompany - is direct support from users in the same way Newgrounds does. I like this idea for many reasons. Providing extra features to supporters would create a closer relationship between VidLii and its users and keep us accountable, while also giving the site a predictable income. I don't expect a huge number of people to be able or willing to support, but I still believe this is the best way to help make VidLii sustainable. For these reasons, I want to focus on providing a way for users to support the site, and to add perks for those who choose to support it.
Exactly one year ago, I stated my intentions and long term vision for VidLii. In essence - I want VidLii to become both the best classic YouTube website, and the best community focused social video site. This year, I want to narrow focus to a few important areas to ensure that VidLii can continue operating smoothly while also introducing more fun features.
Firstly - I want to focus on improving the video player and adding annotations. As we did with contests, we plan on adding our own twist to annotations to make it unique to VidLii. Annotations have been promised for a very long time - stretching all the way back to before I owned it. We spent most of 2025 focusing on boring but important tasks such as improved moderation tools and bug fixes. This meant that we had much less time to work on features like annotations. The good news is: all the work that went into bug fixes and general site improvements has given us a more stable foundation to build more features faster and with fewer bugs.
Secondly, and importantly - I want to focus on making VidLii sustainable into the future. This year, VidLii will turn 9 years old. It's rare for a site like ours to last so long, and I feel a responsibility to keep it alive and to preserve all the history it carries. From its acquisition by lolwut in 2022 up to the present day under my wing, VidLii has not earned a single cent. Making the site sustainable means that it cannot run at a huge financial loss in perpetuity. As much as I'm happy to continue paying for the site out of my own pocket - the only way to ensure that it can stand the test of time is to make it self sufficient.
We have had many discussions over the past few months about how we should approach monetizing the site. The way I'm most in favor of - one suggested by AriaCompany - is direct support from users in the same way Newgrounds does. I like this idea for many reasons. Providing extra features to supporters would create a closer relationship between VidLii and its users and keep us accountable, while also giving the site a predictable income. I don't expect a huge number of people to be able or willing to support, but I still believe this is the best way to help make VidLii sustainable. For these reasons, I want to focus on providing a way for users to support the site, and to add perks for those who choose to support it.
Read the full post on the VidLii blog: https://www.vidlii.com/blog
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