Same for me, Youtube is my go to source when listening to music. The bad thing about starting an online radio stations is that your audience may be really scarce, since there are better options for content. What about starting a YouTube channel?
Youtube has a nice list of music, but they're very much control freaks and have ridiculous copyright claims.
Unlike running your own streaming music service, Youtube will try to control what you upload sometimes, and even people who have made their own covers or unique works of songs have been falsely labeled by others as it belonging to someone else when it does not.
You either get this, or automatic bogus copyright claims from Youtube's own servers and algorithms that falsely identify it as such OR it conflicts with things that
they want to sell now that they have "Youtube Red" and partner services they get paid by to slight you and keep you from competing.
When that happens, Youtube instantly removes or deletes your video and music from being available to anyone, and then either you have to concede to that or go through a long drawn-out process to prove that you own the rights to things, or prove that you have in fact MADE the music or video content in question.
Whenever someone has control over
your own works like that, it may be good for the public...but it is definitely not good for you.
On top of that, you then have to either decide to get ripped off by Adsense (and risk losing both adsense and youtube channel if there's any kind of issue) or have to join a content network if you're going to get anywhere, and hope that they are honest with you on the revenue sharing on top of the control freaks at Youtube. Not as bad as Facebook and some other places, but still...all it takes is one jerk to mess with you on there, and they can cost you money and reveue screwing around. It could be anyone, even some young kid in school who doesn't care and flags your video just to be a dbag because they can and are "bored".
So when you have an ASCAP/BMI license to play music but that happens to you still, or you have your own music and content that Youtube has the audacity to let others claim is not yours...there are more than a few reasons why you would not want to use them or any other service still, and would instead want to use your own if you can get it started.
When big companies and groups already have each other in their pockets and play by their own set of rules, they can keep you down. It's called unfair competition, and the DOJ and FTC in the US
used to fight this until now. Now,
they are in on it if the person pays enough. Justice is skewed, and cases are instantly dropped if brought against the 'wrong person or group by mistake', yet pursued if someone is not on their team. It's corrupt and crooked, but that's how it is now.
If you have your own servers and service with all the right licenses and proof of your own copyright works, they cannot do this to you anymore unless you are making thousands upon thousands of dollars, and they are willing to spend almost as much as you're making to try and mess with you just to steal it away and get that money going their way. If they cannot (and most won't), then you are in some capacity still able to do a decent business and free trade. But with the way the big companies have things locked up and the consumers flock to Youtube and other big places, it is very hard to get the foot through the door to start, and if you do...the question of whether you can still make money at it or enough to make it worth your time becomes a big question.
