One Last Sesh: A letter to our beloved online community

After five incredible years, WeedTube is closing down operations on April 2, 2023.

Click here to learn about downloading your videos.

We understand that this comes as a shock to our beloved online community, so we offer you this blog post as a way to explain, to grieve, and to remember…

Most funerals have a wake, we offer you a wake and bake, if you will…

A message from Arend Richard, co-founder and creative director:

It is with a heavy heart that I am here to tell you all that WeedTube will be closing down on April 2nd, 2023. 

It’s been 5 years, almost to the day, since a group of friends and content creators that were deleted from YouTube joined together to start WeedTube with the help of the community. In the time since, we grew the platform to the largest social network of cannabis lovers in the world. With nearly a million app downloads, and millions of unique users watching content, the platform was thriving. 

In the past year there has been a significant ease of restrictions from other social platforms towards this type of content. Couple that with the rising illegal activity that the team is fighting against everyday on the platform and with the cost of data storage that has been growing, some decisions had to be made.

As a leader I had to decide whether to let the remaining finances continue to deplete for a small glimmer of hope that more investment would come through at the last minute, or to take care of the team members who have worked diligently for the last several years. After a few weeks of consideration, I’ve decided that the bottom line for me (and hopefully the community) is the people. So I decided to notify the team, offer everyone severances to help them get ahead, and asked for their help in giving the WT community a proper goodbye. Thanks to their loving agreement, we will be spending the rest of March doing our best to say goodbye, and help content creators get their content that they may want.

In closing of this community I would like to say…

This platform served an incredibly important purpose. I am honored to have dedicated a majority of my life over the last 5 years to making this platform a reality for a community that needed it. I’m even more grateful for the team that was built along the way and the incomparable work they’ve all done. 

To the Community, with so much love, we will be together again someday in some capacity. Our like minds and shared love for the plant will ensure that. Keep pushing for the changes you want to see in the world, and remember that change starts with you. Thank you for every piece of creativity you shared on this platform, thank you for the support you gave other creators, thank you for believing. 

To the Team, I am so sorry. I’m sorry we couldn’t make this last forever. I pray to whatever powers will listen to bless each and every one of you with an incredible opportunity as quickly as possible. Some people in this world have jobs. We had the honor of being a team together, and for years no less. There isn’t enough gratitude expressed for the work many of you did behind closed doors and without the recognition you deserved from the community. So on their behalf, thank you once again. 

I thank all of you from the absolute bottom of my heart for your time and energy. For many of us this isn’t goodbye, it’s simply the closing of a chapter of a book that we will all continue to share pages of in the future. My love for this community is unending. 

With so much love, 
- Arend

For those of you who are creators- first of all, thank you all so much for the love, creativity, and dedication that you’ve put into this platform. When we first set out to be a home for your content, we couldn’t have imagined how many beautiful souls would join us on this journey and support the dream.

When a group of censored content creators came together to create WeedTube 5 years ago, we could have never imagined how abundant our online community would become. Since then, we’ve had over a million app downloads, over 6 million unique visitors, and dozens more states legalized cannabis. We’ve been featured in publications like Bloomberg, Forbes and Rolling Stone. 

But alas, we were not immune to the latest market conditions for tech start-ups. Despite our thriving community and hard-working team, the operating costs of maintaining the website could not be met when investment in the tech sector is so scarce right now. Bare markets and mainstream social media platforms easing their restrictions on cannabis content made finding more investment for WeedTube impossible. 

We have done our best to continue fighting online censorship, but the truth is that other social platforms are becoming more lax and starting to allow our kind of content again, which has decreased the amount of regular users on our platform. In addition, there’s been a large spike in illegal activity on the platform that we are having a hard time combatting. The final reason for shutting down is truly the cost. Online data storage is not cheap, and our platform hasn’t made a profit for a very long time, and it’s no longer feasible for us to financially support it.

We had to make the difficult decision to either keep trying for investment, or to use the funds that remained to take care of our staff and set them up for the difficult job market in the months ahead. So with that, we’ll spend the next couple weeks giving WeedTube the proper send off it deserves, and ensuring that creators are able to download all of their content they want for their archive.

How To Download Video Content from your WeedTube account: 

1. Make sure you're logged in
2. Click the "Download" button (depending on your screen size, this may look like an arrow in the sidebar)
3. On the "Download Videos" page you'll see a "Download" button next to each video uploaded. 
4. When you're ready to download a video right-click the button, then select "Save link as..."
5. Select the file location, rename your file or leave it as the default name, then press "Save"
6. Repeat this process for each video you wish to download.

If we are able to make any changes to this process we will update this section. Currently, this is the fastest way our developers could make downloading videos accessible. Creators have until May 1st, 2023 to download their content. WeedTube videos will not be downloadable after May 1st, 2023.

For downloading Pipeline content

Unfortunately due to how new the in-app Pipeline feature was integrated for WeedTube, we will not have the ability to save or download any content that was uploaded to the Pipeline. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, but we send grace and gratitude to you for using Pipeline in its infancy and helping us do something we’ve never done before! It was an incredible adventure. Pipeline will be removed from all app stores on April 2nd, 2023. 

Our platform served an important purpose: to educate the masses on cannabis from a dedicated group of like-minded supporters. Our shared love for this plant extended well beyond the reaches of just the platform, or the internet as a whole for that matter. We encourage you to keep pushing for the changes you want to see in the world, and to remember that change starts with you. Keep fighting for the legalization of cannabis, to right the wrong of prohibition. Believe in yourself, and keep on creating like no one is watching. 

We thank you for every piece of content you shared on WeedTube.

We thank you for the support you gave to one another.

We thank you for believing in us and our vision. 

We’re so sorry this couldn’t last forever, but we’re so proud that it happened.

This isn’t goodbye, it’s just see you later. In this vast world both physical and virtual, we’ll find each other, we’ll find community, and most importantly we’ll find ourselves.

<3