Brightcove: Betting your business is a crapshoot

One of my favorite video platform plays, Brightcove, clearly was torn for some time between going elephant hunting (trying to capture big media players) vs. the user-generated YouTube-type crowd (with Brightcove.tv) and the rest of us just lost:

Beginning December 18, 2007, we plan to end support of direct consumer uploads to Brightcove.TV.  As a result, you will not be able to upload new videos to Brightcove.TV after December 17, 2007. But videos you have already uploaded to Brightcove.TV will remain available on the site and through your Brightcove.TV channel.  Videos you have embedded in other sites and blogs will also continue to play. (Read more in this writeup at ReadWriteWeb).

Here’s the problem: If you’re a startup, small or even medium sized business unwilling to spend “thousands per month” for a platform play (as Brightcove has repeatedly told me in response to my inquiries about their business accounts) who do you bet your business on in the video space? Veoh? Kyte? Mogulus? As it stands now, I wouldn’t trust any of them to provide an “on ramp” to build a video-centric business unless my client had deep pockets and could enter into an agreement guaranteeing a service level.

This is too bad since there are a lot of content producers searching for a platform upon which to build their businesses or expand their current ones. It’s also unfortunate for the Brightcove’s of the world since there’s a dwindling supply of elephants to hunt.