although probably not I guess they were under a lot of pressure.

Basing their servers and also incorporating in the UK was always going to create problems — free speech is less protected there than the U.S. So much so that under British law some of their content is probably illegal.

They also have Hope not Hate advising them; another Leftist group who make a career out of feeling virtuous hunting 'nazis' and closing down 'dangerous' speech.

Saidit:

The censorship followed BitChute’s statement in July in which they “encouraged organizations like Hope Not Hate” (a UK-based “anti-racist” organisation) to “help them improve their processes”.

I always wondered if they would use their initial user base to grow their popularity and then like YouTube before them purge the dissident elements to produce something more normie friendly but — you are correct — if they do that, it is hard to see what their selling point will be.

The problem is that if their content is too extreme they can't monetize it so they get caught between a rock and a hard place.

They should have gone for a radical free speech platform, built it in at the beginning, and gone from there But that requires extreme levels of dedication that perhaps the owner didn't have.

That said I admire him for his attempt, from what I can gather he wanted to set up a YouTube alternative where he could share various conspiracy theories in peace. I think he simply got in over his head