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Oh, yeah, I remember how much free video was available on the internet before YT. Great times!

tomc1985 9y ago
Because all this free video is just so great right? A world full of nobodies blathering on about themselves? ... There was a lots of video on the web before YT. Video was better before YT, you actually had to put some effort into it. Now YT is cheap, shitty, my-first-VFX projects as far as the eye can see.
- ashark 9y ago
  Pre-monetized YT was even noticeably better. The my-first-VFX videos aren't even the problem, it's the mountain of outright clickbait burying everything else, and rampant padding of what ought to be 20-30s videos to several minutes for what I assume are monetization reasons, usually starting with a minute of updates about the person's other videos and how much they loved the comments on their last video and blah blah blah, then some recap of stuff you definitely already know if you've sought out this video, and so on. My wife sometimes watches a video then leaves the "next video" running in the background while she does other stuff. Often it's people talking about movies in clickbait-titled videos. Their primary skill seems to be talking for several minutes without actually saying anything, and avoiding the video title's topic for as long as possible. It's kind of impressive, but does nothing to enrich anyone's life and drowns out better content with worse SEO.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    The only thing I remember about pre-monetized YouTube was it was mostly pirated TV shows. I'm pretty happy with the content on YouTube - lots of fun tech stuff like EEVBlog, Techmoan, bigclive, the 8-bit guy etc that would never happen on regular TV. A lot of them seem to make half their living from Patreon though.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  > Because all this free video is just so great right? A world full of nobodies blathering on about themselves? Just because that doesn't appeal to your taste doesn't mean that it is bad. Stop judging what other people like to watch. You argument is essentially "people who make videos that I don't like should be pushed out".
  - tomc1985 9y ago
    Before entertainment was so easy to make, there certain bars of quality one had to meet in order to get access to publishing. There is no such metric now, no hurdle of quality or notoriety to jump, and you would argue that nothing has changed? How does taste render the observations of an individual invalid? Are you so genius that you can make such ...judgments... yourself? But I can't judge because I have tastes???
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      > How does taste render the observations of an individual invalid? Are you so genius that you can make such ...judgments... yourself? But I can't judge because I have tastes??? Here's the difference: I'm not judging. I don't believe in a "quality bar". I'm not judging which content should be created, sponsored or paid for. Let people create and publish content, and let people vote with their clicks, eyes and wallets. But you, no, you think that only content that passes your quality bar should be funded. Don't like content or ads? Don't watch/view them. Nobody is forcing you to. But you want to force others not to view them. I hate ads, but they pay for a lot of the content and services I use, and I'd rather view them than pay for them. Don't like them? Don't use those services and content. Your call.
  - hueving 9y ago
    >You argument is essentially "people who make videos that I don't like should be pushed out". You keep putting words in people's mouths all over this thread. It doesn't make for interesting conversation. This is clearly a sensitive subject for you, but please engage people in an honest manner.
robin_reala 9y ago
No-one’s saying you can’t advertise. There was advertising in the world long before persistent stalking of users was a thing. They advertised based on the content, rather than the user.
larkeith 9y ago
Youtube existed for several years prior to becoming the massively monetized behemoth it is now. Furthermore, numerous alternative video providers exist or have existed, everywhere on the scale from amateur to enterprise.
CaptSpify 9y ago
> Oh, yeah, I remember how much free video was available on the internet before YT. Yeah, I remember that too. What is your point?

tomc1985 9y ago

Because all this free video is just so great right? A world full of nobodies blathering on about themselves? ... There was a lots of video on the web before YT. Video was better before YT, you actually had to put some effort into it. Now YT is cheap, shitty, my-first-VFX projects as far as the eye can see.

ashark 9y ago
Pre-monetized YT was even noticeably better. The my-first-VFX videos aren't even the problem, it's the mountain of outright clickbait burying everything else, and rampant padding of what ought to be 20-30s videos to several minutes for what I assume are monetization reasons, usually starting with a minute of updates about the person's other videos and how much they loved the comments on their last video and blah blah blah, then some recap of stuff you definitely already know if you've sought out this video, and so on. My wife sometimes watches a video then leaves the "next video" running in the background while she does other stuff. Often it's people talking about movies in clickbait-titled videos. Their primary skill seems to be talking for several minutes without actually saying anything, and avoiding the video title's topic for as long as possible. It's kind of impressive, but does nothing to enrich anyone's life and drowns out better content with worse SEO.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  The only thing I remember about pre-monetized YouTube was it was mostly pirated TV shows. I'm pretty happy with the content on YouTube - lots of fun tech stuff like EEVBlog, Techmoan, bigclive, the 8-bit guy etc that would never happen on regular TV. A lot of them seem to make half their living from Patreon though.
ucaetano 9y ago
> Because all this free video is just so great right? A world full of nobodies blathering on about themselves? Just because that doesn't appeal to your taste doesn't mean that it is bad. Stop judging what other people like to watch. You argument is essentially "people who make videos that I don't like should be pushed out".
- tomc1985 9y ago
  Before entertainment was so easy to make, there certain bars of quality one had to meet in order to get access to publishing. There is no such metric now, no hurdle of quality or notoriety to jump, and you would argue that nothing has changed? How does taste render the observations of an individual invalid? Are you so genius that you can make such ...judgments... yourself? But I can't judge because I have tastes???
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    > How does taste render the observations of an individual invalid? Are you so genius that you can make such ...judgments... yourself? But I can't judge because I have tastes??? Here's the difference: I'm not judging. I don't believe in a "quality bar". I'm not judging which content should be created, sponsored or paid for. Let people create and publish content, and let people vote with their clicks, eyes and wallets. But you, no, you think that only content that passes your quality bar should be funded. Don't like content or ads? Don't watch/view them. Nobody is forcing you to. But you want to force others not to view them. I hate ads, but they pay for a lot of the content and services I use, and I'd rather view them than pay for them. Don't like them? Don't use those services and content. Your call.
- hueving 9y ago
  >You argument is essentially "people who make videos that I don't like should be pushed out". You keep putting words in people's mouths all over this thread. It doesn't make for interesting conversation. This is clearly a sensitive subject for you, but please engage people in an honest manner.

robin_reala 9y ago

No-one’s saying you can’t advertise. There was advertising in the world long before persistent stalking of users was a thing. They advertised based on the content, rather than the user.

larkeith 9y ago

Youtube existed for several years prior to becoming the massively monetized behemoth it is now. Furthermore, numerous alternative video providers exist or have existed, everywhere on the scale from amateur to enterprise.

CaptSpify 9y ago

> Oh, yeah, I remember how much free video was available on the internet before YT. Yeah, I remember that too. What is your point?