It’s certainly easier than it was before, but video is also as hard as ever because of the many moving parts. To replicate YouTube (in terms of basic features,

It’s certainly easier than it was before, but video is also as hard as ever because of the many moving parts. To replicate YouTube (in terms of basic features, not scale), you need: - robust transcoding that is reasonably fast, into a multitude of different formats to accommodate web and mobile (example problem: do you support vertical videos) - a good CDN at the best cost you can. videos need to start almost immediately - ability to snap thumbnails and other artifacts - lots of storage - a fast single page app - content controls (because a lot of people upload porn) - a good extensible player that supports fullscreen and VAST ads and whatever else - a robust uploader that can reliably handle large chunked uploads I remember a quote from Chad Hurley where he said the reason YouTube succeeded was because unlike its competitors, who were all offering similar services, it didn’t suck. Given this laundry list of must-haves, you can see why it was so easy to suck.