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I'm sorry, but this is a bad take. Of all the free services available online, YouTube is maybe the single worst example you could pick as far as "offering litt

by gundmc 7y ago

I'm sorry, but this is a bad take. Of all the free services available online, YouTube is maybe the single worst example you could pick as far as "offering little actual user value". The fact that any user across some 76 languages can upload any number of up to 12 hour videos that are then transcoded, captioned, and shareable FOR FREE is absurd. If those videos never get a more than 10 views, it's still hosted and accessible FOR FREE. If they blow up and get billions of views, the service scales to serve that FOR FREE. If you get really popular, you can CHOOSE to show ads on your videos and get paid for views while still taking advantage of the free hosting and infrastructure. It's a goddamn miracle that individuals creating and publishing their own web videos has become a viable occupation. That didn't exist before YouTube. Even more impressive is spending money and resources hosting all of the videos that will never be viewed. A user here posted a website that randomly played a continuous feed of never before viewed videos[1]. It's astounding. All this while also operating the second largest search engine in the world to help viewers find your content for free and being so reliable as to make global news when it goes offline for some users for an hour[2]. I can understand criticizing some of YouTube's policies or interactions with mega creators, but I legitimately can't comprehend calling their contribution "little actual user value". [1] - http://astronaut.io/ http://astronaut.io/ [2] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-cloud-outage-hits-youtube-gmail-snapchat-apps-services-today-2019-06-02-live-updates/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-cloud-outage-hits-youtub...

taurath 7y ago
Here's the problem I have with google or the big platforms and why the "user value" I think is overwrought: They've pushed everyone else that could compete out, because they've achieved such economies of scale and vertical integration that they can afford to build many products AT A LOSS, because only at their scale can one actually make money on the product. A $50 google home speaker, or amazon alexa should be $200. They're selling it to you basically at cost so they can get your data. Similarly storing all those youtube videos - it costs them money. This deal isn't free for the consumer, its a tradeoff that you HAVE to use them, the company store.

by gundmc 7y ago

taurath 7y ago

Here's the problem I have with google or the big platforms and why the "user value" I think is overwrought: They've pushed everyone else that could compete out, because they've achieved such economies of scale and vertical integration that they can afford to build many products AT A LOSS, because only at their scale can one actually make money on the product. A $50 google home speaker, or amazon alexa should be $200. They're selling it to you basically at cost so they can get your data. Similarly storing all those youtube videos - it costs them money. This deal isn't free for the consumer, its a tradeoff that you HAVE to use them, the company store.