5 ms·

Not related to the dislike feature in particular, but Youtube is definitely losing the next generation of creators. Plenty of people are using TikTok as their m

by Hamcha 5y ago

Not related to the dislike feature in particular, but Youtube is definitely losing the next generation of creators. Plenty of people are using TikTok as their main platform nowadays, as it has bigger reach for their markets.

1_player 5y ago
TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube as we know it, which is videos longer than 10 minutes.
- travisd 5y ago
  YouTube now has “shorts” but it’s definitely not the same since they aren’t able to emulate the TikTok culture.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Same thing as Facebook/Instagram Reels, another attempt to blatantly clone a rival platform.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Like TikTok cloning Vine? :)
      - FjgdymdjttdjG 5y ago
        Monkey see, monkey do, as the saying goes.
      - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
        Which Twitter bought and promptly shit down. I never understood it; Vine was hugely popular (I was in college at the time, such things tend to spread pretty rapidly on a college campus), even getting celebrity attention. I really questioned the idea that Twitter couldn’t make the product work when we see TikTok doing just that. I guess Vine was, literally, ahead of its time.
  - glandium 5y ago
    And yet, when you see the number of views shorts get compared to other content on Youtube, you could conclude that it's a success for Youtube...
- 14 5y ago
  When the timing is right tic toc could pivot to longer videos.
  - terafo 5y ago
    Longer videos aren't suited to the tiktok formula(endless feed of videos and you where you never know what's next). It works for 30 second video, maybe for 3 minute video, not for two hour video and not even for twenty minute video.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  I'd say there is more competition, but on much more specialized platforms with different purposes and smaller user bases- MOOC sites, other types of online learning sites, remote workout class platforms, Patreon, etc. There is a good amount of that video content which could be hosted on YouTube, but would be less easily accessible or monetizeable if it was.
- aaron695 5y ago
  > TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube This is not a logical conclusion. Twitter is different to blogging (also shorter) it has killed a lot of the blogging market. In fact, a lot of Youtube is too long, as the content producers chase the ad revenue. Logically things will continue and everything will go to smaller chunks.
- JonathanMerklin 5y ago
  Which is frankly still a wild concept to me because when I was of prime YouTube-binging age, the maximum length of a video was 10 minutes.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    What's the Youtube-binging age? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're probably implying you've "grown out" of your YouTube phase. As I grow older, I watch longer and more informational videos than I did 10 years ago.
- munificent 5y ago
  > TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube as we know it I something learned from the MMO boom back in the days of WoW. After WoW came out, there were a glut of other MMOs. Game companies were like, "Look at WoW! Players love MMOs! If we make MMOs, we'll be rich!" Almost all of them failed. The problem wasn't that the games were bad. Many were technically and artistically better. It definitely wasn't that gamers couldn't afford them. Cost was within the level of disposable income for most. The problem wasn't even network effects and userbase, though those do have an effect. Gamers move to new games all the time. The problem was that there is one fundamentally scarce commodity: human time. Thinking of competition in terms of physical goods is using an Industrial Age definition of competition when we're living in an Information Age. Consumers need a wide variety of unrelated physical things, so competition is only really meaningful between the products of the same kind. Also, producing goods has a significant per-unit cost. With information—especially entertainment media—anything that takes user attention competes with every other product that does the same. It doesn't matter if the products are completely unrelated: they burn the same scarce resource, so users using one are less able to use the other. And this is the only scarce resource in the equation since the marginal cost of streaming the same movie to one viewer or a million is essentially the same. YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, Fortnite, Instagram, Fox News, Minecraft, Reddit, Spotify, they're all competing against each other. As Reed Hastings said once, "You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep. And we’re winning."
- smoe 5y ago
  Many educational YouTuber push heavily for their extended / deeper content on Nebula in their YT videos. I don’t know how well Nebula is doing, but I don’t see it as impossible that there is going to be some fragmentation in the video space in the future.
redwall_hp 5y ago
Some are already hedging their bets. Linus Tech Tips, which is a pretty big channel to say the least, launched their own Floatplane service which they use to give exclusive access to paying subscribers. Like early viewing, live streaming and videos that don't even end up on YouTube. They offer it to other channels as well. As far as I'm aware, it has no discovery so far (you need to know a channel URL). I wish Peertube or something would take off. The kind of centralization YouTube has isn't healthy, and it's easier and cheaper to host video now than ever since HTML5 video became a thing. If you're running a business, depending on the goodwill of a third party company's free offering (which costs them a fortune to run) is nonsensical.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  That would be cool, but vertical integration does have a bunch of obvious advantages, which is why you see open source options often struggle compared to proprietary equivalents, like here, or with Discord vs IRC.
  - johnisgood 5y ago
    As much as I hate Discord, I do not think it is a fair comparison. Discord offers much more than IRC does, and requires less knowledge to get started.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      Exactly. Not an uncommon state of affairs, for open sources va proprietary.
      - johnisgood 5y ago
        Is there an open source project that is doing well that has similar functionalities that Discord offers though?
        TulliusCicero 5y ago
charcircuit 5y ago
>as it has bigger reach for their markets. TikTok has a horrible conversion rate though.
mrtweetyhack 5y ago
You mean China owned TikTok?
pishpash 5y ago
All communities including online ones take less outsiders over time and grow old and tired. Google and Facebook are no exceptions to the inevitable business lifecycle treadmill on which they could be on the downtrend. As the companies become dominated by decision-makers who are no longer agile and a user base who are ever more inert (read: old), their products lose mindshare and their companies lose vitality, to be replaced as a community by upstarts.

by Hamcha 5y ago

1_player 5y ago

TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube as we know it, which is videos longer than 10 minutes.

travisd 5y ago
YouTube now has “shorts” but it’s definitely not the same since they aren’t able to emulate the TikTok culture.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Same thing as Facebook/Instagram Reels, another attempt to blatantly clone a rival platform.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Like TikTok cloning Vine? :)
    - FjgdymdjttdjG 5y ago
      Monkey see, monkey do, as the saying goes.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      Which Twitter bought and promptly shit down. I never understood it; Vine was hugely popular (I was in college at the time, such things tend to spread pretty rapidly on a college campus), even getting celebrity attention. I really questioned the idea that Twitter couldn’t make the product work when we see TikTok doing just that. I guess Vine was, literally, ahead of its time.
- glandium 5y ago
  And yet, when you see the number of views shorts get compared to other content on Youtube, you could conclude that it's a success for Youtube...
14 5y ago
When the timing is right tic toc could pivot to longer videos.
- terafo 5y ago
  Longer videos aren't suited to the tiktok formula(endless feed of videos and you where you never know what's next). It works for 30 second video, maybe for 3 minute video, not for two hour video and not even for twenty minute video.
Apocryphon 5y ago
I'd say there is more competition, but on much more specialized platforms with different purposes and smaller user bases- MOOC sites, other types of online learning sites, remote workout class platforms, Patreon, etc. There is a good amount of that video content which could be hosted on YouTube, but would be less easily accessible or monetizeable if it was.
aaron695 5y ago
> TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube This is not a logical conclusion. Twitter is different to blogging (also shorter) it has killed a lot of the blogging market. In fact, a lot of Youtube is too long, as the content producers chase the ad revenue. Logically things will continue and everything will go to smaller chunks.
JonathanMerklin 5y ago
Which is frankly still a wild concept to me because when I was of prime YouTube-binging age, the maximum length of a video was 10 minutes.
- 1_player 5y ago
  What's the Youtube-binging age? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're probably implying you've "grown out" of your YouTube phase. As I grow older, I watch longer and more informational videos than I did 10 years ago.
munificent 5y ago
> TikTok is targeting a different type of content, there is no competition with YouTube as we know it I something learned from the MMO boom back in the days of WoW. After WoW came out, there were a glut of other MMOs. Game companies were like, "Look at WoW! Players love MMOs! If we make MMOs, we'll be rich!" Almost all of them failed. The problem wasn't that the games were bad. Many were technically and artistically better. It definitely wasn't that gamers couldn't afford them. Cost was within the level of disposable income for most. The problem wasn't even network effects and userbase, though those do have an effect. Gamers move to new games all the time. The problem was that there is one fundamentally scarce commodity: human time. Thinking of competition in terms of physical goods is using an Industrial Age definition of competition when we're living in an Information Age. Consumers need a wide variety of unrelated physical things, so competition is only really meaningful between the products of the same kind. Also, producing goods has a significant per-unit cost. With information—especially entertainment media—anything that takes user attention competes with every other product that does the same. It doesn't matter if the products are completely unrelated: they burn the same scarce resource, so users using one are less able to use the other. And this is the only scarce resource in the equation since the marginal cost of streaming the same movie to one viewer or a million is essentially the same. YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, Fortnite, Instagram, Fox News, Minecraft, Reddit, Spotify, they're all competing against each other. As Reed Hastings said once, "You get a show or a movie you’re really dying to watch, and you end up staying up late at night, so we actually compete with sleep. And we’re winning."
smoe 5y ago
Many educational YouTuber push heavily for their extended / deeper content on Nebula in their YT videos. I don’t know how well Nebula is doing, but I don’t see it as impossible that there is going to be some fragmentation in the video space in the future.

redwall_hp 5y ago

Some are already hedging their bets. Linus Tech Tips, which is a pretty big channel to say the least, launched their own Floatplane service which they use to give exclusive access to paying subscribers. Like early viewing, live streaming and videos that don't even end up on YouTube. They offer it to other channels as well. As far as I'm aware, it has no discovery so far (you need to know a channel URL). I wish Peertube or something would take off. The kind of centralization YouTube has isn't healthy, and it's easier and cheaper to host video now than ever since HTML5 video became a thing. If you're running a business, depending on the goodwill of a third party company's free offering (which costs them a fortune to run) is nonsensical.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
That would be cool, but vertical integration does have a bunch of obvious advantages, which is why you see open source options often struggle compared to proprietary equivalents, like here, or with Discord vs IRC.
- johnisgood 5y ago
  As much as I hate Discord, I do not think it is a fair comparison. Discord offers much more than IRC does, and requires less knowledge to get started.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Exactly. Not an uncommon state of affairs, for open sources va proprietary.
    - johnisgood 5y ago
      Is there an open source project that is doing well that has similar functionalities that Discord offers though?
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago

charcircuit 5y ago

>as it has bigger reach for their markets. TikTok has a horrible conversion rate though.

mrtweetyhack 5y ago

You mean China owned TikTok?

pishpash 5y ago

All communities including online ones take less outsiders over time and grow old and tired. Google and Facebook are no exceptions to the inevitable business lifecycle treadmill on which they could be on the downtrend. As the companies become dominated by decision-makers who are no longer agile and a user base who are ever more inert (read: old), their products lose mindshare and their companies lose vitality, to be replaced as a community by upstarts.