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Network effect, and Google's Ad Monopoly account for 99.9% of the dominance of YouTube. Only Facebook could launch a competing product (maybe Twitter). It would

Network effect, and Google's Ad Monopoly account for 99.9% of the dominance of YouTube. Only Facebook could launch a competing product (maybe Twitter). It would take millions (or Billions) to build a platform just to end up like one of the many competitors (Vimeo). There will be something that kills YouTube, but it will look different (or work differently).

betwixthewires 5y ago
Is it really network effect though? I think with regard to YouTube the influence of network effect is overstated. The easy monetization capability is unrivaled, this is a big reason people that make videos choose YouTube. This is where their network effects come from. People don't really choose where to watch videos, people choose where to upload them though. But as far as a viewer is concerned, do you care what video host a video is on before you watch it? Probably not. You'll click a vimeo or dailymotion or whatever link if the video you want to watch is on one of those sites. YouTube by and large is not a social platform, so it's network effects are very limited. IMO the reasons YouTube has basically a monopoly is they have what amounts to embedded google search that only searches their site, and their app comes preinstalled on almost all mobile phones. Think about it, as a user, you want to search for a video, you click the video searching app on your phone, oh it only searches YouTube? Oh well, the video is probably on YouTube anyway.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  I'd argue that Youtube is a strong video discovery mechanism and "People don't really choose where to watch videos" is very much false. Many people watch videos by directly searching for them on youtube and by subscribing to specific "youtubers" (perhaps it's different between various ages/demographics, though); and, IMHO this is the largest part, when watching the next video people stay on the same site, at least in the case of youtube; they'll just pick one of the recommendations and it's not going to be on another site.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    We are basically making the same point. People don't watch the videos because they're on YouTube, people watch the videos because the app on their phone only plays and searches videos on YouTube.

betwixthewires 5y ago

Is it really network effect though? I think with regard to YouTube the influence of network effect is overstated. The easy monetization capability is unrivaled, this is a big reason people that make videos choose YouTube. This is where their network effects come from. People don't really choose where to watch videos, people choose where to upload them though. But as far as a viewer is concerned, do you care what video host a video is on before you watch it? Probably not. You'll click a vimeo or dailymotion or whatever link if the video you want to watch is on one of those sites. YouTube by and large is not a social platform, so it's network effects are very limited. IMO the reasons YouTube has basically a monopoly is they have what amounts to embedded google search that only searches their site, and their app comes preinstalled on almost all mobile phones. Think about it, as a user, you want to search for a video, you click the video searching app on your phone, oh it only searches YouTube? Oh well, the video is probably on YouTube anyway.

PeterisP 5y ago
I'd argue that Youtube is a strong video discovery mechanism and "People don't really choose where to watch videos" is very much false. Many people watch videos by directly searching for them on youtube and by subscribing to specific "youtubers" (perhaps it's different between various ages/demographics, though); and, IMHO this is the largest part, when watching the next video people stay on the same site, at least in the case of youtube; they'll just pick one of the recommendations and it's not going to be on another site.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  We are basically making the same point. People don't watch the videos because they're on YouTube, people watch the videos because the app on their phone only plays and searches videos on YouTube.