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Google Kills YouTube Originals
- ortusdux 5y ago
- curiousgal 5y agoAndroid is on its way to that list judging by how bad Android 12 is.
- remram 5y agoThe "switch app" button randomly stopping to work every few days, on a flagship Pixel phone... is a bit of a bad sign to say the least. But I don't think Google would allow Android to die, it's too much of an opportunity in that vertical.
- randomsilence 5y agoDo they have the internal culture to maintain the code base? If their hiring process fills their ranks with people who are good at coding interviews, would that be enough to maintain the Android platform?
- brimble 5y agoThe nuts-and-bolts of Android—the stuff that doesn't make for a really pretty and flashy yet-another-redesign announcements—has felt badly neglected since I started using and developing for it over a decade ago. Google seems to be terrible at getting its workforce to do the mountain of boring-but-useful work that needs to happen to make Android suck less. Instead, we get yet another widget redesign (with most of the actual implementation left up to app developers—oh you didn't think any of that pretty stuff would just work, did you? Hahaha, making it work is boring, you silly person!) and ten more messengers (product launches = promotions, don't you know!)
- Bayart 5y agoGoogle has been working on another OS, Fuchsia [1], for 6 years. That may be where the system developers went. [1]: https://fuchsia.dev https://fuchsia.dev
- erichocean 5y agoCertainly you'd hope that's where Google's best system developers went, and Android is currently being maintained by their B team.
- fomine3 5y agoLooks plausible reason why recent AndroidOS aren't good upgrade.
- rchaud 5y agoI often think about just how much more dominant iOS would have been had Samsung not come in to save Android. They introduced better cameras, capacitive pen-enabled phones, DEX desktop enviroments and now foldables. Having owned several Nexus devices due to their rootability, it's remarkable how much better the comparable Samsung models were.
- aceazzameen 5y agoSamsung's hardware definitely kept Android relevant. I'd even argue that Samsung's software did too. Samsung has been adding new features to their flavor of Android since the beginning. Some good, some bad. Things like multi-window, do-not-disturb, UX improvements, etc. It really came from Samsung competing with LG, HTC, Moto, etc to keep their flavor ahead. Each year Google would integrate those features into stock Android as if it were a big deal. But to most users it wasn't because it already existed for them. Now it's stagnating on all sides and everyone's looking towards Apple on what to do next.
- adingus 5y agoI have been an Android user since the iPhone 3g and I have never considered moving back or to something else until Android 12. More and more it feel like Android is getting in the way. The app drawer/recent app swipe up is annoying and confusing, I can't do simple things like setting a timer via text unless the assistant is turned on, the driving mode is trash etc. I am really thinking of buying a pinephone pro and trying my hand at that.
- mbrodersen 5y agoSamsung will keep Android going not Google.
- detritus 5y agoAt this point one would really have to wonder if it's at all worthwhile investing time and effort in a Google-based product. Heck, they even appear to have let their main offering - their Search Engine - slip into shit over the past few years.
- ehsankia 5y agoHow is Originals a "Google-based product"? It really irritates me how every tiny feature being removed is used to inflate the killedbygoogle-meme. Just like how there are lists claiming Google Maps is a "chat app". Can we stop with this nonsense? Soon killedbygoogle will start listing individual <span> elements that were removed from google websites. Originals was a feature; features come and go all the time.
- thelopa 5y agoTell that to the creators who were using Originals as a revenue stream. If the point of killedbygoogle is that google isn’t a reliable platform to build on, this absolutely seems like a fair thing to add to the list.
- ehsankia 5y agoThose creators were and will continue to make normal Youtube videos. The only thing with Originals did was provide them with resources to make slightly higher production value content, but it seems like said content didn't perform as well as the creators own content. The creators are still free to find their own production company and produce similarly polished high production content if they want, but again, I doubt that content is worth it on a platform like Youtube.
- sremani 5y agoOriginal Content just goes against the fundamental appeal of YouTube that is "anyone can be creator". Of course, their investments in Shorts to compete against TicTok proves that they are no longer only game in town for "creators", even though the format varies others are coming after them.
- Cupertino95014 5y ago.. and good morning! it's going to be yet another perfect day without YouTube TV! Because who knows the over-under on when they cancel that, too?
- andai 5y agoNever heard of it, apparently it's a US only thing.
- whywhywhywhy 5y agoNever made sense to me and made me suspect that the people in charge didn't understand the value of their own platform. YouTube isn't competing with Netflix/Disney+/etc, they are the ones competing with YouTube and the idea of infinite hyper specialized crowdsourced content which is most personal and intimate than anything they could ever offer. Makes perfect sense to kill it.
- spookthesunset 5y agoI agree that all these other companies are competing with YouTube. I mean like you said… there is tons of original content on YouTube that would never get made via “mainstream” / “traditional” producers. Take all the FPV train videos made by train engineers on their routes. Or the dudes who sit around at popular inlets in Florida recording lake boats attempting (and often failing) to go into open ocean. Or the person who does ASMR car detailing. Or the dude on Australia who jets out plugged drains. Or the people who live stream airplanes landing at LAX for 10 hours. Nobody would ever put that onto a cable TV channel yet each of these content creators have a loyal audience that at minimum funds a hefty beer fund.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoI do wonder why Netflix hasn't opened a 'crowdsourced' section to actually compete with youtube, I'm sure they're making more per viewer than Youtube so affording the necessary server space shouldn't be the issue. I know they don't like to go into too many new market segments but it seems like an obvious move... anyone have a theory?
- ctchocula 5y agoI'm guessing the theory goes something like: When I pay for Netflix, I expect high production value. There's no way I would pay for crowdsourced videos made by amateurs when I could watch it for free on Youtube.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoMakes sense. Rationally, if I'm paying for Netflix anyway I might as well watch crowdsourced content there ad-free. Irrationally, any time I'm watching crowdsourced content, I'm reminded of its price and compare it unfavourably to its competition.
- sneak 5y agoIt's not news that Google killed a product, or that any big tech company killed an unsuccessful new division after a few years of trial-and-mostly-error. What's news is Google's hitrate at developing new divisions into successful lines of business. It must be a small fraction of that of Amazon's hit rate. Google's largest successes have been acquisitions, too. Amazon seems to have developed a lot of huge businesses internally, from scratch.
- Cupertino95014 5y agoI'll take "Acquisitions that Google ran into the ground" for $800, Alex. Answer: They used to be the leading restaurant review book, pre-internet. Google bought it in 2011, and has now sold it off. Question: what is Zagat? Let's continue for $1,000. Answer: This Schaumburg, IL company was a pioneer in electronics before the smartphone era. Google paid $12.5 billion for a division of it in 2012, and has now sold it off. Question: What is Motorola?
- rchaud 5y agoThey bought Motorola for the patents IIRC. Those weren't transferred when they sold it to Lenovo.
- AlbertCory 5y agoYou do remember correctly. I was in Google Patent Litigation then. The patents were never asserted against anyone. Were they useful as leverage in cross-licensing deals? No, not particularly. Since patent infringement suits are generally brought against the final manufacturer of the hardware, what this did is make Google the defendant in a lot of lawsuits against Motorola. I personally looked over all 20K+ Google patents (mostly via our summary tools, not reading every word). Most of the Motorola ones were utterly worthless.
- the-rc 5y agoWasn't the interlaced video patent asserted against Microsoft, along with a bunch of other H264 stuff?
- da_chicken 5y agoHonestly, I'm not all that surprised, but I do think that YouTube didn't do a very good job at selling YouTube Originals. They didn't do what every other platform did initially: Fill it with content to draw people in. It's certainly difficult to do in the modern era of hyper fragmented content platforms, but YouTube is still a centerpiece of modern content delivery. Without that content, all they could offer was their actual original content. Yes, the YouTube Movies channel exists, but that's not a wide selection. I don't think that's necessarily all YouTube's fault. The siloing of content is a significant problem, and this failure likely represents real problems for the future of streaming for customers. Of the Originals content, Cobra Kai was the only good show I recall from it, and they sold that to Netflix. The only other Original I can think of is MindField, which was a good enough show, but I kept bouncing off of it. It didn't really seem interested in answering the questions it posed.
- everdrive 5y agoI loved bday eve, but really didn’t enjoy mindfield. Michael often felt like he was working under duress, and the episodes had a very “produced” feel to them.
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoI had to search to find out what programs YouTube actually produced, because I hadn't seen one in a good long while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_YouTube_Premium_original_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_YouTube_Premium_origin... Looks like most English-language content stopped in 2018 or 2019, though they continued producing films, documentaries, and a surprisingly large slate of kids shows through 2021. I guess my point is that I don't think I've seen a YouTube Original advertised or recommended to me in years, so either this is a mercy killing of a division that never made anything all that good, or Google simply has no idea how to market the things that it creates. Heck, the one success of YouTube Originals that I remember, Cobra Kai, is now a Netflix show. How does that happen?
- ASalazarMX 5y agoIf only they had ran ads for the original shows instead of that exasperating "Do you want to try YouTube Premium?", "How about now?", "OK, I will ask you every time you open the app this week, just in case you change your mind".
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoAs a YouTube Premium subscriber, even once you're paying for the service, they don't really show you the originals any more than they did before. I do have an "Originals" button in the sidebar, but I don't think I've ever clicked it.
- ASalazarMX 5y agoSame here. I tried, and later paid for YouTube Premium for three months, mostly to get rid of ads their way. The experience was like regular YouTube, the YouTube Music service was very underwhelming, and the ad-free experience was not enough by itself to justify the service.
- lern_too_spel 5y agoIronically, Google's reluctance to provide tools for advertisors to make sure their ads perform means that Google also has no competence at making sure its own ads perform.
- peanut_worm 5y agoseemed weird to promote original content on a website that is entirely original content Youtube doesn’t seem like it should be competing with Netflix and Hulu its a whole different type of website.
- terafo 5y agoIt is still possible to rent or buy a movie on Youtube. Not sure why won't they try to compete with Netflix, Apple TV and Prime Video(and many more streaming services). They have huge install base and superior user experience.
- ehsankia 5y agoOriginals to me was about giving said great content creators more funds to produce their wilder/more expensive ideas they didn't have the budget for themselves. It was basically just boosting the existing content and upping the production quality a bit. It probably wasn't very lucrative though given that people watching Youtube don't care about production quality that much imo, and top creators already have decent production.
- hbn 5y agoI pay for Premium but I don't think I've ever had a desire to watch a YouTube Original. Nor was I really aware from them. I guess there's an irony in that the people who are paying and can watch the content are also paying to not see ads so they never find out about it.
- Timpy 5y agoI think the thing that pulls people in to YouTube is antithetical to YouTube Originals. If I'm going to spend 40 minutes on YouTube it's going to be a series of low commitment videos anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes long each. If I wanted something to watch that was the length of a TV episode I would be on Netflix.
- philistine 5y agoEverybody's YouTube experience is different, but video length is not the differentiator. People will watch hour-long videos on YouTube without batting an eye. Or stay for 10 minutes. What is unique about Youtube is that everything is non-fiction. When was the last time any Youtube success was fictionalized content? That's what Youtube Originals tried to change, and failed at.
- thereddaikon 5y agoDepends on your definition of fiction I guess. Comedy sketches are fiction right? Youtube has been known for comedy channels. Then there are channels dedicated to fiction franchises. Does a channel that only talks about Star Wars count as fiction? I dunno. YouTube is definitely lacking in the traditional "TV show" department if that's what you mean.
- clintonb 5y ago> When was the last time any Youtube success was fictionalized content? Cobra Kai seems successful. Unfortunately, YouTube dropped it and Netflix picked it up. The irony is that, while Google makes a lot of money from ads, its sibling Netflix kinda sucked at advertising the show. I didn't know about Cobra Kai until it was on Netflix.
- turdnagel 5y agoGreat - now they should lower the price of YouTube Premium to be in line with other streaming services.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2021/8/2/22605455/youtube-premium-lite-pilot-benelux-nordics-experiment-ad-free-subscription https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/2/22605455/youtube-premium-l...
- turdnagel 5y agoThanks! I just switched to Premium Lite. I don't use downloading very often, and I never use YouTube Music or background viewing, so I think this is perfect.
- gtirloni 5y agoYT Premium is cheaper than Netflix where I live. And I use it way more than any of the streaming services I have.
- ceras 5y agoYouTube Premium also includes music streaming, which makes the price much more reasonable.
- speedgoose 5y agoIs it still full of uploads of old 128kbits/s mp3 encoded at least 3 times over 20 years with a great slideshow as video?
- ehsankia 5y agoNearly any content that was on GPM or any other streaming site has full quality audio. The only times it will use the Youtube version is if no alternative is found, or if you explicitly have the Video toggle set. Do you have example of content which is found on most other streaming sites but uses Youtube video on YTM?
- nostromo 5y agoI believe we’re in a content bubble. All the old television networks, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, and others are pumping out more mediocre TV than anyone wants or cares to consume. The quality is too low and the quantity is too high. It’s telling to me that the most-watched shows on these networks are often sitcoms from the 90s and 00s, despite a mountain of newer content going unnoticed. A shakeout would be a good thing.
- 999900000999 5y agoActually I think it's about finding your niche. I loved Disjointed on Netflix, but I understand it's too silly for many. If I want to find Ukrainian rom coms,I can find it . This was unheard of 20 years ago.
- FalconSensei 5y ago> If I want to find Ukrainian rom coms,I can find it Now you got me curious
- ehsankia 5y agoI disagree. There are still massive and popular shows. Look at Marvel shows, Ted Lasso, The Crown, etc. But since the field is saturated, there's also a focus on niche content that appeal to a specific underserved population. Content that have a small but strong fanbase. Just because it doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it's mediocre.
- terafo 5y agoWhat's great about this amount of content being produced is the globalization of content production. The biggest hit of last year was made in Korea. More and more shows on Netflix are being made globally. It will become more prevalent as various streaming services try to get an edge over competition by cutting costs this way.
- f1refly 5y agoThe countries in which shows are made in in completly irrelevant. They only do it to capture the maximum amount of national culture funds, but the content is still the same bland garbage noone asked for.
- AcerbicZero 5y agoAbout time. They murdered it in spirit years ago.
- bayofpigs 5y ago
- wdroz 5y agoCobra Kai was the only youtube original I watched. Time to time I checked the "Originals" section, but it's seem all contents are/were about US-centered social justice stuff...
- Aunche 5y agoFor an organization with effectively infinite money, Google is very stingy when it comes entering a new space. Netflix sunk hundreds of millions of dollars on originals from the start. For every hit like House of Cards, there was a flop like Marco Polo, but this is still what kept Netflix relevant to this day. Meanwhile, the only YouTube Original I've heard of is Cobra Kai, and even that seemed relatively low budget. The same goes for Stadia too. The platform is good enough, but there just isn't much incentive for people to join it.
- benbristow 5y agoMKBHD (Marques Brownlee) did some cool YouTube Originals about old-school tech hardware. Worth a watch.
- andrewl-hn 5y agoWeren't they available to free users, too? I remember watching them and I never paid for premium.
- ehsankia 5y agoYep, most latest Originals were just timed exclusives I believe. Came to Premium members ad-free, then some time later became available widely with ads.
- ehsankia 5y agoAlso VSauce's Mind Field.
- benbristow 5y agoAh yes - he did an interesting one about complete isolation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKdEhx-dD4
- TheRealNGenius 5y agoI found those to be worse than normal vsauce videos
- terafo 5y agoI'm surprised they didn't do it sooner. It was obvious for a long time that they were not interested in making any substantial content investments. Which is a shame since no one was able to make video streaming experience better than Youtube. And I think Google Stadia will have the same fate. They dissolved their own studios, almost stopped investment into 3rd party games and, likely, won't be able to keep up with xCloud and Geforce Now if they don't radically change their strategy.
- chaostheory 5y agoMaybe they wanted to fight the popular perception that they cancel all of their new efforts within a year?
- smm11 5y agoFubo and sports is The Jam.
- dpweb 5y agoMy YouTube usage is about 7 hrs per day for the last four or five years and I don’t think I have ever clicked on an original, and it was always in my feed. Definitely always seemed like a bad fit. But I think the idea of crowdsourcing content like tictok or youtube which is those platforms, doesn’t work for longer form, episodic shows or movies. You get established stars. There’s no real finite limit on the amount of tictoks can be created people will like but is a finite amount on the talent available to make a watchable movie or show.
- Steltek 5y agoI don't know if I hit 7 hours but I definitely watch a lot of YouTube. You're spot on about it being a bad fit. Originals were basically TV shows and I didn't come to YouTube for TV. Who really does?
- rchaud 5y agoThey should have purchased Quibi's library, which would be perfect for making Youtube Shorts something more substantive than a TikTok ripoff.
- skoocda 5y agoAs someone who spends < 7 minutes per day on YouTube (average)... What sort of things do you watch for 7 hours per day? I honestly can't imagine finding that much interesting content on YouTube
- 8K832d7tNmiQ 5y agoAs someone who has a similar usage rate (~6 hours per day), most of the time I just play any video podcasts that looks interesting and put it either on a background or on my second monitor.
- sibit 5y agoAs someone who uses YouTube for ~12 hours a day and has been paying for Premium since it was first offered (as YouTube Red) here is what I do: - Listen to / watch podcast (2 - 4 hours) - Watch videos from a handful of creators like Linus Tech Tips or Tom Scott (3 hours) - Listen / watch various conference talks (1 - 2 hours) - Listen to music (~6 hours)
- baja_blast 5y agoI watch more YouTube than any other streaming platform by a wide margin, independent creators are able to produce very high quality covering obscure niche subjects.
- endisneigh 5y agoI wonder if Google needs a new CEO and a serious shakeup. Other than Cloud, though Google innovates, we just haven't seen any huge things come from Google since around 2010. Stadia - If they're serious about this they should pay 10B for Valve and make it so anyone can play any computer game available on Steam via Stadia. Daydream - Bring it back and make it work Android - Feels like it's stagnating. They need to think of some groundbreaking features at this point WearOS - Feels dead already
- silisili 5y ago> If they're serious about this they should pay 10B for Valve and make it so anyone can play any computer game available on Steam via Stadia. Won't work. Geforce Now essentially tried this, and many publishers/gamedevs threw a big fit and threatened legal action. Unfortunately, GFN caved and removed the games.
- saltminer 5y ago> we just haven't seen any huge things come from Google since around 2010 Google Photos has been a runaway success. https://www.fastcompany.com/90380618/how-google-photos-joined-the-billion-user-club https://www.fastcompany.com/90380618/how-google-photos-joine...
- ivanmontillam 5y agoWhilst I can agree everyone has a price, Valve is bootstrapped for a reason. Not necessarily you can buy out anyone by the sheer power of money. Buy out Valve and you'll destroy its creative freedom that got them there in the first place.
- eropple 5y ago> Buy out Valve and you'll destroy its creative freedom that got them there in the first place. I don't think an acquisition by Google would have anything to do with Valve's "creative freedom"--the evidence of which has been pretty scant for the last decade or so. ;) More for the storefront and the platform. (I absolutely do not want this to happen, obviously.)
- mdoms 5y agoLike most efforts from Google, YTO was half-hearted and destined to fail. The same will be true in the very near future for Stadia.
- pssflops 5y agoThis is a shame, for me, as I really enjoyed Weird City[0] and was very hopeful of it getting more episodes made. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_City_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_City_(TV_series)
- aunty_helen 5y agoAsk HN, Show HN... There should be a Google Kills tag to keep track of all the decommissioned services for the alphabet company
- acdha 5y agoDid they ever promote this? I'm a YouTube Premium subscriber and while technically there's a button in the navigation I couldn't say that I've ever heard of any of their originals and clicking on it just gives an unstructured mess with little reason to care about any of it.
- WheatM 5y ago
- baud147258 5y agoand nothing of value was lost.