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I don't know about growth at different stages, but the reason it took off initially is that Flash added video capabilities and YouTube was built around that ubi

by 83457 3y ago

I don't know about growth at different stages, but the reason it took off initially is that Flash added video capabilities and YouTube was built around that ubiquitous plugin. Before that, you needed a video player installed on your computer that then either loaded in-browser or played videos after download. You often needed multiple players installed as none supported every video format.

LegitShady 3y ago
This is a bit like saying car use grew because of differentials. Cars use differentials but the reason car use grew isn't the differential. If it wasn't the differential it would be some other mechanism that does the same thing. Don't attribute user interest (which is what made YouTube grow) to the technical aspects of the site. That is almost never the case.
- irobeth 3y ago
  Back in the day you if you wanted to 'watch internet videos' then you needed a video player, you needed codecs, you needed to download the videos, you needed to find the videos If you wanted to share videos online, good luck? You needed somewhere you could upload them and a lot of forums had file size limits, so sometimes you just spread/discovered them via p2p services. For the non-technical person, there were a few places you could submit videos to or browse 'funny internet videos', but most video sites were an individual or community's curated collection Youtube bundled all of that up as "a video repository and search engine that provides a streaming player which is already supported by your browser", and (in the US anyway) that moment coincided with: (a) wide-spread broadband access and (b) digital cameras becoming accessible to consumers So in that context, I think it might be a bit like saying "interest in reading increased after book printing technology made libraries comparatively inexpensive"
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Ease of use is not a technical aspect.

by 83457 3y ago

LegitShady 3y ago

This is a bit like saying car use grew because of differentials. Cars use differentials but the reason car use grew isn't the differential. If it wasn't the differential it would be some other mechanism that does the same thing. Don't attribute user interest (which is what made YouTube grow) to the technical aspects of the site. That is almost never the case.

irobeth 3y ago
Back in the day you if you wanted to 'watch internet videos' then you needed a video player, you needed codecs, you needed to download the videos, you needed to find the videos If you wanted to share videos online, good luck? You needed somewhere you could upload them and a lot of forums had file size limits, so sometimes you just spread/discovered them via p2p services. For the non-technical person, there were a few places you could submit videos to or browse 'funny internet videos', but most video sites were an individual or community's curated collection Youtube bundled all of that up as "a video repository and search engine that provides a streaming player which is already supported by your browser", and (in the US anyway) that moment coincided with: (a) wide-spread broadband access and (b) digital cameras becoming accessible to consumers So in that context, I think it might be a bit like saying "interest in reading increased after book printing technology made libraries comparatively inexpensive"
bcrosby95 3y ago
Ease of use is not a technical aspect.