15 ms·

YouTube is a mysterious monopoly

370 points by geerlingguy 1y ago

BurningFrog 1y ago
Sorry to be cranky, but it's a bit annoying when people call market leaders "monopolies". Words are best when they have meaning!
- LastTrain 1y ago
  Isn’t a monopoly just a market leader that leverages its dominant position in anti-competitive ways? The article does make a (weak, IMO) argument that YouTube is using its position to screw creators out of revenue by gaming metrics.
  - mercutio2 1y ago
    Monopolies are not illegal or ipso facto anti-competitive.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  What's your definition of monopoly? They're something like 75% of video hosting, and if you exclude vimeo for being paid-only then it's over 90%. That sounds like a monopoly to me.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    My point is that I don't have my own definition of words! We should all use the common definition of words. That makes communication possible! dictionary.com gives this definition: "exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices." That's... not what I expected. To me having a monopoly means being the only provider, but I'll bend the knee to the dictionary. In this case though, with competitors at 10% or 25% market share, you can easily publish videos at a cheaper vendor.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      When the entire pool of competitors is only 10%, it's not so easy. You can put a video up but nobody will see it. The network effect of viewers is one of the big reasons to want multiple major sites.
- eimrine 1y ago
  Do you agree that Google is a monopoly? Calling Google just a market leader is the situation when the words became too blurred to carry some meaning.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    Google is active in dozens of markets. It may be a monopolist in some of them. But you can't say it's a monopoly across the board.
    - eimrine 1y ago
      If Google is really a monopolist on some markets, any other market from the dozen is needed to support the Google's monopoly. Kind of Apple's Facetime when decreasing number of clients for a tiny messenger makes a big support for rest of the Apple.
      - BurningFrog 1y ago
        I honestly don't understand the point you're trying to make.
- jamesnorden 1y ago
  Microsoft was never a monopoly in the personal computer market by this logic.
jahooligan 1y ago
YouTube is broken plain to see and simple from my pov since 2019 at least as is ggl search. It is awful. Hijack data-centers with Gorillas. re-claim the community ...
- Insanity 1y ago
  Have no idea what your last sentence means.. But that said - if you're claiming that YT search is broken I wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand how search on YT can be so bad given that it's owned by a search engine company. Then again, their search engine is also subpar nowadays.. :)
troupo 1y ago
I keep seeing people say this: "I pay for YouTube Premium. For my money, it’s the best bang-for-the-buck subscription service on the market" and I don't understand. For me, Premium's only value proposition is removing ads. Recommendations are still the same (quite shitty). Search is unusable (4 relevant results then unrelated recommendations). Shorts are pushed aggressively no matter how many times you hide them. Search in history will often not find even something you just watched a few days ago. It's the same Youtube.
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  You also get youtube music, instant skipping over sponsor sections, and the ability to play videos in the background
  - SanjayMehta 1y ago
    There’s an excellent free ios app called “Unwatched” which lets you make playlists, set defaults per channel such playback speed, and lets you play videos in the background. I use it for “podcasts” which are video only. And you don’t have to log in.
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    Aside from Music, these are all negative features that are valuable only because YouTube is so obnoxious. I'm in vehement agreement with parent to be honest. "We'll stop spitting in your soup if you pay us extra" isn't a nice value proposition.
    - SchemaLoad 1y ago
      It's not a particularly crazy idea that free users get a lesser experience. I'm perfectly happy to pay for youtube since it provides by far the best content and the price is reasonable. The fact that people can get all of that for free with some minor limitations is fairly generous.
      - makeitdouble 1y ago
simianwords 1y ago
“This space is ripe for disruption”. On the contrary I feel like YouTube is extremely well managed. For an application that is this ubiquitous and this well known, it seems to work pretty well. I can’t remember the last time it was in news for something bad. Sometimes the answer really is: it is well managed product.
- qweiopqweiop 1y ago
  For some definition of well, that includes forcing shorts on everyone and getting most of the youth addicted to your product.
- guardian5x 1y ago
  I agree that it is a mostly well managed product, but I can think of a lot of things when it was in the news for something bad. Most controversial is probably the increase in the amount of Ads, unskippable ads, then there was multiple problems with Youtube kids, e.g. how bad people get really bad videos there. There was an outcry when the dislike button was removed, and so on..
- beeflet 1y ago
  I don't know it's constantly kicking youtubers I subscribe to off the site, and removing videos. It would be nice if it were more censorship resistant
  - simianwords 1y ago
    It’s an extremely hard problem to solve unfortunately. The political tides keep shifting. One day it’s unthinkable to non censor a gender critical video. Another day it is okay. The YouTube management has to be adaptive enough to work in the small window that society allows at that time.
    - infamia 1y ago
      It isn't society they're kicking people off of YouTube for, it's whatever their advertisers do or don't want at any given moment. The advertising companies are their customers, and everyone else is just grist for the mill.
benob 1y ago
> YouTube views seem to have fallen off a cliff recently So they started discounting AI data collection bots?
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  Youtube pretty aggressively blocks automated usage now. If you connect via a VPN it won't show any videos until you log in. Considering that ad income and real engagement seems unchanged, it possibly is just that they started blocking bots better. Something you wouldn't strictly expect a public announcement over.
  - chii 1y ago
    I also find that they block incognito mode a lot too - esp. on android when you use a hacked client like revanced (less so in the browser, but i use firefox and have seen incognito mode causing youtube to block you from viewing without logging in).
manveerc 1y ago
Wonder what’s the cause of decline in views. One plausible reaction I had was that views might be down because of people using AI search (ChatGPT, etc) which unlike Google don’t show videos prominently. But since likes haven’t gone down that doesn’t seem likely.
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  I wouldn't think google search is a significant source of views anyway. Last I saw, the top platform for youtube usage is TVs.
  - Simran-B 1y ago
    Did they drop support for the YouTube app on very old TVs or ban a bunch of those cheap Android TV boxes with a lot of spyware on them by any chance?
  - maltelandwehr 1y ago
    In August, Youtube received about 6 billion clicks from organic search. That is 20% of Youtube's total website traffic. I think that is significant. Source: Similarweb, world-wide
- eloisius 1y ago
  Anecdotal, but for a while it felt like YouTube had decent content on whatever I was looking for. I trusted product reviews on there ever so slightly more than text content because of the relatively higher cost of producing videos. Nowadays there’s a glut of low quality stuff. Anything from low-effort videos to outright text-to-speech, non-videos that snare you using a promising thumbnail. The search results only surface about 5-10 relevant videos followed by things that have specious relevance. On top of that, they jammed Shorts into prominent screen real estate. It screams “hey while I’ve got you here, about a few of these distractions!” So, I stopped going there as much. They stopped respecting visitor intentions. Just like every other platform, they just want to keep you on the site for as long as possible sifting through a feed of dopamine slop.
- Simran-B 1y ago
bitpush 1y ago
[flagged]
- e40 1y ago
  Another yter mailed out to his Patreons saying his views were down. Within the last week. Ze Frank.
- KingMob 1y ago
  Two articles is "astro-turfing" and "coordinated"? We're going to need some stronger evidence than that.
  - bitpush 1y ago
    The part that is confusing is Jeff himself posting this. There is only but one explanation - to increase the visibility of the issue. Jeff is known for his rPi experiments, so the question is why this seemingly random blog post. How did Jeff even get to know about this post? Unless the author sent it over to him? Soo many questions. Mostly because the author of this blog post isn't a YouTuber (AFAICT)
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - rlupi 1y ago
      > How did Jeff even get to know about this post? Unless the author sent it over to him? Google search alerts are a thing (https://www.google.com/alerts https://www.google.com/alerts). I'd expect a public figure, however niche their following is, would set them up to track the conversation about them.
      - bitpush 1y ago
        And once you see a post about you show up in Google Alerts, is the next step you do post that on HN?
- 1y ago
toast0 1y ago
> I think this space is ripe for disruption, but there are only a handful of companies who could make a go of it… and I think they’d lose a lot of money for a long time while they tried. If you have to lose a lot of money for a long time to compete, how is it ripe for disruption? YouTube works because it has eyeballs, content/creators, advertisers, a cdn, and has made enough piece with large copyright license holders that it's allowed to continue. Competing with YouTube is certainly possible, and there's a lot of fun technical work, but there's also a big challenge to attract the people you need to make the thing work. You probably already need to already have two out of four of users, content, advertisers, cdn. And you need to get licenseholders on board quick. And probably law enforcement as well. I'm not saying it is or isn't a monopoly, but it would be hard to compete with. I think monopoly would depend on the defined market... a broadly defined market might include netflix and even cable tv. A narrowly defined market would include durably published user uploads, which has a lot fewer entrants.
- tonyhart7 1y ago
  nah its too late honestly, if big tech didn't want or care to make competing platform how can you expect company that has less resource make an alternative ???? I still remember when microsoft throwing money to make mixer (twitch alternative) and yet it failed miserably tiktok is close as we can get honestly, but youtube also expand toward shorts
  - vitorgrs 1y ago
    Pretty sure Microsoft also tried to compete with Youtube once upon a time. Forgot the name...
    - recursivecaveat 1y ago
      Soapbox was their competitor way way back. More recently they had Mixer, though that was more of a Twitch like service. They spent a ton of money paying streamers to use it, but the network effects are just too strong.
jpalomaki 1y ago
I first thought it would be easy for content creators to start selling their content on other platforms as well. But the algorithms come to play. It is likely valuable that the hardcore fans are watching and liking the videos on YouTube, since that increases the probability of the algorithms to push the videos to new viewers as well.
brador 1y ago
Views are down reasons: AI bot catchers now live and new ip blocks on vpns and cloud servers.
- goku12 1y ago
  Likes and comments are steady, apparently. How do you reconcile the reduced views with that? Anyway, nearly one-third to one-half of my video suggestions are bot videos. Honestly quite distasteful. They should just ask the users to flag them, instead of employing even more bots who're ever so enthusiastic to kick out those who do not belong to their race.
  - 3RTB297 1y ago
    I didn't make the comment you're replying to, but views can exist independent of comments and likes, and bots can just as easily like and comment. Likes and comments by real humans can remain steady and bot views can vary dramatically. Likes and comments aren't metrics that produce revenue for creators.
  - brador 1y ago
    There’s also black hats bulk producing AI videos and pushing those with bot farms, which reduces slots available to non AI/farm creators. Survival of the clickbaitiest.
craftit 1y ago
My personal experience is that the increase in ads has encouraged me to subscribe to creators I like via Patreon and view content on there. If many people are doing this, I wonder if it skews the view statistics and, therefore, lowers the number of recommendations for the best channels. In turn, this makes it less likely for good channels to be discovered. The increase in YouTube ads also makes me much less interested in browsing there, and I am finding other things to do instead.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  You just don't make enough money from ads anyway, a lot of creators now see YT as more of top of funnel advertising leading you to a patreon or even more common livestream format where they make the real money from superchats.
MinimalAction 1y ago
YouTube is a marvelous platform. I know how to live life, thanks to the innumerable passionate souls that produced relevant content and put their voice out there. This library of videos never fails to amaze me on how many weird, fun, informative tidbits of humanity it contains. As much as it is a for-profit endeavor, I wholeheartedly support this well managed space.
- syncsynchalt 1y ago
  I watch my son grow up learning to DIY from youtube videos. I'm marveling at the wealth of instructional video he has easy access to, and I wish I had it too when I had my first home, learned to work on my first car, etc.
lapsis_beeftech 1y ago
I was a daily, active, and paying Youtube user until recently and am quitting entirely. I was still able to work around many of Google's dark patterns – like the aggressive bot and adblock measures – but it was a chore I do not care to continue, and the emotional distress caused by the extreme hostility and toxicity around everything Youtube is too high a price to pay for content. I support content creators on Patreon but unfortunately many of them still use Youtube for hosting and those videos are not accessible to me any longer.
netcan 1y ago
>I also think it would take some doing to get advertisers to jump on a new platform when YouTube has almost all the viewers. Volume isnt even your main issue here. YouTube ads are powered by adwords... that all advertisers already use. It comes with tracking and user-analytics built in. You can't compete with YouTube by replicating this business model. Even so.. direct YouTube ad revenue per view is low. Many successful tubers monetize with sponsors. That is replicable, if a (single) tuber has enough views. I think there can be markets for smaller, paid video sites... but that's not really a competitor to YouTube. It's more like competition for substack. The way YouTube is managed, including all the reasons for criticism, are why it is successful. Legible rules have loopholes. Keeping advertisers "on their toes" with mystery rules is a strategy. It makes sense to keep the platform as unoffensive as possible. Strict nudity rules, and other such "hard" rules. Demonetization gives yotube a chance to implement soft/illegible rules... many of them simply assumed or imagined. It also makes business sense to suppress politics a little. The chilling effect is intentional.. and understandable. Honestly, I think the more open alternative to YouTube is podcasting. Podcasting has terrible discovery, and video is underdeveloped but... it also has persistence that proves it is a good platform. Half of "the problem" with YouTube is Google running the platform and pursuing their own interests. These are somewhat restrictive, but they also make sense. The other half is intense competition for daily attention. That's what a low friction, highly accessible platform does. You can't have everything. Without all the restrictions and manipulations that YouTube do, the platforms would be 100% nudity, scandals and suchlike.
gethly 1y ago
People still think that Youtube of today is the Youtube of yesterday. But that is not the case ever since the first adpocalypse. Youtube began as a video hosting platform where creators got a huge cut from ads being shown on their video page. Today, the ads are injected into the videos and creators get only a tiny portion of the profits - if any. The views are gone as only (highly)monetised content is being promoted by the algorithm. Google simply prioritises making money for themselves instead of providing a service that merely breaks even. Youtube has done what most businesses do - they pay the initial opex costs and provide some kind of freemium, they get huge number of users, then they monetise the sh.. out of them. And it always ends the same - the platform dies as users leave. Youtube is not any different. It's just so big that this process takes much longer than usual. But do not be fooled, it is happening. Nowadays, people are slowly realising that there is no more free lunch and that you have to pay for the content(see how many streaming services there are compared to just a few years ago). This is why paywall services like Patreon are so popular(and why I have created my own as well as it is one of few viable online businesses left in the digital space). Content creators who are relying on anonymous views, that Youtube always provided and which is now slowly dying, will end up out of business and many in debt due to costs of the video gear they bought and oversaturated marked/competition. There is plethora of this "i'm broke" videos on YT itself exposing the harsh reality of digital content creation of today. On the other hand, smart content creators have realised that the way forward is to build smaller community of reliable fans and use paywalls/pay-per-view model, where they can charge tiny amount whilst getting 95% of it for themselves, which incentivises users to pay(ie. i am willing to pay 10 cents directly to my favourite content creator rather than 5$ to youtube). Some are stuck in the middle with injecting sponsored content into their own, but that will die out soon as well and likely YT will ban it straight up sooner or later. There will be some networks that host multiple creators, like we already have with unauthorized.tv, censored.tv and others. The YT alternatives like Odysee or Rumble will not survive as they are using the same outdated business model as Youtube does but they lack the backing of Google(not just money but infrastructure). It will take time but people will eventually flock to specific content creators instead of relying on algorithms to recommended them content they might be interested in - as this has been completely broken for a decade now and caused huge amount of great content creators to just quit for good. A huge loss to humanity as a whole. This will be the next generation of content creators whom will understand that the game has changed.
cung 1y ago
I’m a paying customer, but my biggest issue is that the content and suggestions themselves are still ads. I feel like I am paying to remove ads from within my ads. The videos I am being recommended are still about how natural McDonalds food is, how this natural supplement from XYZ is disrupting healthcare and how this coffee machine will revolutionize the way I make coffee. If the recommendation algorithm would be a bit less corporate, I’d be a happy customer. That, plus Apple Watch standalone Youtube Music app.
apricot13 1y ago
fwiw I (a YouTube premium subscriber) recently enabled restricted mode myself due to the app showing me completely unrelated and 'scary' videos in searches. After some searching I found a few threads where others had encountered this and restricted mode was the only thing that seemed to stop these videos and honestly they're jarring and unwanted enough for me to warrant enabling restricted mode and all the features it disables - YouTube please please stop these unrelated 'jump scare' videos! as an example I'm scrolling through videos on how to fix a leaky tap at 10pm I'll come across a thumbnail 5 videos down with a ghostly face or trypophobia type thumbnail then another 5-10 videos down. in no way are they highlighted as sponsored and I find it hard to believe that Google with it's search skills and other far more relevant videos in the results can be returning these videos as results!
GavinAnderegg 1y ago
Author here. I woke up to a surprising amount of traffic! Some notes based on the discussion. This wasn't coordinated between Jeff Geerling and myself. However, I did mention the post in the Bluesky thread that Jeff was included in. [0] I concluded the piece with “[t]his space is ripe for disruption”. That was a really poor choice of words. I've since updated the piece to better match what I was trying to say. Diffs are available. [1] On YouTube: as I mention in the piece, I think the service is excellent as a consumer, and I pay for Premium. This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. I wasn't going to write anything until I saw the video from RedLetterMedia that I mentioned in the post. They have a huge following and were blaming something that might be related? Or might not? It's really hard to tell! I'm not a YouTube creator, but I assume having metrics that determine your livelihood shift out from under you as a creator must feel awful. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22h https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22... [1] https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/compare/9c02041e6bdfd7b4ebb93f813a7f2260ec26fa13..master https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/com...
- slumberlust 1y ago
  Linus Tech Tips has also noticed some really odd view to like ratio stuff happening recently as well. They discuss it in last weeks WAN show. Something is going on.
  - shirro 1y ago
    They said an LTT store message directed them to the Brodie Robertson video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s so they did their own investigation which confirmed similar things. It looks like Youtube might be measuring views differently and perhaps getting rid of unmonetizable views which doesn't impact the number of likes or revenue. I think the annoyance is over the lack of transparency and the power Youtube holds over content creators rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc.
    - 1y ago
whatevaa 1y ago
Good luck competing with youtube. They are something called natural monopoly. Even if you get the technicals right, networks effects will kick in. You would need to bring in something revoliutonary to get people to move. Or youtube to fuck up something really badly. And getting the technicals right won't be easy. Video delivery is not text. Will need dedicated datacenters if you ever get popular and want to keep prices under control. It's expensive.
- bl4kers 1y ago
  Grayjay can neutralize the network effect
- djrj477dhsnv 1y ago
  TikTok and Instagram seem to be doing just fine..
daft_pink 1y ago
is it possible that restriced mode is more aggressive for users not logged in? I feel instead of trying to force google to sell chrome, they should have forced them to spinoff YouTube and other non-search monopolies google has that are insanely profitable.
- bitpush 1y ago
  > they should have forced them to spinoff YouTube and other non-search monopolies google has that are insanely profitable. I dont think I follow the logic. Having a successful business is not grounds for "forcing" to spin out. Airpods are extremely successful, and does that mean it needs to be a separate company? MacBooks are extremely profitable, so should they be a different company? Azure is widely popular, should they be too?
  - daft_pink 1y ago
    Breaking up a monopoly must follow sustainable business lines. The court’s early idea of forcing Google to spin off Chrome risked crippling the product and disrupting the market without restoring competition. The remedy was later scaled back, leaving Google with little more than a slap on the wrist. By contrast, the AT&T and Microsoft cases succeeded because they targeted natural, profitable divisions that could stand alone. Addressing areas like Azure or MacBooks, which are not monopolies, does nothing to reduce monopoly power. A more effective remedy in Google’s case would have been dividing its multiple monopolies, rather than divesting loss-leading but essential units. Profitability alone does not define a monopoly, but once one is identified, ensuring that each division can operate as a viable business is crucial.
justapassenger 1y ago
[dead]
deepsun 1y ago
I'm worried that if one day YouTube dies, all that content will go down as well. At least you can store full Wikipedia archive. And don't tell me it will never happen, I'm old enough to have heard that a few times already.
- OgsyedIE 1y ago
  The steady state idea that most people have about civilization is just not applicable once there is oil-dependent information technology. Either we go up and eliminate the oil dependence but acceleration eats YouTube in a transformative way, or we go up and eliminate the oil dependence but societal fission eats YouTube in a catabolic way.
- abstractbeliefs 1y ago
  ArchiveTeam is working on backing up selected channels/videos to the Internet Archive, where they can also be watched via their Wayback Machine. You can help them decide what is culturally or historically important enough to save. ArchiveTeam generally is an interesting project I highly recommend people read about. Their YouTube project can be seen here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/YouTube https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/YouTube And you can learn how to get involved (by running a virtual machine appliance) here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior
  - hsuduebc2 1y ago
    I would be kinda worried that one day youtube just send them a take down notice because it violates something in their eula.
  - OhMeadhbh 1y ago
    and you can use yt-dlp to download bits you want to save yourself.
    - zelphirkalt 1y ago
      Don't you need to have an account for that? Already a barrier I am not willing to take.
mococa 1y ago
My bet is that some of these channels actually do real and honest reviews. So what’s the point of companies spending millions on YouTube ads if those same channels they criticized get more views—precisely because they’re better and more honest? I feel like this is a kind of selective nerf.
egypturnash 1y ago
I don't think this monopoly is really mysterious. Storage costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Someone needs to pay for it and the only way to cover those costs at any meaningful fraction of Youtube's scale is to have a money printing machine like Google's ads.
- margalabargala 1y ago
  If the quantities of money paid to all the YouTube freelance advertisers is anything to go on, a video platform having their own ad network would itself be highly profitable.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    That's a big assumption. It's very possible that it's only that profitable at Youtube-sized scale.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      you don't need youtube scale - but you need to be a lot bigger than most others are. You need to be big enough that ads pay for a full time ad salesperson as well as your other overhead.
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      There's definitely some very large critical mass necessary for the network effects to kick in. Is that mass such that there can only be one? Or could there be three or four, like other social media? Arguably Instagram is as large a video platform, though obviously very different. Same with tiktok; the individual videos might be shorter but the bandwidth costs scale with watch time.
  - bitpush 1y ago
    > If the quantities of money paid to all the YouTube freelance advertisers is anything to go on, a video platform having their own ad network would itself be highly profitable. Then why isnt everyone jumping at the opportunity to make a competitor? If it is soooo easy, we should have competitors. Nobody is stopping you from launching margalabargalatube.com and win the market. Nobody, including Jeff Geerling, has an exclusive deal with YouTube to distribute the videos. Make it happen!
dmix 1y ago
> Today I saw a video by the RedLetterMedia folks on this topic. If you’re not familiar with their work, be warned that the video is vulgar and juvenile (sorry, I love their stuff). Huh? RLM is about as inoffensive as it gets
- geerlingguy 1y ago
  Heh, maybe haven't watched some of their deeper cuts; back in the day they were a lot more edgy especially with series like Plinkett Reviews. They've toned it down a bit, but they're definitely not a 'family friendly' channel in some of the content they release (not in a bad way, just... I wouldn't put on a random RLM video at a grade school function!).
  - dmix 1y ago
    I’ve watched nearly every video but I may have a different tolerance having grown up with South Park.
game_the0ry 1y ago
Is it really a monopoly if alternatives like rumble and vimeo exist?
- p1necone 1y ago
  It's a hard question to answer for products that rely on user created content like this. Rumble and vimeo provide basically the same service, but if you got fed up with YouTube and wanted to take your money (eyeballs) elsewhere, you can't, because rumble and vimeo don't have the same content at all. And if you were a creator you can't take your content elsewhere because there's no viewers.
  - game_the0ry 1y ago
    My follow up question would be - was the content ever that good or did you need the help from the platform? Solid content has solid fans. Solid fans follow the content creator, not the platform.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  I prefer Vimeo, as a content publisher, but I don’t monetize, nor have I posted many vids. I’ve simply used the “pro” option, which I have recently let lapse. I just feel that Vimeo’s video quality is better, and it gives more direct control of the content. But I do so little video work, that it hasn’t been worth it to maintain the subscription.
  - whywhywhywhy 1y ago
    Have you looked at Vimeo lately? It's hard to tell it even serves videos anymore, the platform part is completely hidden unless you get a direct link.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      No, but that doesn’t matter to me, because I only ever used it as a CDN for my videos, anyway.
AraceliHarker 1y ago
Even without directly visiting the YouTube site, it's impossible to avoid contact with YouTube because its videos are embedded everywhere. In that sense, YouTube's influence is extremely large. I feel that the FTC might have been better off trying to separate YouTube from Google rather than Chrome. The blog mentioned that the forced activation of Restricted Mode could have reduced video views, and while it's true that Restricted Mode blocks live streams, which could affect those who focus on live content, it basically doesn't block soft porn, violent videos, or political content. So, I don't think it's relevant.
- bitpush 1y ago
  > I feel that the FTC might have been better off trying to separate YouTube from Google rather than Chrome. On what joy? The biggest mistake that DoJ did was asking to court to divest Android & Chrome. Judge took grave offense at that (read the court's opinion) and there's a school of thought that said it distracted from the whole thing. Once you start being imprecise, all your arguments fall apart.
- mercutio2 1y ago
  I am so fascinated by the different worlds everyone lives in. I haven’t watched a video hosted on YouTube in years. But I hate amateur video. I never watch anything that I can possibly get through reading. So in my tiny corner of user space, it’s really as if YouTube doesn’t exist except as an annoying thing Google puts at the top of searches I have to scroll past, reminding me to configure this device to use a different search engine.
  - clan 1y ago
    It is a choice. But as you are probably aware; not one many makes. While I do prefer to read as well I do like some of the better videos. Sometimes the information density is not as high as I would like - there are reasonable efforts. Sure, there is amateur content. But there is a surprising amount of original researched content with a high production value. A recent example with a scientific approach to cooking with some fun high quality references to Breaking Bad: https://youtu.be/NnzADfbBBFo https://youtu.be/NnzADfbBBFo Yes - they want to (discretely) sell thermometers as well. Not all is good. But very far from amateur.
Razengan 1y ago
YouTube's vast hoard of videos is a crucial piece of human history. If nothing else, it should be preserved via government mandate or something. Ever seen a colorized video from 1900? It's like a time machine. Imagine looking at today's videos, 100-200 years from now..
nemothekid 1y ago
I doubt there will ever be an alternative to YouTube. "Disrupting" YouTube is difficult because the social conditions that created YouTube do not exist anymore. Before you get into cdns, bandwidth, advertisers, and social features, you need to have content - and a steady flow of content. What was unique about YouTube is YouTube did not have to pay for content. People made acceptable quality content and uploaded it to YouTube for free. Any new competitor eventually runs into the fact that * Your largest users eventually stop posting if you don't pay them (because they can go elsewhere after using your platform as a springboard: see Vine) * In order to actually pay creators you need to have the capital, legal, and advertising side completely figured out. So on top of building a giant cdn, you need gobs of money to pay people to stay on your platform, and another gob of money because you will be sued to death (especially because once you start paying people, people will cheat, and pirate content). All this means is YouTube has an incredible moat. If YouTube dies, I doubt there will ever be a replacement.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- shadowtree 1y ago
  Youtube relies on human creators. Youtube will be disrupted by AI created, better content. Who builds AITube? AITok?
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Why the AI-wielding creators would choose to use a new, different service, and not an existing service with a colossal audience?
    - Rohansi 1y ago
      In a theoretical future The Algorithm would include content generation so that the platform can generate content for you instead of just suggesting it. Could apply to TikTok, Spotify, etc. if the generated content is good enough.
  - 1y ago
Workaccount2 1y ago
The answer is paying/watching ads. Nobody wants to hear ad-blocking has negative effects. But it does, and it's effectively killed off any YouTube competitor. All a VC has to do is read a comment section on the topic of yt to say "nope" to funding a competitor.
Sophistifunk 1y ago
The idea that what's needed is for these alternative platforms to switch to "free with ads" is amazingly short sighted and disheartening. Everything bad YouTube does is driven by this business model. Switching to it might make a few people rich at the top of these alternative platforms, but it won't make anything better for any user or creator.
NoPicklez 1y ago
> I also think that YouTube is a monopoly. This sentence is just oddly thrown in there and is made the title of the article. Yes they're a monopoly, but so what? As you say they're the best bang for buck subscription service on the market. The problem is that they are unable to see why their viewership has dropped, that's it. I'm sure Youtube might provide context as to why at some point.
fabioyy 1y ago
since google is tier 1 network. does anyone knows if they pay for bandwidth for serving youtube?
- bauruine 1y ago
  They aren't a tier 1 but they also aren't paying for most of their bandwdith. They peered very liberally in the past so have zero settlement peering to most networks and if you're a big enough eyeball network you can request a caching server from them where you pay for rack space, power and network and google just pays for the server hardware. [0] [0]: https://support.google.com/interconnect/answer/9058809 https://support.google.com/interconnect/answer/9058809
comonoid 1y ago
Russia tries to push its population to "alternatives" like Rutube(sic!) and VK Video by interfering into network connectivity (they call it "slowing down", they just drop fraction of packets that goes from YouTube servers), but it seems the success is quite limited.
- eimrine 1y ago
  Have you heard an anecdote about the cat and the mustard?
Hobadee 1y ago
There is a catch-22 that helps YouTube keep it's monopoly. Nobody will jump to another platform until all their favorite creators/majority of media is there, but no other platform is able to attract a significant portion of creators/media until they have a large base. Systems that enable multi-platform natively are the answer to change the calculus on this problem. End-user clients such as Grayjay that enable users to view videos from multiple platforms at once can give much-needed views to creators on alternate platforms. A similar solution for creators (not sure if one exists or not) would lower the barrier to upload to all platforms at once.
- designerarvid 1y ago
  That phenomenon is called network effects, if you’d like to read more about it.
- immibis 1y ago
  The solution that will actually work, then, is to build a platform that has the YouTube content. Don't try to convince creators to sign up for your new multiplatform thing - just rip it directly from YouTube. Now you're thinking like a VC-backed startup. Yes, it's illegal, so make sure to scale rapidly and become rich before they have time to sue you. Facebook did this to Myspace. Doordash did this to restaurant phone orders.
- eimrine 1y ago
  Have you heard about Russia? Why bother of doing multi-platform if they can just prohibit anything Western and build their own digital platform for everything.
asjir 1y ago
The author makes an argument that at least looks like people choose YT over Nebula because YT is free. I, for example, already pay for Nebula, so I can watch it for free, but I still go to YT. IMO it might be just a product problem. I opened nebula and: * The same video had a better title on YT that was actually less clickbaity and more informative - assumedly because of YT algorithm for optimization * Nebula auto set quality to 480p compared to 1080p in YT - if I wasn't tech-savvy I'd assume it's just worse quality. * The loading times when you seek to part that's not loaded yet are 10x longer * I missed comments The recommendation algorithm is weaker too, I can't tell to what extent this is due to YouTube having simply more data and to what extent it's weaker engineering.
- Almondsetat 1y ago
  This seems like a very strange perspective. Nebula is for specifically following content creators you really like and enjoy their videos earlier and at a better quality (plus some exclusive content). Why would you particularly care about the title is that's a videomaker you follow anyway? Why would you care about seeking times? Are you jumping constantly in an ad-free and sponsor-free video you specifically subscribed for? Why miss the comments? Is it a video sharing platform or social media?
  - dale_glass 1y ago
    > Why miss the comments? Is it a video sharing platform or social media? Because Nebula has a lot of complex content. Things like history, science, making stuff. And those things have a lot of room for things like the maker messing something up, or struggling with something, or not explaining something properly. On Youtube if somebody makes an obvious mistake, or is obviously incompetent to an expert, somebody will point it out. If a hobbyist doesn't quite have the skills to do a thing sometimes an expert will show up and help them. If an educative video doesn't include crucial details, somebody will ask. Like look at say, Inheritance Machining or Alec Steele on Youtube, who take on challenging projects they struggle with and often get advice from expert viewers. It's weird not to have this on Nebula. On one hand it seems to sell itself as "smart content", on the other hand it's a return to the old TV model of "shut up and consume".
ChrisNorstrom 1y ago
Hot Take: Youtube is terrible. It's a time sink that's filled with billions of videos that take 15-20 minutes to talk about a topic that's worth only 1-3 minutes of your time. Text is skimmable and easily absorbable, Video is not.
- Agraillo 1y ago
  > ... a topic that's worth only 1-3 minutes of your time It's even worse sometimes, googling some "how to" queries returns links to yt-videos. Even if the video is 5 minutes, it's a waste of time, because I'm usually in the middle of an ongoing process when dozens variants are evaluated and an average dedicated time for a single one is much shorter. Transcripts sometimes help. But not the native (no diarization as long as I remember). An example, Lex Fridman podcast is a good source of anecdata from famous science/tech/non-tech people and provides good transcripts on the site (but only starting some point in the past). For transcripts before this point v1.transcript.lol covered many, but amongst other glitches no names for diarization (Speaker 1/ Speaker 2).
- RankingMember 1y ago
  Out of the box, I agree. I've got my feed well-curated at this point such that I get very little of that type of garbage pushed my way. I recently viewed the YouTube main page in an incognito window and, good lord, the default experience is an absolute cesspool of AI-generated nonsense, ragebait, and straight-up spam.
- Insanity 1y ago
  I'm not sure it's a hot take. I don't learn as easily from video as I do from text, but I seem to have curated my video recommendations to videos that I do like to watch as 'infotainment'. e.g, Veritasium is a channel I quite like for their longer 'mini-documentary' like videos. And then there are just entertainment channels like Linus Tech Tips. Not _everything_ has to be micro-optimized in my life, so I don't mind occasionally just sitting in the sofa watching a video that could have been a 3 minute blog :)
flanked-evergl 1y ago
YouTube has a superior offering to competitors, just like Spotfify has a superior offering to YT music. I pay for both Spotify and YouTube, but I don't listen to music on YT music because Spotify is just a vastly superior solution for delivering the music.
Frieren 1y ago
People cannot deal with today's complexity. I have seen the argument: all my games in Steam, all my movies in Netflix, all my videos on YouTube, etc. To have to pick and choose between different apps makes everything more complex, and it is too much for the average user that has other things to worry about. All this is really bad for capitalism, as it creates monopolies that no competition can fight against. It concentrates power and eliminates competition. E-mail is still alive because it is the one place that one can get registration messages, invoices, goverment communications, etc. It is based on a standard so I can use my own provider but interact with all the rest of the world without caring what do they use. This is the future of the web. For example, I should be able to download any movie app an see all the movies from Sony Pictures and Disney, and Ghibli, and all of them. Once purchased, I should be able to see all of them in the same app. The standard offers interfaces so I can choose one provider that connects to the world. Prices are the same on all apps, but they can differentiate themselves thru localization, recommendations, etc. This is feasible but it requires strong regulatory intervention as current monopolies are the best option to maximize profit and eliminate competition. Ads are also perfectly fine to finance on-line videos. It is the tracking and invasive privacy practices what is dystopian and horrifying. Most of the revenue of YouTubers comes anyway by paying users (Patreon, etc.) or external traditional ads (NordVPN, SkillShare, etc.) that still ask for metrics for the channel but are not individually targeted. Standards over platforms is the only possible future, but it will require to topple down the current status quo and that is what is difficult to do.
- edg5000 1y ago
  This. Email and text is one of those things were you are not stuck to a single provider. Anything closed and proprietary is a problem. I'd say this is also the case for banking. Banks often require Google Play or iOS, severely constraining the user. Governments somehow need to put a stop to this, especially in the EU where we are becoming a US colony due to all our IT being in the hands of US companies. We need to take back control!
logsr 1y ago
YouTube was built on piracy and then Google bought YouTube and got immunity from copyright infringement claims by selling its user data to LE/IC in exchange for legal immunity. YouTube is still powered by piracy world wide. They only enforce copyright controls in western markets where the potential consumer is expected to have the income to afford streaming services. This is on par for the entire Google empire, which is all built on piracy, whether it is putting their ads on other people's content, redistributing other peoples's content without licenses, or building AI built on unlicensed content. And the whole thing works because they give their users personal data to intel and law enforcement in exchange for back door immunity deals.
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  I remember that before I knew a lot f people that used to watch movies on YouTube
fedeb95 1y ago
Monopolies naturally come from doing a thing the best possible way. YouTube does it. I personally use it very rarely and wouldn't care about its disappearance, but I don't know of other services serving its users needs better. So: YouTube will cease to be a monopoly if 1) user needs change 2) it stops being the best at serving videos. Until then, it's not mysterious.
baxuz 1y ago
YouTube needs to be broken up and have the video hosting separate from the viewing platform itself.
carlosjobim 1y ago
> I also think that YouTube is a monopoly. There are some alternatives — I also pay for Nebula, for example — but they’re tiny in comparison. YouTube is effectively the place to watch video on the internet. I've heard about an online video website called Netflix. Don't know if anybody is using it though.
- boriskourt 1y ago
  Let me find some Blender and Unreal Engine tutorials on this Netflix site, thanks for directing me to this indieweb marvel! :) (maybe a tear-down of my washer is there too!)
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    "McDonalds is a monopoly in fast food" "But there's more Subway restaurants than McDonalds restaurants" "I can't get a burger at Subway, therefore McDonalds is a monopoly."
giancarlostoro 1y ago
Sometime in 2009 or 2008 I realized we were screwed and wanted to support alternatives and stop using it same with Chrome. Something told me Google was going to swallow the internet. Sadly I still wish we would have propped up serious competitors. Where does one go when YouTube or any part of Google bans you? I have a friend or two who get banned any time he makes a Google account. Years of his personal data completely forfeited. I have been moving off Google for a while, and will continue doing so.
kelvinjps10 1y ago
I wonder if dynamic ads are even necessary. Meaning that it seems like the most creators more money from sponsors, meaning that companies directly sponsor creators. It could work similar to podcasts people post podcasts and they are available in RSS, and multiple podcasts platforms, for the videos they could be available in something like pee tube or similar to podcasts where there is multiple players created. And for creators they get directly contracted by companies, as this might present problems there could be a company that acts as the mediator between sponsors and creators
Havoc 1y ago
From what I can tell latest consensus is that views haven't actually dropped, just how yt discloses them. i.e. What constitutes a "view" in the stats appears to have changed. The other engagement metrics (likes etc) seem to have not moved suggesting nothing has changed in real world. LTT went into it in a fair bit of detail
Joel_Mckay 1y ago
YouTube is it's own CDN, taking up real-estate in almost every ISP NOC. Even if a firm has a cool new gimmick to get through a successful launch, the incremental cost of hosting "free content" will pose a liability due to higher operational margins. YT are not a true monopoly, but rather "free" content from a spam heavy competitor is a foolish business plan. =3
mrkramer 1y ago
YouTube's biggest strength is its scale; there is no web service out there that let's you upload literally unlimited amount of data for free.
cheerioty 1y ago
Love YouTube, but between the price hikes and being fed nothing but shorts and doom-scroll bait, they’re pushing me to the edge. For the former, it feels like every streaming service (audio or video) is starting pave the way for a new golden age of piracy and personal content collections.
jajuuka 1y ago
Way too much discussion of Youtube is mired in monetization. Not platform sustainability, but how much wealth content creators can extract from it. It's a bit perverse and views the audience as a source to sqeeze revenue from. It's like making open source software or wikipedia only about how much creators can make.
wizardforhire 1y ago
This is gonna be unpopular with the most of the commenters so far… Regardless I don’t think youtube is a monopoly. A monopoly caries with it strict anti-competitive practices along with meddling in government affairs and great public harm. Just because something has market dominance does not make it a monopoly. Facebook is a monopoly. Complete dominance of the entire social graph, aggressively buying competitors to silence them… direct government meddling not just in the us but abroad creating untold deaths and suffering in the process… to the point they rebrand themselves to skirt responsibility… thats a monopoly. Live nation buying up entire cities worth of venues, artist managers, booking agents, artists themselves, ticketing, promotion companies, subsequently entire production staff, blacklisting anyone they dont like, meddling with politics, obfuscating their activities through subsidiaries, destroying entire communities and cultures in the process… thats a monopoly Youtube could be a monopoly but I dont see them squashing their most successful creators from creating their own streaming services, I dont see them directly meddling with politics on a large scale (granted there was that time the algorithm would tend towards promoting fascism, but rather than keep that going or doubling down I see the opposite which implies active intent to the contrary), I dont see them aggressively purchasing competitors… I see them as ridiculously huge and I find their censorship annoying that if government was working I would think should be examined from a public responsibility stance but I dont see them engaged in monopolistic practices… in fact I see them actively avoiding most activities that would make them a monopoly that is of course other than being really really huge.
- shayway 1y ago
  > Just because something has market dominance does not make it a monopoly. Isn't that the definition of a monopoly though? Just because something is a monopoly, that doesn't mean it necessarily has anti-competitive practices or meddles in government. (though that usually follows) For what it's worth I agree that YouTube isn't abusing their market position, but it's important the semantics are clear.
  - wizardforhire 1y ago
    I guess so, but thats the problem with language that isnt specific enough. What I feel people are discussing and what I was referring too was more properly called an illegal monopoly… technically having market domination is also a monopoly, but thats not a crime. The Hypothetical Monopolist Test is a primary method used to define relevant markets in antitrust cases. It assesses whether a hypothetical monopolist could profitably impose a small but significant and non-transitory increase in price (SSNIP). Steps in the Test Market Definition: Identify the relevant product and geographic market. Price Increase Assessment: Determine if a hypothetical monopolist could raise prices without losing too many customers. Iterative Process: If the price increase is profitable, the market is correctly defined. If not, the market definition is expanded to include substitutes. To establish a monopolization claim, two main elements must be proven: Possession of Monopoly Power: The firm must have significant and durable market power. Willful Acquisition or Maintenance: The firm must have obtained or maintained this power through improper means, rather than through competition on the merits.
gitprolinux 1y ago
I try and compete with https://UltraHotTV.com https://UltraHotTV.com but it's not youtube in name.
jorgejr 1y ago
I get that YouTube creators are worried about the drop in views, but honestly, this isn’t much different from what happens in every other industry. For the rest of us, markets change, laws change, inflation hits, taxes go up, new tariffs appear… and we all have to adapt. The market is never static, and everyone else works under constantly shifting conditions. So instead of complaining, maybe it’s time to adjust, just like the rest of us do.
The_President 1y ago
Nothing special about YouTube other than the interface being about as offensive as possible. Rumble is light-years better in terms of speed and has an instant CSS based dark theme unlike the monolyth. I'm concerned many users that continue to use any sort of modified version of YouTube are going to eventually have their Google account sniffed out and banned. Many creators have shifted over to publishing to multiple platforms at once so that platforms like Rumble and Odysee don't seem as siloed with certain types of content. Rumble is sharp and stays out of the way, and that matters, as unlike the YouTube experience on iOS, you can still get a video to play audio only in background; it makes YouTube feel like an ad machine cesspool.
- guywithahat 1y ago
  I also like Rumble, but the recommendation algorithm isn’t as good and there are just fewer content creators on the platform
Funes- 1y ago
Every monopoly is predicated upon abusive, anti-competitive and unlawful practices, as well as exemptions and unearned subsidies from governments. Always. Many people aligning with megacorporations wouldn't support "capitalism" if the playing field was even.
leemelone 1y ago
Youtube is garbage now. Never use it.
dismalaf 1y ago
No one will disrupt YouTube unless they offer better compensation to creators. YouTube is probably the single best place to monetize content online right now, nowhere else comes close; not TikTok, Instagram, even Twitch...
xnx 1y ago
YouTube is great, but most content is unwatchable at 1.0x speed. Without the Video Speed Controller extension (still better than the built-in speed controls), I doubt I'd watch at all.
Bratmon 1y ago
As someone under the age of 30, it took me a while to realize that this wasn't a parody post. Making a post with this title without mentioning TikTok or Instagram is like making a post titled "Pepsi is a mysterious monopoly" without once mentioning Coke.

370 points by geerlingguy 1y ago

Sorry to be cranky, but it's a bit annoying when people call market leaders "monopolies". Words are best when they have meaning!

LastTrain 1y ago
Isn’t a monopoly just a market leader that leverages its dominant position in anti-competitive ways? The article does make a (weak, IMO) argument that YouTube is using its position to screw creators out of revenue by gaming metrics.
- mercutio2 1y ago
  Monopolies are not illegal or ipso facto anti-competitive.
Dylan16807 1y ago
What's your definition of monopoly? They're something like 75% of video hosting, and if you exclude vimeo for being paid-only then it's over 90%. That sounds like a monopoly to me.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  My point is that I don't have my own definition of words! We should all use the common definition of words. That makes communication possible! dictionary.com gives this definition: "exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices." That's... not what I expected. To me having a monopoly means being the only provider, but I'll bend the knee to the dictionary. In this case though, with competitors at 10% or 25% market share, you can easily publish videos at a cheaper vendor.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    When the entire pool of competitors is only 10%, it's not so easy. You can put a video up but nobody will see it. The network effect of viewers is one of the big reasons to want multiple major sites.
eimrine 1y ago
Do you agree that Google is a monopoly? Calling Google just a market leader is the situation when the words became too blurred to carry some meaning.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  Google is active in dozens of markets. It may be a monopolist in some of them. But you can't say it's a monopoly across the board.
  - eimrine 1y ago
    If Google is really a monopolist on some markets, any other market from the dozen is needed to support the Google's monopoly. Kind of Apple's Facetime when decreasing number of clients for a tiny messenger makes a big support for rest of the Apple.
    - BurningFrog 1y ago
      I honestly don't understand the point you're trying to make.
jamesnorden 1y ago
Microsoft was never a monopoly in the personal computer market by this logic.

jahooligan 1y ago

YouTube is broken plain to see and simple from my pov since 2019 at least as is ggl search. It is awful. Hijack data-centers with Gorillas. re-claim the community ...

Insanity 1y ago
Have no idea what your last sentence means.. But that said - if you're claiming that YT search is broken I wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand how search on YT can be so bad given that it's owned by a search engine company. Then again, their search engine is also subpar nowadays.. :)

troupo 1y ago

I keep seeing people say this: "I pay for YouTube Premium. For my money, it’s the best bang-for-the-buck subscription service on the market" and I don't understand. For me, Premium's only value proposition is removing ads. Recommendations are still the same (quite shitty). Search is unusable (4 relevant results then unrelated recommendations). Shorts are pushed aggressively no matter how many times you hide them. Search in history will often not find even something you just watched a few days ago. It's the same Youtube.

SchemaLoad 1y ago
You also get youtube music, instant skipping over sponsor sections, and the ability to play videos in the background
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  There’s an excellent free ios app called “Unwatched” which lets you make playlists, set defaults per channel such playback speed, and lets you play videos in the background. I use it for “podcasts” which are video only. And you don’t have to log in.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  Aside from Music, these are all negative features that are valuable only because YouTube is so obnoxious. I'm in vehement agreement with parent to be honest. "We'll stop spitting in your soup if you pay us extra" isn't a nice value proposition.
  - SchemaLoad 1y ago
    It's not a particularly crazy idea that free users get a lesser experience. I'm perfectly happy to pay for youtube since it provides by far the best content and the price is reasonable. The fact that people can get all of that for free with some minor limitations is fairly generous.
    - makeitdouble 1y ago

simianwords 1y ago

“This space is ripe for disruption”. On the contrary I feel like YouTube is extremely well managed. For an application that is this ubiquitous and this well known, it seems to work pretty well. I can’t remember the last time it was in news for something bad. Sometimes the answer really is: it is well managed product.

qweiopqweiop 1y ago
For some definition of well, that includes forcing shorts on everyone and getting most of the youth addicted to your product.
guardian5x 1y ago
I agree that it is a mostly well managed product, but I can think of a lot of things when it was in the news for something bad. Most controversial is probably the increase in the amount of Ads, unskippable ads, then there was multiple problems with Youtube kids, e.g. how bad people get really bad videos there. There was an outcry when the dislike button was removed, and so on..
beeflet 1y ago
I don't know it's constantly kicking youtubers I subscribe to off the site, and removing videos. It would be nice if it were more censorship resistant
- simianwords 1y ago
  It’s an extremely hard problem to solve unfortunately. The political tides keep shifting. One day it’s unthinkable to non censor a gender critical video. Another day it is okay. The YouTube management has to be adaptive enough to work in the small window that society allows at that time.
  - infamia 1y ago
    It isn't society they're kicking people off of YouTube for, it's whatever their advertisers do or don't want at any given moment. The advertising companies are their customers, and everyone else is just grist for the mill.

benob 1y ago

> YouTube views seem to have fallen off a cliff recently So they started discounting AI data collection bots?

SchemaLoad 1y ago
Youtube pretty aggressively blocks automated usage now. If you connect via a VPN it won't show any videos until you log in. Considering that ad income and real engagement seems unchanged, it possibly is just that they started blocking bots better. Something you wouldn't strictly expect a public announcement over.
- chii 1y ago
  I also find that they block incognito mode a lot too - esp. on android when you use a hacked client like revanced (less so in the browser, but i use firefox and have seen incognito mode causing youtube to block you from viewing without logging in).

manveerc 1y ago

Wonder what’s the cause of decline in views. One plausible reaction I had was that views might be down because of people using AI search (ChatGPT, etc) which unlike Google don’t show videos prominently. But since likes haven’t gone down that doesn’t seem likely.

SchemaLoad 1y ago
I wouldn't think google search is a significant source of views anyway. Last I saw, the top platform for youtube usage is TVs.
- Simran-B 1y ago
  Did they drop support for the YouTube app on very old TVs or ban a bunch of those cheap Android TV boxes with a lot of spyware on them by any chance?
- maltelandwehr 1y ago
  In August, Youtube received about 6 billion clicks from organic search. That is 20% of Youtube's total website traffic. I think that is significant. Source: Similarweb, world-wide
eloisius 1y ago
Anecdotal, but for a while it felt like YouTube had decent content on whatever I was looking for. I trusted product reviews on there ever so slightly more than text content because of the relatively higher cost of producing videos. Nowadays there’s a glut of low quality stuff. Anything from low-effort videos to outright text-to-speech, non-videos that snare you using a promising thumbnail. The search results only surface about 5-10 relevant videos followed by things that have specious relevance. On top of that, they jammed Shorts into prominent screen real estate. It screams “hey while I’ve got you here, about a few of these distractions!” So, I stopped going there as much. They stopped respecting visitor intentions. Just like every other platform, they just want to keep you on the site for as long as possible sifting through a feed of dopamine slop.
Simran-B 1y ago

bitpush 1y ago

[flagged]

e40 1y ago
Another yter mailed out to his Patreons saying his views were down. Within the last week. Ze Frank.
KingMob 1y ago
Two articles is "astro-turfing" and "coordinated"? We're going to need some stronger evidence than that.
- bitpush 1y ago
  The part that is confusing is Jeff himself posting this. There is only but one explanation - to increase the visibility of the issue. Jeff is known for his rPi experiments, so the question is why this seemingly random blog post. How did Jeff even get to know about this post? Unless the author sent it over to him? Soo many questions. Mostly because the author of this blog post isn't a YouTuber (AFAICT)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - rlupi 1y ago
    > How did Jeff even get to know about this post? Unless the author sent it over to him? Google search alerts are a thing (https://www.google.com/alerts https://www.google.com/alerts). I'd expect a public figure, however niche their following is, would set them up to track the conversation about them.
    - bitpush 1y ago
      And once you see a post about you show up in Google Alerts, is the next step you do post that on HN?
1y ago

toast0 1y ago

> I think this space is ripe for disruption, but there are only a handful of companies who could make a go of it… and I think they’d lose a lot of money for a long time while they tried. If you have to lose a lot of money for a long time to compete, how is it ripe for disruption? YouTube works because it has eyeballs, content/creators, advertisers, a cdn, and has made enough piece with large copyright license holders that it's allowed to continue. Competing with YouTube is certainly possible, and there's a lot of fun technical work, but there's also a big challenge to attract the people you need to make the thing work. You probably already need to already have two out of four of users, content, advertisers, cdn. And you need to get licenseholders on board quick. And probably law enforcement as well. I'm not saying it is or isn't a monopoly, but it would be hard to compete with. I think monopoly would depend on the defined market... a broadly defined market might include netflix and even cable tv. A narrowly defined market would include durably published user uploads, which has a lot fewer entrants.

tonyhart7 1y ago
nah its too late honestly, if big tech didn't want or care to make competing platform how can you expect company that has less resource make an alternative ???? I still remember when microsoft throwing money to make mixer (twitch alternative) and yet it failed miserably tiktok is close as we can get honestly, but youtube also expand toward shorts
- vitorgrs 1y ago
  Pretty sure Microsoft also tried to compete with Youtube once upon a time. Forgot the name...
  - recursivecaveat 1y ago
    Soapbox was their competitor way way back. More recently they had Mixer, though that was more of a Twitch like service. They spent a ton of money paying streamers to use it, but the network effects are just too strong.

jpalomaki 1y ago

I first thought it would be easy for content creators to start selling their content on other platforms as well. But the algorithms come to play. It is likely valuable that the hardcore fans are watching and liking the videos on YouTube, since that increases the probability of the algorithms to push the videos to new viewers as well.

brador 1y ago

Views are down reasons: AI bot catchers now live and new ip blocks on vpns and cloud servers.

goku12 1y ago
Likes and comments are steady, apparently. How do you reconcile the reduced views with that? Anyway, nearly one-third to one-half of my video suggestions are bot videos. Honestly quite distasteful. They should just ask the users to flag them, instead of employing even more bots who're ever so enthusiastic to kick out those who do not belong to their race.
- 3RTB297 1y ago
  I didn't make the comment you're replying to, but views can exist independent of comments and likes, and bots can just as easily like and comment. Likes and comments by real humans can remain steady and bot views can vary dramatically. Likes and comments aren't metrics that produce revenue for creators.
- brador 1y ago
  There’s also black hats bulk producing AI videos and pushing those with bot farms, which reduces slots available to non AI/farm creators. Survival of the clickbaitiest.

craftit 1y ago

My personal experience is that the increase in ads has encouraged me to subscribe to creators I like via Patreon and view content on there. If many people are doing this, I wonder if it skews the view statistics and, therefore, lowers the number of recommendations for the best channels. In turn, this makes it less likely for good channels to be discovered. The increase in YouTube ads also makes me much less interested in browsing there, and I am finding other things to do instead.

whywhywhywhy 1y ago
You just don't make enough money from ads anyway, a lot of creators now see YT as more of top of funnel advertising leading you to a patreon or even more common livestream format where they make the real money from superchats.

MinimalAction 1y ago

YouTube is a marvelous platform. I know how to live life, thanks to the innumerable passionate souls that produced relevant content and put their voice out there. This library of videos never fails to amaze me on how many weird, fun, informative tidbits of humanity it contains. As much as it is a for-profit endeavor, I wholeheartedly support this well managed space.

syncsynchalt 1y ago
I watch my son grow up learning to DIY from youtube videos. I'm marveling at the wealth of instructional video he has easy access to, and I wish I had it too when I had my first home, learned to work on my first car, etc.

lapsis_beeftech 1y ago

I was a daily, active, and paying Youtube user until recently and am quitting entirely. I was still able to work around many of Google's dark patterns – like the aggressive bot and adblock measures – but it was a chore I do not care to continue, and the emotional distress caused by the extreme hostility and toxicity around everything Youtube is too high a price to pay for content. I support content creators on Patreon but unfortunately many of them still use Youtube for hosting and those videos are not accessible to me any longer.

netcan 1y ago

>I also think it would take some doing to get advertisers to jump on a new platform when YouTube has almost all the viewers. Volume isnt even your main issue here. YouTube ads are powered by adwords... that all advertisers already use. It comes with tracking and user-analytics built in. You can't compete with YouTube by replicating this business model. Even so.. direct YouTube ad revenue per view is low. Many successful tubers monetize with sponsors. That is replicable, if a (single) tuber has enough views. I think there can be markets for smaller, paid video sites... but that's not really a competitor to YouTube. It's more like competition for substack. The way YouTube is managed, including all the reasons for criticism, are why it is successful. Legible rules have loopholes. Keeping advertisers "on their toes" with mystery rules is a strategy. It makes sense to keep the platform as unoffensive as possible. Strict nudity rules, and other such "hard" rules. Demonetization gives yotube a chance to implement soft/illegible rules... many of them simply assumed or imagined. It also makes business sense to suppress politics a little. The chilling effect is intentional.. and understandable. Honestly, I think the more open alternative to YouTube is podcasting. Podcasting has terrible discovery, and video is underdeveloped but... it also has persistence that proves it is a good platform. Half of "the problem" with YouTube is Google running the platform and pursuing their own interests. These are somewhat restrictive, but they also make sense. The other half is intense competition for daily attention. That's what a low friction, highly accessible platform does. You can't have everything. Without all the restrictions and manipulations that YouTube do, the platforms would be 100% nudity, scandals and suchlike.

gethly 1y ago

People still think that Youtube of today is the Youtube of yesterday. But that is not the case ever since the first adpocalypse. Youtube began as a video hosting platform where creators got a huge cut from ads being shown on their video page. Today, the ads are injected into the videos and creators get only a tiny portion of the profits - if any. The views are gone as only (highly)monetised content is being promoted by the algorithm. Google simply prioritises making money for themselves instead of providing a service that merely breaks even. Youtube has done what most businesses do - they pay the initial opex costs and provide some kind of freemium, they get huge number of users, then they monetise the sh.. out of them. And it always ends the same - the platform dies as users leave. Youtube is not any different. It's just so big that this process takes much longer than usual. But do not be fooled, it is happening. Nowadays, people are slowly realising that there is no more free lunch and that you have to pay for the content(see how many streaming services there are compared to just a few years ago). This is why paywall services like Patreon are so popular(and why I have created my own as well as it is one of few viable online businesses left in the digital space). Content creators who are relying on anonymous views, that Youtube always provided and which is now slowly dying, will end up out of business and many in debt due to costs of the video gear they bought and oversaturated marked/competition. There is plethora of this "i'm broke" videos on YT itself exposing the harsh reality of digital content creation of today. On the other hand, smart content creators have realised that the way forward is to build smaller community of reliable fans and use paywalls/pay-per-view model, where they can charge tiny amount whilst getting 95% of it for themselves, which incentivises users to pay(ie. i am willing to pay 10 cents directly to my favourite content creator rather than 5$ to youtube). Some are stuck in the middle with injecting sponsored content into their own, but that will die out soon as well and likely YT will ban it straight up sooner or later. There will be some networks that host multiple creators, like we already have with unauthorized.tv, censored.tv and others. The YT alternatives like Odysee or Rumble will not survive as they are using the same outdated business model as Youtube does but they lack the backing of Google(not just money but infrastructure). It will take time but people will eventually flock to specific content creators instead of relying on algorithms to recommended them content they might be interested in - as this has been completely broken for a decade now and caused huge amount of great content creators to just quit for good. A huge loss to humanity as a whole. This will be the next generation of content creators whom will understand that the game has changed.

cung 1y ago

I’m a paying customer, but my biggest issue is that the content and suggestions themselves are still ads. I feel like I am paying to remove ads from within my ads. The videos I am being recommended are still about how natural McDonalds food is, how this natural supplement from XYZ is disrupting healthcare and how this coffee machine will revolutionize the way I make coffee. If the recommendation algorithm would be a bit less corporate, I’d be a happy customer. That, plus Apple Watch standalone Youtube Music app.

apricot13 1y ago

fwiw I (a YouTube premium subscriber) recently enabled restricted mode myself due to the app showing me completely unrelated and 'scary' videos in searches. After some searching I found a few threads where others had encountered this and restricted mode was the only thing that seemed to stop these videos and honestly they're jarring and unwanted enough for me to warrant enabling restricted mode and all the features it disables - YouTube please please stop these unrelated 'jump scare' videos! as an example I'm scrolling through videos on how to fix a leaky tap at 10pm I'll come across a thumbnail 5 videos down with a ghostly face or trypophobia type thumbnail then another 5-10 videos down. in no way are they highlighted as sponsored and I find it hard to believe that Google with it's search skills and other far more relevant videos in the results can be returning these videos as results!

GavinAnderegg 1y ago

Author here. I woke up to a surprising amount of traffic! Some notes based on the discussion. This wasn't coordinated between Jeff Geerling and myself. However, I did mention the post in the Bluesky thread that Jeff was included in. [0] I concluded the piece with “[t]his space is ripe for disruption”. That was a really poor choice of words. I've since updated the piece to better match what I was trying to say. Diffs are available. [1] On YouTube: as I mention in the piece, I think the service is excellent as a consumer, and I pay for Premium. This piece was mostly written because I've been frustrated that YouTube is effectively the only place for user submitted video on the internet. I wasn't going to write anything until I saw the video from RedLetterMedia that I mentioned in the post. They have a huge following and were blaming something that might be related? Or might not? It's really hard to tell! I'm not a YouTube creator, but I assume having metrics that determine your livelihood shift out from under you as a creator must feel awful. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22h https://bsky.app/profile/gavin.anderegg.ca/post/3lyeayuckv22... [1] https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/compare/9c02041e6bdfd7b4ebb93f813a7f2260ec26fa13..master https://github.com/gavinanderegg/gavinanderegg.github.io/com...

slumberlust 1y ago
Linus Tech Tips has also noticed some really odd view to like ratio stuff happening recently as well. They discuss it in last weeks WAN show. Something is going on.
- shirro 1y ago
  They said an LTT store message directed them to the Brodie Robertson video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hVwUjcsl6s so they did their own investigation which confirmed similar things. It looks like Youtube might be measuring views differently and perhaps getting rid of unmonetizable views which doesn't impact the number of likes or revenue. I think the annoyance is over the lack of transparency and the power Youtube holds over content creators rather than any immediate concern over loss of income etc.
  - 1y ago

whatevaa 1y ago

Good luck competing with youtube. They are something called natural monopoly. Even if you get the technicals right, networks effects will kick in. You would need to bring in something revoliutonary to get people to move. Or youtube to fuck up something really badly. And getting the technicals right won't be easy. Video delivery is not text. Will need dedicated datacenters if you ever get popular and want to keep prices under control. It's expensive.

bl4kers 1y ago
Grayjay can neutralize the network effect
djrj477dhsnv 1y ago
TikTok and Instagram seem to be doing just fine..

daft_pink 1y ago

is it possible that restriced mode is more aggressive for users not logged in? I feel instead of trying to force google to sell chrome, they should have forced them to spinoff YouTube and other non-search monopolies google has that are insanely profitable.

bitpush 1y ago
> they should have forced them to spinoff YouTube and other non-search monopolies google has that are insanely profitable. I dont think I follow the logic. Having a successful business is not grounds for "forcing" to spin out. Airpods are extremely successful, and does that mean it needs to be a separate company? MacBooks are extremely profitable, so should they be a different company? Azure is widely popular, should they be too?
- daft_pink 1y ago
  Breaking up a monopoly must follow sustainable business lines. The court’s early idea of forcing Google to spin off Chrome risked crippling the product and disrupting the market without restoring competition. The remedy was later scaled back, leaving Google with little more than a slap on the wrist. By contrast, the AT&T and Microsoft cases succeeded because they targeted natural, profitable divisions that could stand alone. Addressing areas like Azure or MacBooks, which are not monopolies, does nothing to reduce monopoly power. A more effective remedy in Google’s case would have been dividing its multiple monopolies, rather than divesting loss-leading but essential units. Profitability alone does not define a monopoly, but once one is identified, ensuring that each division can operate as a viable business is crucial.

justapassenger 1y ago

[dead]

deepsun 1y ago

I'm worried that if one day YouTube dies, all that content will go down as well. At least you can store full Wikipedia archive. And don't tell me it will never happen, I'm old enough to have heard that a few times already.

OgsyedIE 1y ago
The steady state idea that most people have about civilization is just not applicable once there is oil-dependent information technology. Either we go up and eliminate the oil dependence but acceleration eats YouTube in a transformative way, or we go up and eliminate the oil dependence but societal fission eats YouTube in a catabolic way.
abstractbeliefs 1y ago
ArchiveTeam is working on backing up selected channels/videos to the Internet Archive, where they can also be watched via their Wayback Machine. You can help them decide what is culturally or historically important enough to save. ArchiveTeam generally is an interesting project I highly recommend people read about. Their YouTube project can be seen here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/YouTube https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/YouTube And you can learn how to get involved (by running a virtual machine appliance) here: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior
- hsuduebc2 1y ago
  I would be kinda worried that one day youtube just send them a take down notice because it violates something in their eula.
- OhMeadhbh 1y ago
  and you can use yt-dlp to download bits you want to save yourself.
  - zelphirkalt 1y ago
    Don't you need to have an account for that? Already a barrier I am not willing to take.

mococa 1y ago

My bet is that some of these channels actually do real and honest reviews. So what’s the point of companies spending millions on YouTube ads if those same channels they criticized get more views—precisely because they’re better and more honest? I feel like this is a kind of selective nerf.

egypturnash 1y ago

I don't think this monopoly is really mysterious. Storage costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Someone needs to pay for it and the only way to cover those costs at any meaningful fraction of Youtube's scale is to have a money printing machine like Google's ads.

margalabargala 1y ago
If the quantities of money paid to all the YouTube freelance advertisers is anything to go on, a video platform having their own ad network would itself be highly profitable.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  That's a big assumption. It's very possible that it's only that profitable at Youtube-sized scale.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    you don't need youtube scale - but you need to be a lot bigger than most others are. You need to be big enough that ads pay for a full time ad salesperson as well as your other overhead.
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    There's definitely some very large critical mass necessary for the network effects to kick in. Is that mass such that there can only be one? Or could there be three or four, like other social media? Arguably Instagram is as large a video platform, though obviously very different. Same with tiktok; the individual videos might be shorter but the bandwidth costs scale with watch time.
- bitpush 1y ago
  > If the quantities of money paid to all the YouTube freelance advertisers is anything to go on, a video platform having their own ad network would itself be highly profitable. Then why isnt everyone jumping at the opportunity to make a competitor? If it is soooo easy, we should have competitors. Nobody is stopping you from launching margalabargalatube.com and win the market. Nobody, including Jeff Geerling, has an exclusive deal with YouTube to distribute the videos. Make it happen!

dmix 1y ago

> Today I saw a video by the RedLetterMedia folks on this topic. If you’re not familiar with their work, be warned that the video is vulgar and juvenile (sorry, I love their stuff). Huh? RLM is about as inoffensive as it gets

geerlingguy 1y ago
Heh, maybe haven't watched some of their deeper cuts; back in the day they were a lot more edgy especially with series like Plinkett Reviews. They've toned it down a bit, but they're definitely not a 'family friendly' channel in some of the content they release (not in a bad way, just... I wouldn't put on a random RLM video at a grade school function!).
- dmix 1y ago
  I’ve watched nearly every video but I may have a different tolerance having grown up with South Park.

game_the0ry 1y ago

Is it really a monopoly if alternatives like rumble and vimeo exist?

p1necone 1y ago
It's a hard question to answer for products that rely on user created content like this. Rumble and vimeo provide basically the same service, but if you got fed up with YouTube and wanted to take your money (eyeballs) elsewhere, you can't, because rumble and vimeo don't have the same content at all. And if you were a creator you can't take your content elsewhere because there's no viewers.
- game_the0ry 1y ago
  My follow up question would be - was the content ever that good or did you need the help from the platform? Solid content has solid fans. Solid fans follow the content creator, not the platform.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I prefer Vimeo, as a content publisher, but I don’t monetize, nor have I posted many vids. I’ve simply used the “pro” option, which I have recently let lapse. I just feel that Vimeo’s video quality is better, and it gives more direct control of the content. But I do so little video work, that it hasn’t been worth it to maintain the subscription.
- whywhywhywhy 1y ago
  Have you looked at Vimeo lately? It's hard to tell it even serves videos anymore, the platform part is completely hidden unless you get a direct link.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    No, but that doesn’t matter to me, because I only ever used it as a CDN for my videos, anyway.

AraceliHarker 1y ago

Even without directly visiting the YouTube site, it's impossible to avoid contact with YouTube because its videos are embedded everywhere. In that sense, YouTube's influence is extremely large. I feel that the FTC might have been better off trying to separate YouTube from Google rather than Chrome. The blog mentioned that the forced activation of Restricted Mode could have reduced video views, and while it's true that Restricted Mode blocks live streams, which could affect those who focus on live content, it basically doesn't block soft porn, violent videos, or political content. So, I don't think it's relevant.

bitpush 1y ago
> I feel that the FTC might have been better off trying to separate YouTube from Google rather than Chrome. On what joy? The biggest mistake that DoJ did was asking to court to divest Android & Chrome. Judge took grave offense at that (read the court's opinion) and there's a school of thought that said it distracted from the whole thing. Once you start being imprecise, all your arguments fall apart.
mercutio2 1y ago
I am so fascinated by the different worlds everyone lives in. I haven’t watched a video hosted on YouTube in years. But I hate amateur video. I never watch anything that I can possibly get through reading. So in my tiny corner of user space, it’s really as if YouTube doesn’t exist except as an annoying thing Google puts at the top of searches I have to scroll past, reminding me to configure this device to use a different search engine.
- clan 1y ago
  It is a choice. But as you are probably aware; not one many makes. While I do prefer to read as well I do like some of the better videos. Sometimes the information density is not as high as I would like - there are reasonable efforts. Sure, there is amateur content. But there is a surprising amount of original researched content with a high production value. A recent example with a scientific approach to cooking with some fun high quality references to Breaking Bad: https://youtu.be/NnzADfbBBFo https://youtu.be/NnzADfbBBFo Yes - they want to (discretely) sell thermometers as well. Not all is good. But very far from amateur.

Razengan 1y ago

YouTube's vast hoard of videos is a crucial piece of human history. If nothing else, it should be preserved via government mandate or something. Ever seen a colorized video from 1900? It's like a time machine. Imagine looking at today's videos, 100-200 years from now..

nemothekid 1y ago

I doubt there will ever be an alternative to YouTube. "Disrupting" YouTube is difficult because the social conditions that created YouTube do not exist anymore. Before you get into cdns, bandwidth, advertisers, and social features, you need to have content - and a steady flow of content. What was unique about YouTube is YouTube did not have to pay for content. People made acceptable quality content and uploaded it to YouTube for free. Any new competitor eventually runs into the fact that * Your largest users eventually stop posting if you don't pay them (because they can go elsewhere after using your platform as a springboard: see Vine) * In order to actually pay creators you need to have the capital, legal, and advertising side completely figured out. So on top of building a giant cdn, you need gobs of money to pay people to stay on your platform, and another gob of money because you will be sued to death (especially because once you start paying people, people will cheat, and pirate content). All this means is YouTube has an incredible moat. If YouTube dies, I doubt there will ever be a replacement.

deleted 1y ago
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shadowtree 1y ago
Youtube relies on human creators. Youtube will be disrupted by AI created, better content. Who builds AITube? AITok?
- nine_k 1y ago
  Why the AI-wielding creators would choose to use a new, different service, and not an existing service with a colossal audience?
  - Rohansi 1y ago
    In a theoretical future The Algorithm would include content generation so that the platform can generate content for you instead of just suggesting it. Could apply to TikTok, Spotify, etc. if the generated content is good enough.
- 1y ago

Workaccount2 1y ago

The answer is paying/watching ads. Nobody wants to hear ad-blocking has negative effects. But it does, and it's effectively killed off any YouTube competitor. All a VC has to do is read a comment section on the topic of yt to say "nope" to funding a competitor.

Sophistifunk 1y ago

The idea that what's needed is for these alternative platforms to switch to "free with ads" is amazingly short sighted and disheartening. Everything bad YouTube does is driven by this business model. Switching to it might make a few people rich at the top of these alternative platforms, but it won't make anything better for any user or creator.

NoPicklez 1y ago

> I also think that YouTube is a monopoly. This sentence is just oddly thrown in there and is made the title of the article. Yes they're a monopoly, but so what? As you say they're the best bang for buck subscription service on the market. The problem is that they are unable to see why their viewership has dropped, that's it. I'm sure Youtube might provide context as to why at some point.

fabioyy 1y ago

since google is tier 1 network. does anyone knows if they pay for bandwidth for serving youtube?

bauruine 1y ago
They aren't a tier 1 but they also aren't paying for most of their bandwdith. They peered very liberally in the past so have zero settlement peering to most networks and if you're a big enough eyeball network you can request a caching server from them where you pay for rack space, power and network and google just pays for the server hardware. [0] [0]: https://support.google.com/interconnect/answer/9058809 https://support.google.com/interconnect/answer/9058809

comonoid 1y ago

Russia tries to push its population to "alternatives" like Rutube(sic!) and VK Video by interfering into network connectivity (they call it "slowing down", they just drop fraction of packets that goes from YouTube servers), but it seems the success is quite limited.

eimrine 1y ago
Have you heard an anecdote about the cat and the mustard?

Hobadee 1y ago

There is a catch-22 that helps YouTube keep it's monopoly. Nobody will jump to another platform until all their favorite creators/majority of media is there, but no other platform is able to attract a significant portion of creators/media until they have a large base. Systems that enable multi-platform natively are the answer to change the calculus on this problem. End-user clients such as Grayjay that enable users to view videos from multiple platforms at once can give much-needed views to creators on alternate platforms. A similar solution for creators (not sure if one exists or not) would lower the barrier to upload to all platforms at once.

designerarvid 1y ago
That phenomenon is called network effects, if you’d like to read more about it.
immibis 1y ago
The solution that will actually work, then, is to build a platform that has the YouTube content. Don't try to convince creators to sign up for your new multiplatform thing - just rip it directly from YouTube. Now you're thinking like a VC-backed startup. Yes, it's illegal, so make sure to scale rapidly and become rich before they have time to sue you. Facebook did this to Myspace. Doordash did this to restaurant phone orders.
eimrine 1y ago
Have you heard about Russia? Why bother of doing multi-platform if they can just prohibit anything Western and build their own digital platform for everything.

asjir 1y ago

The author makes an argument that at least looks like people choose YT over Nebula because YT is free. I, for example, already pay for Nebula, so I can watch it for free, but I still go to YT. IMO it might be just a product problem. I opened nebula and: * The same video had a better title on YT that was actually less clickbaity and more informative - assumedly because of YT algorithm for optimization * Nebula auto set quality to 480p compared to 1080p in YT - if I wasn't tech-savvy I'd assume it's just worse quality. * The loading times when you seek to part that's not loaded yet are 10x longer * I missed comments The recommendation algorithm is weaker too, I can't tell to what extent this is due to YouTube having simply more data and to what extent it's weaker engineering.

Almondsetat 1y ago
This seems like a very strange perspective. Nebula is for specifically following content creators you really like and enjoy their videos earlier and at a better quality (plus some exclusive content). Why would you particularly care about the title is that's a videomaker you follow anyway? Why would you care about seeking times? Are you jumping constantly in an ad-free and sponsor-free video you specifically subscribed for? Why miss the comments? Is it a video sharing platform or social media?
- dale_glass 1y ago
  > Why miss the comments? Is it a video sharing platform or social media? Because Nebula has a lot of complex content. Things like history, science, making stuff. And those things have a lot of room for things like the maker messing something up, or struggling with something, or not explaining something properly. On Youtube if somebody makes an obvious mistake, or is obviously incompetent to an expert, somebody will point it out. If a hobbyist doesn't quite have the skills to do a thing sometimes an expert will show up and help them. If an educative video doesn't include crucial details, somebody will ask. Like look at say, Inheritance Machining or Alec Steele on Youtube, who take on challenging projects they struggle with and often get advice from expert viewers. It's weird not to have this on Nebula. On one hand it seems to sell itself as "smart content", on the other hand it's a return to the old TV model of "shut up and consume".

ChrisNorstrom 1y ago

Hot Take: Youtube is terrible. It's a time sink that's filled with billions of videos that take 15-20 minutes to talk about a topic that's worth only 1-3 minutes of your time. Text is skimmable and easily absorbable, Video is not.

Agraillo 1y ago
> ... a topic that's worth only 1-3 minutes of your time It's even worse sometimes, googling some "how to" queries returns links to yt-videos. Even if the video is 5 minutes, it's a waste of time, because I'm usually in the middle of an ongoing process when dozens variants are evaluated and an average dedicated time for a single one is much shorter. Transcripts sometimes help. But not the native (no diarization as long as I remember). An example, Lex Fridman podcast is a good source of anecdata from famous science/tech/non-tech people and provides good transcripts on the site (but only starting some point in the past). For transcripts before this point v1.transcript.lol covered many, but amongst other glitches no names for diarization (Speaker 1/ Speaker 2).
RankingMember 1y ago
Out of the box, I agree. I've got my feed well-curated at this point such that I get very little of that type of garbage pushed my way. I recently viewed the YouTube main page in an incognito window and, good lord, the default experience is an absolute cesspool of AI-generated nonsense, ragebait, and straight-up spam.
Insanity 1y ago
I'm not sure it's a hot take. I don't learn as easily from video as I do from text, but I seem to have curated my video recommendations to videos that I do like to watch as 'infotainment'. e.g, Veritasium is a channel I quite like for their longer 'mini-documentary' like videos. And then there are just entertainment channels like Linus Tech Tips. Not _everything_ has to be micro-optimized in my life, so I don't mind occasionally just sitting in the sofa watching a video that could have been a 3 minute blog :)

flanked-evergl 1y ago

YouTube has a superior offering to competitors, just like Spotfify has a superior offering to YT music. I pay for both Spotify and YouTube, but I don't listen to music on YT music because Spotify is just a vastly superior solution for delivering the music.

Frieren 1y ago

People cannot deal with today's complexity. I have seen the argument: all my games in Steam, all my movies in Netflix, all my videos on YouTube, etc. To have to pick and choose between different apps makes everything more complex, and it is too much for the average user that has other things to worry about. All this is really bad for capitalism, as it creates monopolies that no competition can fight against. It concentrates power and eliminates competition. E-mail is still alive because it is the one place that one can get registration messages, invoices, goverment communications, etc. It is based on a standard so I can use my own provider but interact with all the rest of the world without caring what do they use. This is the future of the web. For example, I should be able to download any movie app an see all the movies from Sony Pictures and Disney, and Ghibli, and all of them. Once purchased, I should be able to see all of them in the same app. The standard offers interfaces so I can choose one provider that connects to the world. Prices are the same on all apps, but they can differentiate themselves thru localization, recommendations, etc. This is feasible but it requires strong regulatory intervention as current monopolies are the best option to maximize profit and eliminate competition. Ads are also perfectly fine to finance on-line videos. It is the tracking and invasive privacy practices what is dystopian and horrifying. Most of the revenue of YouTubers comes anyway by paying users (Patreon, etc.) or external traditional ads (NordVPN, SkillShare, etc.) that still ask for metrics for the channel but are not individually targeted. Standards over platforms is the only possible future, but it will require to topple down the current status quo and that is what is difficult to do.

edg5000 1y ago
This. Email and text is one of those things were you are not stuck to a single provider. Anything closed and proprietary is a problem. I'd say this is also the case for banking. Banks often require Google Play or iOS, severely constraining the user. Governments somehow need to put a stop to this, especially in the EU where we are becoming a US colony due to all our IT being in the hands of US companies. We need to take back control!

logsr 1y ago

YouTube was built on piracy and then Google bought YouTube and got immunity from copyright infringement claims by selling its user data to LE/IC in exchange for legal immunity. YouTube is still powered by piracy world wide. They only enforce copyright controls in western markets where the potential consumer is expected to have the income to afford streaming services. This is on par for the entire Google empire, which is all built on piracy, whether it is putting their ads on other people's content, redistributing other peoples's content without licenses, or building AI built on unlicensed content. And the whole thing works because they give their users personal data to intel and law enforcement in exchange for back door immunity deals.

kelvinjps10 1y ago
I remember that before I knew a lot f people that used to watch movies on YouTube

fedeb95 1y ago

Monopolies naturally come from doing a thing the best possible way. YouTube does it. I personally use it very rarely and wouldn't care about its disappearance, but I don't know of other services serving its users needs better. So: YouTube will cease to be a monopoly if 1) user needs change 2) it stops being the best at serving videos. Until then, it's not mysterious.

baxuz 1y ago

YouTube needs to be broken up and have the video hosting separate from the viewing platform itself.

carlosjobim 1y ago

> I also think that YouTube is a monopoly. There are some alternatives — I also pay for Nebula, for example — but they’re tiny in comparison. YouTube is effectively the place to watch video on the internet. I've heard about an online video website called Netflix. Don't know if anybody is using it though.

boriskourt 1y ago
Let me find some Blender and Unreal Engine tutorials on this Netflix site, thanks for directing me to this indieweb marvel! :) (maybe a tear-down of my washer is there too!)
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  "McDonalds is a monopoly in fast food" "But there's more Subway restaurants than McDonalds restaurants" "I can't get a burger at Subway, therefore McDonalds is a monopoly."

giancarlostoro 1y ago

Sometime in 2009 or 2008 I realized we were screwed and wanted to support alternatives and stop using it same with Chrome. Something told me Google was going to swallow the internet. Sadly I still wish we would have propped up serious competitors. Where does one go when YouTube or any part of Google bans you? I have a friend or two who get banned any time he makes a Google account. Years of his personal data completely forfeited. I have been moving off Google for a while, and will continue doing so.

kelvinjps10 1y ago

I wonder if dynamic ads are even necessary. Meaning that it seems like the most creators more money from sponsors, meaning that companies directly sponsor creators. It could work similar to podcasts people post podcasts and they are available in RSS, and multiple podcasts platforms, for the videos they could be available in something like pee tube or similar to podcasts where there is multiple players created. And for creators they get directly contracted by companies, as this might present problems there could be a company that acts as the mediator between sponsors and creators

Havoc 1y ago

From what I can tell latest consensus is that views haven't actually dropped, just how yt discloses them. i.e. What constitutes a "view" in the stats appears to have changed. The other engagement metrics (likes etc) seem to have not moved suggesting nothing has changed in real world. LTT went into it in a fair bit of detail

Joel_Mckay 1y ago

YouTube is it's own CDN, taking up real-estate in almost every ISP NOC. Even if a firm has a cool new gimmick to get through a successful launch, the incremental cost of hosting "free content" will pose a liability due to higher operational margins. YT are not a true monopoly, but rather "free" content from a spam heavy competitor is a foolish business plan. =3

mrkramer 1y ago

YouTube's biggest strength is its scale; there is no web service out there that let's you upload literally unlimited amount of data for free.

cheerioty 1y ago

Love YouTube, but between the price hikes and being fed nothing but shorts and doom-scroll bait, they’re pushing me to the edge. For the former, it feels like every streaming service (audio or video) is starting pave the way for a new golden age of piracy and personal content collections.

jajuuka 1y ago

Way too much discussion of Youtube is mired in monetization. Not platform sustainability, but how much wealth content creators can extract from it. It's a bit perverse and views the audience as a source to sqeeze revenue from. It's like making open source software or wikipedia only about how much creators can make.

wizardforhire 1y ago

This is gonna be unpopular with the most of the commenters so far… Regardless I don’t think youtube is a monopoly. A monopoly caries with it strict anti-competitive practices along with meddling in government affairs and great public harm. Just because something has market dominance does not make it a monopoly. Facebook is a monopoly. Complete dominance of the entire social graph, aggressively buying competitors to silence them… direct government meddling not just in the us but abroad creating untold deaths and suffering in the process… to the point they rebrand themselves to skirt responsibility… thats a monopoly. Live nation buying up entire cities worth of venues, artist managers, booking agents, artists themselves, ticketing, promotion companies, subsequently entire production staff, blacklisting anyone they dont like, meddling with politics, obfuscating their activities through subsidiaries, destroying entire communities and cultures in the process… thats a monopoly Youtube could be a monopoly but I dont see them squashing their most successful creators from creating their own streaming services, I dont see them directly meddling with politics on a large scale (granted there was that time the algorithm would tend towards promoting fascism, but rather than keep that going or doubling down I see the opposite which implies active intent to the contrary), I dont see them aggressively purchasing competitors… I see them as ridiculously huge and I find their censorship annoying that if government was working I would think should be examined from a public responsibility stance but I dont see them engaged in monopolistic practices… in fact I see them actively avoiding most activities that would make them a monopoly that is of course other than being really really huge.

shayway 1y ago
> Just because something has market dominance does not make it a monopoly. Isn't that the definition of a monopoly though? Just because something is a monopoly, that doesn't mean it necessarily has anti-competitive practices or meddles in government. (though that usually follows) For what it's worth I agree that YouTube isn't abusing their market position, but it's important the semantics are clear.
- wizardforhire 1y ago
  I guess so, but thats the problem with language that isnt specific enough. What I feel people are discussing and what I was referring too was more properly called an illegal monopoly… technically having market domination is also a monopoly, but thats not a crime. The Hypothetical Monopolist Test is a primary method used to define relevant markets in antitrust cases. It assesses whether a hypothetical monopolist could profitably impose a small but significant and non-transitory increase in price (SSNIP). Steps in the Test Market Definition: Identify the relevant product and geographic market. Price Increase Assessment: Determine if a hypothetical monopolist could raise prices without losing too many customers. Iterative Process: If the price increase is profitable, the market is correctly defined. If not, the market definition is expanded to include substitutes. To establish a monopolization claim, two main elements must be proven: Possession of Monopoly Power: The firm must have significant and durable market power. Willful Acquisition or Maintenance: The firm must have obtained or maintained this power through improper means, rather than through competition on the merits.

gitprolinux 1y ago

I try and compete with https://UltraHotTV.com https://UltraHotTV.com but it's not youtube in name.

jorgejr 1y ago

I get that YouTube creators are worried about the drop in views, but honestly, this isn’t much different from what happens in every other industry. For the rest of us, markets change, laws change, inflation hits, taxes go up, new tariffs appear… and we all have to adapt. The market is never static, and everyone else works under constantly shifting conditions. So instead of complaining, maybe it’s time to adjust, just like the rest of us do.

The_President 1y ago

Nothing special about YouTube other than the interface being about as offensive as possible. Rumble is light-years better in terms of speed and has an instant CSS based dark theme unlike the monolyth. I'm concerned many users that continue to use any sort of modified version of YouTube are going to eventually have their Google account sniffed out and banned. Many creators have shifted over to publishing to multiple platforms at once so that platforms like Rumble and Odysee don't seem as siloed with certain types of content. Rumble is sharp and stays out of the way, and that matters, as unlike the YouTube experience on iOS, you can still get a video to play audio only in background; it makes YouTube feel like an ad machine cesspool.

guywithahat 1y ago
I also like Rumble, but the recommendation algorithm isn’t as good and there are just fewer content creators on the platform

Funes- 1y ago

Every monopoly is predicated upon abusive, anti-competitive and unlawful practices, as well as exemptions and unearned subsidies from governments. Always. Many people aligning with megacorporations wouldn't support "capitalism" if the playing field was even.

leemelone 1y ago

Youtube is garbage now. Never use it.

dismalaf 1y ago

No one will disrupt YouTube unless they offer better compensation to creators. YouTube is probably the single best place to monetize content online right now, nowhere else comes close; not TikTok, Instagram, even Twitch...

xnx 1y ago

YouTube is great, but most content is unwatchable at 1.0x speed. Without the Video Speed Controller extension (still better than the built-in speed controls), I doubt I'd watch at all.

Bratmon 1y ago

As someone under the age of 30, it took me a while to realize that this wasn't a parody post. Making a post with this title without mentioning TikTok or Instagram is like making a post titled "Pepsi is a mysterious monopoly" without once mentioning Coke.