Is YouTube dying right before our eyes? How can we Preserve the general platform and keep it free?

[webguys911]

What will it take for us to finally realize internet giants like Google, YouTube, FaceBook are diluting the potential of what the internet has given us as human potential? Where will we go to openly share ideas and experiences across the globe?

 

Will any even notice their chains as their echo chambers walls get smaller and smaller?

 

Can we save YouTube? If not, how do we preserve the concept and all of the amazing potential and value sharing ideas and experiences openly much like YouTube has provided us all?

 

But an even scarier future.. is the internet and advertising in general? What is happening with censorship and filtering right now? I feel like the past 2 years so much has changed..but it hasn't.. uncertainty increasing more and more by the release of more leaks and unveiling overwhelms us which each revelation.

 

Anyone else feeling this?

[ofd]

Do you have numbers to back up your claim?

[Donnadogsoth]

The Internet is too dangerous to be allowed to be free forever, and forces will be launched to destroy that freedom.  The only questions are when and where specifically, and how to stop this destruction.

[Iron Horse]

Every time a platform tries to censor popular, non-conformist views while holding the banner of free speech high, it begins to fall.  All it will take is another to set up, what did we use Youtube for originally?

Music?  There are plenty of other free services that do this now from songs to music videos.
Tv shows?  Again with the rise of Netflix, Hulu and more Youtube is losing ground to them.
Content creators?  They go were the crowd is, if they can transfer their fanbase to a private website and direct all profitable traffic to themselves, like FDR does with it's podcasts, youtube ceases to be needed.

[mgggb]

Content creators?  They go were the crowd is, if they can transfer their fanbase to a private website and direct all profitable traffic to themselves, like FDR does with it's podcasts, youtube ceases to be needed.

 

I disagree. I would have never found 99% of the content I regularly consume if not for youtube recommending new things. I envision a decentralized youtube on the blockchain.

[Diego1751]

We need to go back to email chains and decentralized sharing of information. As storage and internet speeds increase this becomes more possible

[oaksdave]

https://vid.me. ?

[DaVinci]

I was talking about this months ago here and other places and no one ever really responded to what I was saying. It's concerning how human behavior doesn't seem to change until pressed against the wall. Yes, You Tube is changing. It's been changing for a while. Every six months someone makes a You Tube is dead video. It's literally been happening since like 2007. 

 

I heard the idea before that the internet could theoretically work completely wirelessly, like a CB radio. Doesn't it make sense for everyone to have a little chunk of the internet? Person 1 has info A, B, and C. Person 2 has info B, C, D. Person 3 has info C, D, E. etc. Granted this wouldn't work for everything, but considering how much original user content is the big draw online I can see a scenario where people go back to having their own websites.

 

Why do people go to You Tube for videos? Security. You Tube has a reputation to uphold. It's the same for Kickstarter. Why do people get angry when people try to crowd fund on their own site instead of KS? Security. KS has to have some kind of protection in place to help people from being scammed. 

 

So many industries like Kickstarter and You Tube would dissolve if people thought other people were more trustworthy. 

[Gavitor]

Youtube is simply becoming the new cable television. If google is dumb enough to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by pissing off the people who are making the content people come to the site for then they deserve all the problems that come from that.

 

If all or even half of the people i watch on youtube jumped ship I'd go to where they go and if they all go to the same site that will become the new "youtube" much in the same way that everyone left myspace for facebook.

 

The funny thing is that google will likely buy out the competing platform.

[ofd]

If google is dumb enough to kill the goose that lays the golden egg

 

Youtube has been making losses since its first year.

[oaksdave]

Youtube has been making losses since its first year.

Source?

[ofd]

Here we go http://www.itproportal.com/2015/02/26/youtube-still-loss-leader-google/

[Xdreamist]

It's a very tricky situation. The losses stat is a very interesting thing to note. From one of Sargon's latest videos (I recommend watching it all, it's interesting):
https://youtu.be/hz1dfDTH6Dk?t=1383

(Stats from 23:03 if it doesn't timestamp my link properly)

 

"YouTube, is not profitable. The annual cost of running and maintaining YouTube, is almost 6.5 Billion dollars - And the annual revenue generated by YouTube, is only $4 Billion..."

 

$2.5 Billion annual loss? And I imagine the most experienced company in the world when it come to hosting media content is doing all it can to cut costs already... I just don't know another platform could compete, and that could swallow a yearly loss like that, should there be a mass migration.

 

They're almost running on charity as it is, unless I'm missing something? Plus users are getting more and more savvy to ad-blockers, surely. I always wondered how the hell YouTube could be make profit from that much HD content being chucked on there every day, taking that much server power / space and networking infrastructure, always more, more, more. And apparently, they don't. They run at a loss.

[fivestarman]

Now Youtube is restricting monetization to channels with at least 10,000 views. This combined with their policy of demonetizing videos with opinions they don't like, from firearms enthusiasts to videos critical of U.S. foreign policy, points toward decline.

[Songbirdo]

4 hours ago, fivestarman said:

Now Youtube is restricting monetization to channels with at least 10,000 views. This combined with their policy of demonetizing videos with opinions they don't like, from firearms enthusiasts to videos critical of U.S. foreign policy, points toward decline.

10,000 lifetime*** views to monetize for channels just starting out will not make or break you. You start out making videos as a hobby because you like to do it, not because you want to make a living from it. It takes significant amount of time, energy and work before you can make a living doing that.

What may or may not be known is that there is also a minimum $100 revenue generated before you can even make a withdrawal from the adsense system. The 10,000 views doesn't come close to that $100 minimum unless you have a high CPM (>$10 per thousand). Between my two channels I'm at @48,000 lifetime views with only $85 of that $100 threshold in revenue generated from those views. It's not all monetized content, but you get the point.