People are free to make videos and post them on their own websites. Where they have to try and figure out how people will find them, get people to check their site for new videos, source all their own ads, or rely only on sponsors (who will be hard to get without an audience), try to get people to sign up to their site for some user engagement, pay all the hosting fees for videos, build the actual website, make sure that site has metrics to sell yourself to sponsors, build a mobile site, probably an app…
All of this not only gets expensive, but makes it much more difficult to get noticed or scale. Maybe if someone is already famous they can pull it off, but for someone who just has an iPhone and a dream… that’s all you need to start on YouTube, and you can make millions.
The “platform” brings insane amounts of value to the table, and is extremely expensive to run. And the reason all the users are there to watch the big creators is that all the other random videos are hosted for free. There is no reason to go anywhere else.
Creators have tried to start their own thing. I see ads for it all the time in their videos. I don’t know anyone who uses those as a viewer. I am curious how it’s working out for the creators.
An empty platform has little value. Hundreds have gotten shut down for this very reason.
Content by and large makes the platform. Not the other way round. Yet the platform soaks up the lions share of the benefit. Leaving most who aren’t whales to see nothing at all. This is the problem google is very complicit with. I’m all for them making enough to sustain the service. I just think they owe far more than they are giving, to the content that made them.
Nebula is great. And is trundling along just fine. It could use some more promotion and love sure. But it’s goals aren’t the same as a behemoth like Google’s. Who’s talents aren’t in creating content, but promoting it.
You’re not wrong, but it seems like more of a symbiotic relationship. The platform wouldn’t exist without the creators, and most of the creators wouldn’t exist without the platform.
Creators would exist without the platform. They always have. But the platform definitely does bring value. The problem is that for a while now, greedy corporations have slowly been pushing the balance so that they received most of the benefit of everyone else’s work. It’s an overarching problem of capitalism that we need to deal with. But have been putting off for 50 to 60 years.
Some would exist, but not at this scale. That’s why I say most wouldn’t exist, some still would.
Once people saw YouTube could be a career with a low barrier to entry, a lot of people gave it a shot who wouldn’t have done it otherwise.
A lot of platforms do this. Crafters who would have never setup a store are on Etsy. Girls who may have worked as a waitress or something are now on OnlyFans. People who may have been hesitant to start a business are using Shopify. If the platform makes it easy enough, and provides a revenue stream, a lot more people will try it out vs doing it on their own.
Creators would exist without the platform. They always have.
Not sure what you mean with this. Youtube has allowed anyone with a camera and an internet connection to put content out in the world. It was completely different back before youtube existed.
I’ve been on the internet since 94. I know what it was like. YouTube did not create creators. People posted video to the internet long before YouTube was a thing. And long before Google owned it. Because they didn’t create it.
I’m not saying people didn’t share videos beforehand, but youtube created a platform that allowed people to do it more easily, be discovered more easily, and actually make a decent living through it. The internet landscape, especially in respect to influencers or content creators, is entirely different now than it was in the 90’s.
So did Vimeo and dozens of others. YouTube did not get where it is by being better. Or by even being a platform. It got where it is by being bought out by a large corporate entity with near endless sums of money to back it with over the competition.
And a decade or two from now the internet is liable to be as different again from today as today was from them. And many people will be wondering Google who? Because ultimately people will remember the content not the platform.
No, it is not all upside. What has more value. Content people want to watch somehow. Or an empty “platform” that slurps up most of the gains.
I’m not saying there is no value inherent to platform’s. Merely pointing out the disingenuous nature of that argument.
People are free to make videos and post them on their own websites. Where they have to try and figure out how people will find them, get people to check their site for new videos, source all their own ads, or rely only on sponsors (who will be hard to get without an audience), try to get people to sign up to their site for some user engagement, pay all the hosting fees for videos, build the actual website, make sure that site has metrics to sell yourself to sponsors, build a mobile site, probably an app…
All of this not only gets expensive, but makes it much more difficult to get noticed or scale. Maybe if someone is already famous they can pull it off, but for someone who just has an iPhone and a dream… that’s all you need to start on YouTube, and you can make millions.
The “platform” brings insane amounts of value to the table, and is extremely expensive to run. And the reason all the users are there to watch the big creators is that all the other random videos are hosted for free. There is no reason to go anywhere else.
Creators have tried to start their own thing. I see ads for it all the time in their videos. I don’t know anyone who uses those as a viewer. I am curious how it’s working out for the creators.
An empty platform has little value. Hundreds have gotten shut down for this very reason.
Content by and large makes the platform. Not the other way round. Yet the platform soaks up the lions share of the benefit. Leaving most who aren’t whales to see nothing at all. This is the problem google is very complicit with. I’m all for them making enough to sustain the service. I just think they owe far more than they are giving, to the content that made them.
Nebula is great. And is trundling along just fine. It could use some more promotion and love sure. But it’s goals aren’t the same as a behemoth like Google’s. Who’s talents aren’t in creating content, but promoting it.
You’re not wrong, but it seems like more of a symbiotic relationship. The platform wouldn’t exist without the creators, and most of the creators wouldn’t exist without the platform.
Creators would exist without the platform. They always have. But the platform definitely does bring value. The problem is that for a while now, greedy corporations have slowly been pushing the balance so that they received most of the benefit of everyone else’s work. It’s an overarching problem of capitalism that we need to deal with. But have been putting off for 50 to 60 years.
Some would exist, but not at this scale. That’s why I say most wouldn’t exist, some still would.
Once people saw YouTube could be a career with a low barrier to entry, a lot of people gave it a shot who wouldn’t have done it otherwise.
A lot of platforms do this. Crafters who would have never setup a store are on Etsy. Girls who may have worked as a waitress or something are now on OnlyFans. People who may have been hesitant to start a business are using Shopify. If the platform makes it easy enough, and provides a revenue stream, a lot more people will try it out vs doing it on their own.
Not sure what you mean with this. Youtube has allowed anyone with a camera and an internet connection to put content out in the world. It was completely different back before youtube existed.
I’ve been on the internet since 94. I know what it was like. YouTube did not create creators. People posted video to the internet long before YouTube was a thing. And long before Google owned it. Because they didn’t create it.
I’m not saying people didn’t share videos beforehand, but youtube created a platform that allowed people to do it more easily, be discovered more easily, and actually make a decent living through it. The internet landscape, especially in respect to influencers or content creators, is entirely different now than it was in the 90’s.
So did Vimeo and dozens of others. YouTube did not get where it is by being better. Or by even being a platform. It got where it is by being bought out by a large corporate entity with near endless sums of money to back it with over the competition.
And a decade or two from now the internet is liable to be as different again from today as today was from them. And many people will be wondering Google who? Because ultimately people will remember the content not the platform.