Think back to 2005, imagine THE video sharing site that had just launched. The magically simple design, the total openness towards choice of content, none of the sad tube-faces saying “Sorry About That”. Call me an old-timer but I miss that Youtube. Where people could actually “speak” their minds without worrying about constantly being flagged and taken down because they used one second of their favorite songs in the video.
I miss that Youtube, it was about the people. The name made sense back then, now it’s just a corporate reservoir promoting anything that brings in money and forgetting the people who really made it what it is today, the average people, the everyday vloggers, the non-celebrity types.
While some young vloggers made it to the big-leagues, the rest of them either got their content taken down after the “corporate takeover” or just lost heart when Youtube changed its ways. Yes I admit, Youtube is the third most visited site in the world, it is THE video library of the internet, but that’s not the point, it should just be “Tube” because the “You” left four years ago.
So who is to blame here? Whose fault is it that Youtube had to implement thousands of new policies and scanning systems within itself to keep itself clean? There’s no one entity to point at. When people are given unlimited options for free, they will always (ALWAYS) take them for granted, it’s in the human nature. When the numbers went up from a mere hundred users to a million and counting, certain measures had to be taken to protect the integrity of Youtube, which meant sacrificing certain promises. The big companies saw no better chance to advertise than from a website which generates, literally generates, millions worth of traffic per minute.
All the big Youtubers of today make a living off of it, once the money starts rolling in, advertisers see a huge juicy burger sitting on a silver platter. Once the conglomerates started getting wind of how popular videos get on this particular website, they quickly made their camps at the very heart of Youtube. Big names took over the. Genuine fans of singers and movies who uploaded their videos and music just to make their favorite celebrities see the love, had their accounts banned and videos brought down along with a shiny new list of copyright claims by people no one has heard of before.
A lot of new startups are trying to take over the video sharing market and to bring back the site that was once Youtube. Money makes the world go round, but when it gets so beyond control it starts leaving its origin and roots. We’ve seen this happen with almost every company that’s big now. Google (which owns Youtube) went from being a mere search engine to the god of the internet. With infinite power nothing stays constant.
Perhaps it’s a part of becoming big, perhaps it’s a necessary evil without which society (the online kind) will not and can not prevail. Youtube does provide entertainment and means of living to countless people, but it can never be the Youtube everyone once adored, now it’s just a necessity none of us can live without.
I digress, add your thoughts on how you feel about this below.
Stay tuned to TechDeville for everything Tech! Follow us on Twitter (@TechDeville), add us to your Google+ circles and like us on Facebook..