It was no wonder that the site expanded rapidly in the summer of 2006. The decentralized, individualistic, and all-around free market of information on YouTube made it one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet, with people watching 100 million videos per day and uploading 65,000 at the same rate.
YouTube had become a paradise of individual creativity, an underground to the world's stifling media market. This was the time period that made YouTube what it is today- at least in terms of its market share on the Internet. As expected, "freedom is popular!"
Such times however, do not seem to last. A control freak is always waiting in the wings, ready to pounce on the free market for a variety of reasons.
Such was the case with YouTube. Under siege from the threat of copyright lawsuits (I.E.: using the guns of the state to protect "ownership" of a certain sequence and pattern of information) On October 9th, 2006, Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion. The deal appeared to be a win-win for both parties, as Google had been wanting to compete with the rapidly-growing MySpace.com, expand beyond it's search-based revenue, and go into the social networking market. YouTube, for its part, would reap a great deal of revenue and be better-prepared for any lawsuits in the future. The deal was finalized on November 13th, 2006.
By this time, I had my own account on YouTube, and at first I noticed no obvious changes. By December, however, I noticed that many "copyrighted" videos were being removed. This was to be expected, and at first it was frustrating, but wasn't too terrible. Some cool inputs were added to the site, such as the ability to thumb up or down comments.
However, the website began to go downhill. The copyright vultures were always hovering over, always poised to attack those that skirted their barriers to entry. This can be most easily seen by the Viacom lawsuit, and later, the issues with Warner Music Group. Warner, in particular, was removing videos normally covered under Fair Use.
You'd think that Warner was doing this to represent their artists right? Nope. Several artists signed up with the record label are angry that their content has been removed from YouTube.
In all fairness, it is unfair to blame YouTube for ALL of this brouhaha. No one wants the guns of the state pointed at them, and this is what present Intellectual Property legislation demands. YouTube is at fault however, for completely failing to protect its users from false copyright claims or fair use content.
However, the current state of YouTube as we know it today, what I and others call GooTube (as in, watch what Google broadcasts) truly began with the YouTube Partner Program.
In a nutshell, the Partner Program allows users to take in a portion of ad revenue that their videos generate to YouTube. The program launched in 2007 and expanded rapidly in 2008.
Sounds great doesn't it? Here's the problem: GooTube has actively and vociferously promoted its partner videos over the rest of its user population. You will not find a definitive source for this, but every long-time YouTube user who has the ability to inductively reason will tell you that this is true. This is how the god-awful non-comic Fred was able to rise so rapidly in popularity: YouTube has endlessly promoted his videos on its front page. Here they actually admit their bias toward partners. This is in the form of their "spotlight videos." Ignore the idiots commenting on this page that don't see this for what it is. This is also apparent in that the "popular" page is shown before that of most viewed. Other pages, such as highest rated, are several clicks away to get to, thus turning many people away.
In addition to this, many people believe, and with good reason, that YouTube is censoring the view counts of its users (making it even harder to get onto the top viewed page). The example mentioned in the link is just one, and I believe this happened to me this past summer. My "The New Channels Suck!" video was frozen at 318 for at least two days, even though numerous comments were posted on it during that time.
In effect, the Partner Program has become a massive barrier to entry for small users attempting to expand their YouTube channel. What once was a free market in the exchange of information has become censored beyond belief since Google bought YouTube.
But just as it gets bad, it gets even worse. YouTube was transformed into GooTube, and recently, especially since Viacom and WMG began their saber-rattling, it has become ArchonTube (broadcast what the ruler says).
YouTube has been removing videos and suspending users for no apparent reason, even those with no noticeable "copyright infringement" at all. Indeed, my buddy, fellow Anarchist Vlogger InTheEndIWasRight, was suspended last week for no reason at all. Fortunately, his channel is now back up. Leading Anarchist confederalsocialist has gone through numerous accounts.
But perhaps the most egregious change of all occurred this summer, symbolizing perhaps once and for all the force-fitting conformity camp that a once-great website has been transformed into over the course of Google's ownership.
On June 24th, 2009, "YouTube" announced that it would be mandating that all users switch to the "beta channel" format. The response to the blog and companion introductory video was overwhelmingly negative, with the video receiving a one-and-a-half star rating and around 30,000 comments, around 95% of them being negative. The blog received the same reaction in its 66,000 comments.
In fact, the "beta" channels were so buggy that YouTube had no choice but to postpone the changeover. For two months nothing happened. Had the users won? Would these arrogant jerks at ArchonTube realize that customer feedback was nearly-one sided on the negative? Would the user base be able to keep the old channels, that worked extremely well since the site's inception? Would they honor the old maxim: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"
Nope. As expected, ArchonTube gave no care to the wishes of its customers and proceeded to go ahead and make the change anyway. My channel got hit last night.
The beta channel affair should make it clear once and for all now that YouTube is no longer the free market that honors individual initiative that it once was. It has become entirely fascized/corporatized. It is the same in name only, and while proceeding to make stupid changes that apparently only anger the user base, YouTube has been beset with numerous glitches, the most recent one having comments disappear. But ArchonTube is of course, too busy switching its customers into a new format that they don't seem to care about something so basic as this.
The writing is on the wall: YouTube needs to fail. It has treated its customers like crap for years. It believes that it's the only game in town, and unfortunately, it is somewhat right in that assessment. It still has the largest market share in its genre...by far. For this reason, it still has the most people congregating and networking, and this is why I'm still there for the most part: my channel is beginning to grow and I want to get more people onto the anti-state ship, and in all fairness, uploading and viewing videos there is still surprisingly, extremely simple.
However, its new methods of operation should not be tolerated. Like any business that treats its customers badly, people should vote with their feet, and a huge amount are already extremely dissatisfied with the direction the site has been going, especially the older users that have been around for a long time, like myself. The time is ripe for serious competitors to emerge if they can play their cards right, and rest assured I am looking for them.
confederalsocialist's Fringe Elements is a good place for anti-statists of all stripes to congregate, and is a nice way to begin detaching from ArchonTube. Perhaps a sort of video Agorism to promote competitors, marketed toward older users first might be a good way to begin to slay this dragon.
