YouTube
Like any other "new frontier," YouTube was once a place where anybody, and I mean anybody, could publish their stuff and try their luck at fame and glory. Indeed, it was especially helpful for musicians, and quite a few "YouTube personalities" popped up at the time. A lot of teenagers especially flocked to it, and as a result, there was a lot of inspired, if unprofessional videos.
As the years passed on though, it inevitably got big enough to the point where big companies became interested in YouTube, and in just a year's time, the website went from being a haven for the amateur to yet another front for companies and their professionals. Now the truth is, it's not quite right for me to blame Google; Google bought it from the folks who made YouTube because those folks had no clue how to make their increasingly massive website profitable, but Google knew how to do just that. They added lots of ads, and that's to be expected honestly. Furthermore, a simple look through history reveals it is true of all new mediums that it goes from being an amateur playground to a serious-face professional front.
Really where Google has gone wrong is trying to force Google Plus down everyone's (unwilling) throats. Google tried to buy Facebook, Facebook said no (God bless them). Google then made Google Plus, and, realizing no one gave a damn, began integrating Google Plus with YouTube. An especially unpopular move was when they made it so only those with Google Plus could comment on YouTube videos. It's only a matter of time before they go further and further with this, but I do believe they are digging their own grave; YouTube has declined in popularity as of late, and Facebook has pretty much won the "biggest social media website" competition. They wrestled it from MySpace and they're here to stay.
After YouTube's millions of video game "let's play" videos were cut down upon, big time, by Google. A lot of video game companies were angry about this, because while Google claims that it "hurts the gaming companies," this is anything but the truth; the gaming companies figure that people will watch others play a video game, and be inspired to buy it themselves. Meanwhile Google argues that many "let's play" videos reveal so much of the gameplay, often literally front-to-back, that there is no need for a consumer to buy a game after having watched it start to finish.
Rumor has it that Google is now trying to acquire Twitch. Twitch is a streaming service wherein people typically stream their video game playing and people enjoy watching the streamer play and commentate. Twitch has been on the (rather dramatic and impressive) rise for the past year.
Discuss.
@meagloth
As the years passed on though, it inevitably got big enough to the point where big companies became interested in YouTube, and in just a year's time, the website went from being a haven for the amateur to yet another front for companies and their professionals. Now the truth is, it's not quite right for me to blame Google; Google bought it from the folks who made YouTube because those folks had no clue how to make their increasingly massive website profitable, but Google knew how to do just that. They added lots of ads, and that's to be expected honestly. Furthermore, a simple look through history reveals it is true of all new mediums that it goes from being an amateur playground to a serious-face professional front.
Really where Google has gone wrong is trying to force Google Plus down everyone's (unwilling) throats. Google tried to buy Facebook, Facebook said no (God bless them). Google then made Google Plus, and, realizing no one gave a damn, began integrating Google Plus with YouTube. An especially unpopular move was when they made it so only those with Google Plus could comment on YouTube videos. It's only a matter of time before they go further and further with this, but I do believe they are digging their own grave; YouTube has declined in popularity as of late, and Facebook has pretty much won the "biggest social media website" competition. They wrestled it from MySpace and they're here to stay.
After YouTube's millions of video game "let's play" videos were cut down upon, big time, by Google. A lot of video game companies were angry about this, because while Google claims that it "hurts the gaming companies," this is anything but the truth; the gaming companies figure that people will watch others play a video game, and be inspired to buy it themselves. Meanwhile Google argues that many "let's play" videos reveal so much of the gameplay, often literally front-to-back, that there is no need for a consumer to buy a game after having watched it start to finish.
Rumor has it that Google is now trying to acquire Twitch. Twitch is a streaming service wherein people typically stream their video game playing and people enjoy watching the streamer play and commentate. Twitch has been on the (rather dramatic and impressive) rise for the past year.
Discuss.
@meagloth
6
Comments
Nintendo is pretty much the one gaming company to agree with Google about taking down Let's Play videos. Last I heard, Nintendo was looking to "work with their fans" by allowing let's play videos and receiving a tithe. I've already taken a dislike for Nintendo in rather recent years, so this just solidifies my low opinion of Nintendo that they are a bunch of entitled juicebags who still think it's 1998, when they were on top of the world.
YouTube also integrated an algorithm, I want to say a couple years back, that made it so you can only load so much of a video without pressing the play button. I understand this is to save them bandwidth, but as I have slow internet, this annoys me greatly.
I miss videos like this:
Facebook is another thing I hate, they only care about making money and getting your pics in the hands of the FBI.
Hence my love for websites like G3, this forums, SHS, PPG and the liking, no ads, no need to profit and BG related.
Also, silly videos are my favs from YT!! Besides live shows that were recorded before I was born :P
The changes have made it suck more and now when there're tons of ads in the videos I might watch them on another website with a better format.
Now it's just vloggers in some shape or form and tonnes of big companies' products
Good luck getting any shred of decent feedback on a video too. Most comments fall under the category of "This sucks", "It doesnt suck youre wrong", "This is cool" or "I know that guy"
Also, ratings system has changed, that means you can't get a view of the quality of the video. Instead of the 5 star system, they went to a yay or nay system, and you cannot see the ratings before you click to watch the video. Which means you may stumble into a vid that was complete and utter poo and never know it because of the changes.
The Recommended For You section is also a bit odd, since the recommendations usually have nothing to do with the video it relates itself to.
Youtube was better before Google bought it. If only there was an alternative.
What made YT go wrong is, in my opinion, not only Google+. It started much earlier, although I think after google bought YT. Anyone aside from me appreciated and remembered how videos had star-system rating, which never felt really dumbed down? Now you basically have "I hate it" or "I love it" option, meaning that you can't express yourself as well as before. Second, the layout became more and more unpractical and ugly with every major update. Thrid, the channels. I mean, earlier it was highly customizeable. You could change what section of your channel could be viewed and what not. You could choose the background, colours pallete, you could choose what was transparent and what not, you could choose the font your channels used. Also, comment section was much more clear and practical. Thanks to that, each channel felt unique and different, and users could express themselves by them. Now, all we have are ugly, barely customizeable "things" that aren't feeling very different to YT main site. What people from Google were thinking? "You wanted to express yourself? Are you mad?! What for?!"
What I also dislike is YT "partnership". Don't get me wrong, I'm not envious that people are able to make money from YouTube. In fact, that's great. I think that always give people alternatives to "typical" money earning, spiritual-suiciding rutine. But thanks to that, no one is on YT to express themselves anymore, or to actually WORK for their watchers. Instead, people are after money, and are often sacrificing their dignity by begging for subscriptions, cuz' they obviously want money. Also, I don't have anything about ads and such, if they are for the site to make money. But it's infuriating when I'm forced to watch advertisement of the user I never knew, never cared and I would never care about him or his channel's content. In short: YT is not for hobbists anymore. It's for subscribtion vampires.
It's not like you can't find a good entertaiment (and more!) on YouTube nowadays. Even if every YouTuber begs for subscribtion, I don't mind subscribing those in which content I am interested in. It's just that I subscribe them, because they make good content I would want to watch regularly.
And about all that copyright issues... People should be allowed to use TV/DVD clips, gameplays, fragments by the law of fair use. Meaning, no making money on content that's not yours, unless you are like reviewer and at the same time are promoting content of the original owner. Because, reviewer is also a job, I think.
Sorry if it's too long and sorry for not adding tl;dr. It's against my policy and style.