Remember this little corner of the internet called Myspace. If not you could be new to the world or internet which is fine but Myspace used to be the most visited social media web site in the world up until 2008 when its competition Facebook took the lead. At one point in time more people visited Myspace than Google. But that all changed when users discovered Facebook and much more better it was doing at connecting it to their friends. Part of the problem with Myspace is that it was originally designed for musicians to get their music to an audience, so it was run by a bunch of people in the entertainment industry. Facebook beat them out because it was a platform focused on social media by those in the technology field and was able to create better features for social media. Myspace now is ranked in the near 3000s in Alexa ranking for traffic, so needless to say not many people are in each others "extended networks" anymore.
How is Youtube might be going down this road
YouTube right now is the second most visited website in the world with billions of hours of video content. Videos posted on YouTube are everywhere too. Some of these videos you will get an advertisement, and if a certain number of people see your video with an advertisement you will get a certain amount of money. As some big name YouTube have learned there is a bit of a restriction as what can and can not earn money.
Most of these are eaither common sense or align with the YouTube policies in general. Some of them cross the line though with freedom of speech. Also there seems to be a "double" standard when it comes to enforcement of these policies. For instance if a news agency post a picture of a gory or bloody image there would be no penalization to them but if it was a individual content creator then all hell would break loose in their world. Some people depend on YouTube as a primary source of income, which should have been known to be inherently risky. Never the less there are some YouTube channels out there that provide quality family friendly content that are being flagged as of recent and threatening those individuals ability to earn an income. It would seem as those with a large audience of teens and pre-teens are sweating the most , as they should. Some channels designed to appeal to the more adult audience could rely on "donations" and get by with the content they are all ready making because that audience has more accesses to the money to do so.
Is what YouTube doing right?
Yes and no. Obviously a site with that magnitude without advertisement would bleed money super quick. So it is a necessary evil and they have provided an option to those who would rather not deal with capitalism with a monthly subscription option that disables all ads. I , myself, have YouTube Red and think it is a decent service, I have it in large because I am in the military and it is convenient to download videos to watch later when I know service will not be available. But YouTube needs to find a way to make sure that the content creators can keep making a living and advertisers can get to the correct audience. It really is not that hard, you would not put a video for a mobility scooter on Disney channel the same way you would not put a toy commercial on late night TV. If YouTube can not find a middle ground quick the content creators will take themselves and there few million viewers elsewhere, along with the money that comes with the ads. Whats your opinion on this? Will YouTube succeed or bow down to capitalism?
PS i have cute videos of my son on my youtube channel: patraicemery