YouTube
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| Basic Information | |
|---|---|
| Release Year | 2005 |
| Product Type | Video sharing and streaming |
| In Production | Yes |
| Official Website | https://youtube.com |
YouTube, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, is a global video-sharing platform and one of the most visited websites in the world. Acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube has since become the dominant platform for sharing videos on the internet.
YouTube's business model is built around advertising revenue, with creators earning money through ad views, subscriptions, and other monetization options. The platform hosts a wide range of content, including music videos, tutorials, news, vlogs, and live streams. YouTube has also begun offering subscription services, such as YouTube Premium and YouTube TV, for ad-free experiences, exclusive content, and live television.[1]
YouTube has faced criticism and regulatory scrutiny on multiple fronts. Concerns have been raised about content moderation policies, the platform's role in the spread of misinformation, and its impact on user privacy, particularly in relation to data collection practices. Additionally, YouTube has been under fire for its algorithms, which some argue promote harmful or divisive content to maximize engagement.
Anticonsumer actions
Advertising overload in YouTube
- See also: Advertising Overload
Ads fund YouTube, but because the platform is run by a publicly shared parent company, it is forced to grow its revenue by any means necessary. This has led to advertisements becoming more pervasive on the platform such as an increasing number of spaces for static ads, longer ad breaks (which some users have documented being longer than the videos they watch), increased ad frequency in videos, and of course, poorer quality ads. Practices are also put into place in order to force non-paying users into seeing these ads as well, such as paywalling playing videos in the background. Even these paywalls are begining to lose their value, as users have reported seeing ads while paying for YouTube Premium.
Crackdown against adblock
Due to the platform's reliance on advertisements as a revenue stream, YouTube has been pushed into integrating more and more ads, especially those of dubious quality or ethics. This led to the increasing usage of adblocks on the platform. While remaining relatively niche in the beginning, Google eventually turned towards a tirade against adblockers.
It is reported that in Googles crackdown on ad-blockers some users are inexplicably receiving hour long advertisements, in which speculations rise are a crackdown on ad blocking extensions.[2]