Moreover, remember when the motto of the site was “Broadcast Yourself?” I sure as hell do, and at this stage the platform is about as far away from what It was when it started as is possible — it went from being just a simple place to share videos, to a place to really be creative and share what you made with the world, to now, in effect, being a modern form of the very “mainstream” media it once fought against! This isn’t just to do with the site owners, and management itself — it has to do with the user base and creators as well. In a sense, everything and everyone, virtually, has helped to change the site into what it is, be it intentionally or incidentally simply via its use — we’re all to blame.
Think back to around 2007 and later, when YouTube had just been recently purchased by Google but was, in effect, still a “Wild West” of random content – people throwing whatever they could at the wall to see what would stick. This was the era of early AVGN, of Tay Zonday and Chocolate Rain, of Boxxy, and similar mixtures of viral content, entertainment products from one-off creators, and just whatever the hell people wanted to create. It was a time when widescreen video was new, and HD uploads were still a bit away — that’s right 480P widescreen was the best quality people could go for, so no one really focused on video quality beyond where they needed to — the rest was all down to the content itself, and things were, honestly, great.
As a viewer, you could actually find interesting, unique content. Algorithms hadn’t buried all the videos that would be considered non-profitable to Google and, given the much lower total upload rates as compared to today, you at least had a chance of seeing something special as you would browse.
As a creator, you could upload content without much concern to needing it to be super polished — no one expected professional grade video for the most basic of stuff, they just watched things that interested them. Everything was “equal” in a sense, and you knew people who actually might enjoy your video would see it.
It was pretty cool for everyone — you could find stuff to enjoy, and if you made stuff people who like it would enjoy it. It was win-win for everyone.
Then the site began to grow at a pretty reasonable rate, as more and more people began using it. This coincided with the rise in smartphones in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s and that’s when the first shifts began to happen — content being created began to change, to be a bit more “basic” in a way — more normal, is another way to look at it. The more “Mainstream” media had finally begun to take interest, and this was latched onto by Google. Their partner program, already well established on the site but limited to more influential creators, began to take precedence over the user experience and the value of the “little guy” creating content.
These more “valuable” creators soon became the main ones people saw. Sure, they were sub-divided into their little categories, but it became a case where a person was far more likely to see X over Y person, especially if X was a big-time creator — the lesser people would just get buried by the system, not suggested in anything but direct video topic searches. That isn’t the way most discover new content — the “related” section is, so when the related videos are all other major creators, well, what’s a small-timer to do?
Sure, the partner program was eventually opened up to everyone for a good number of years, but by that time the system had already begun to be so dominated by revenue focused creators and brands who cared more about raw views, statistics, and earnings, than actual content. Sure, the quality of the content from a production standpoint improved, but it was effectively the complete opposite of the kind of content which had come before. Things had changed from a wild west of people just having fun to everything being systematic; formulated; procedural, all to please an algorithm and milk every cent.
Pandering to the masses became the norm, and as this happened the more unique content got pushed to the wayside. It was adapt, assimilate, or be lost in the mix and, as time would pass, become seen as an archaic joke of a creator. Fans of the more classic content began to find that they really couldn’t find creators who seemed to still have that genuine “for the fun of it” trait about them, likely because for many it stopped being fun – by 2015 things had gone completely the opposite of what they were, and by this point even the expectations of the bulk of the audience had changed to where you really can’t “broadcast yourself” like you used to – doing such, with the way the system is now, will see your video on the screens of people who won’t appreciate it, for some backwards reason, meaning where in the past it used to be easy to get a small fanbase, these days if you don’t pander to every single trend you won’t get shit for views and those you do get will be nothing but childish hate.
The content is all too similar, as well – everyone begging for you to like the video, subscribe, hit the notification bell and watch more — all shit that I shouldn’t have to be told every damn video to do. I’m not an idiot, I know how YouTube works and between that and the constant promotions for things like Raid Shadow Legends in every remotely “big” content creators videos, I feel more like I’m watching network TV than ever before, even when I still watched TV of any real caliber.
It’s… incredible, to say the least, the complete 180 that YouTube has done. The above was a scattered rant about how things have changed over the past, oh, 13 years of me being on the site in some capacity, and I only scratched the surface, but really, I remember when I could always find something to watch. and when I felt like it was even worth my time to create and upload a video. These days, I find myself more bored (and annoyed) with the site than ever before. I’ve watched some content creators change so much I can’t even stand them, I’ve watched smaller creators try their best then just give up because it’s such an uphill battle, all while other people seem to come out of nowhere and just take over the scene. This is its own problem, the worship of these people and the belief that whatever they think or say is always correct simply because they have large follower counts, but that’s another story for another time.
It’s hard to put into words, but if you were around for this time, you may well be able to see what I mean in all this. Yeah, this has been quite the rant, and yes, I’m fully aware it barely scratches the surface on the details of all this; it was never meant to. I needed something to write today, and it might as well have been another “YouTube sucks” post, because it does suck: It sucks to be a small time creator, and unless you like generic flavor-of-the-week trite, it sucks to be a viewer as well. It could easily be so much better, but no… it had to pan out like this.