Is YouTube Going Away?

YouTube appears to be on its way out - as least as we know it today. The following is speculative although not purely conjecture. There are some supporting facts.

YouTube recently came under fire for running ads alongside "offensive content", including hate speech and other controversial topics which advertisers did not want associated with their brands.

user link on blog.google

A "restricted mode" has been in place on YouTube for a while. The criteria for what videos will be hidden in restricted mode has been expanded since the advertiser boycott against Google.

There has also been an effort to eliminate "fake news" from social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The definition of fake news has been somewhat nebulous and some believe the definition includes conservative news sources.

YouTube has also come under fire for censoring LGBTQ+ content under restricted mode, which some LGBTQ+ advocates say is harmful for young people looking for support groups.

YouTube Red launched on October 28, 2015 and offers ad-free, pay-only content by popular YouTube channels. There was some talk soon after the launch of some famous YouTube channels being threatened with effective take downs if they did not agree to participate:

user link on techcrunch.com

YouTube TV is a new service that is going to launch soon: user link on tv.youtube.com This is a major move by YouTube to follow Hulu and Netflix in offering regular, mainstream television content for a paid subscription.

Hulu discontinued free, ad-supported content in 2016 and plans to launch a live TV service in 2017: user link on www.yahoo.com

Google has not been profitable with YouTube since buying it in 2006: user link on www.engadget.com With almost 5 billion videos viewed every day (some with ad-blocking software in use), the annual cost of running YouTube is $6.35 billion but the annual revenue generated from YouTube is only $4 billion.

With this in mind, it appears that Google is taking YouTube in the same direction as Hulu and Netflix. Google is not likely to continue with a $2 billion per year loss through YouTube. As YouTube operates right now, anyone can upload a very large number of videos on a regular basis and monetization is optional. This means that Google cannot generate revenue with unmonetized content.

To make YouTube profitable, channels will either be forced to monetize (and, therefore, have only monetizable content - no controversial or otherwise advertiser-shunned material) or join YouTube Red.

The effect this will have goes beyond a tighter control over video content on YouTube - it will eventually mean that YouTube will discontinue hosting non-monetizable content. It is likely that YouTube itself will eventually undergo a re-branding as a result.

Those hosting content on YouTube may face the need to relocate their videos in the coming two or three years.

YouTube's been going downhill for quite some time, now. I see a lot of stupid junk on there but also a lot of conflict and spam content. Lots of channels breaking the terms of service, too.

It doesn't surprise me that it's not profitable. Think of all the hardware involved and how much storage space YouTube has to use. There's no upload limits so, yeah, duh, makes sense the costs of running the site are ridiculous.

It also doesn't shock me that their ad revenue sucks, relatively. Most people are using ad blockers these days and I don't see that changing.

The question is: Where are people going to move from YouTube? Google / YouTube have had a monopoly, more or less, for quite a few years. I mean, there's Vimeo and Dailymotion, but those sites don't have nearly the user base or the features YouTube has.

I started to see the writing on the wall a couple of weeks ago but also thought something was going on when YouTube Red started.

I've started moving my videos over to Vidme and will eventually remove my YouTube channel at some point.

My main problem with YouTube is all the bullying content. The "cringe" compilation channels are little more than bullying. Also, instead of political debate, I see a lot of hateful ranting and name-calling on YouTube. I don't want peoples' opinions censored; it's just not much fun to see all of the back-and-forth without anything productive coming out of it.

Google is also pushing their political beliefs through YouTube and, while they are certainly free to do so, I'm not particularly interested in it.

As for the demonetization, one of my videos had its monitization revoked years ago without any explanation so I just kind of gave up on the whole idea.

YouTube does appear to be a sinking ship but it remains to be seen whether it's a Lusitania or a Titanic.

I see most of the current generation of social media going away at some point in the future. Think of MySpace... it worked just fine but Facebook and Twitter came along. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube will all meet the same fate soon after the next big fad hits.

About the censorship and bullying, those are two sides of the same coin that's killing a lot of the Internet right now. One comes in response to the other, then both get more extreme.

Personally I don't spend much time on YouTube and I don't use social media at all. Not even a Twitter or Facebook account. Hell, I don't even have a personal Google account anymore.

De-centralized Internet works best for me, hence why I hang around here.

On Friday, March 31st, 2017 at 1:44 am, Wolfwood29 said:

Same here and that's where I think things are headed.

Twitter is on the decline due to political conflicts, censorship, and actual harassment. Both political extremes have been fighting on social media so much that I think most of the public will reach a point of psychological fatigue. Very little constructive debate has happened (at least of which I'm aware) over the Internet and I can't imagine much interest in continuing as things are.

Even small forums like this one will continue to decline. I'd say Twitter will either shut down or go largely unused in about three years from now. Facebook is likely to experience the same fate. YouTube... well, just see the first post in this thread; I think that's an accurate representation of what's happening with that site.

Honestly, I would guess that most Internet users will gravitate more toward private conversations (well, private if encryption is properly used) and these large public forums, including YouTube, will decline rapidly in use not only for financial reasons but by user preference.