Opinion Piece: The Downfall and Commercialization of YouTube
As a social media manager and, more importantly, a person who lives on the internet, I feel like I can make a pretty good observation when it comes to the ever-changing internet environment. I had predicted Facebook’s demise a decade — or even longer — ago, and I see the same pattern now for YouTube: since the pandemic, cool people are slowly abandoning YouTube, which is a huge red flag when it comes to the longevity of a platform. Sure, with all the funds behind it, even Facebook survived to this day. Some communities naturally discover and adopt it later than others, so it’s not completely dead — but when there’s no fresh blood, that thing is bound to rot and eventually die.
It’s a whole other discussion topic to argue whether any platform can be permanent on the internet — or at least very long-lived. In theory, it seems almost impossible. Since the internet is a relatively new environment, we are still in the process of creating our culture there. Our needs and wants change all the time, as technology moves forward every second.
Who has time to watch a 30-minute YouTube video when there’s a TikTok explaining the same thing in under 20 seconds?
In this opinion piece, I will try to explain why I think YouTube’s place in this scene is slowly changing for the worse.
A Short History of YouTube and Why It Was Great
Founded in 2004 when Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction on the VMAs, with the premise of “uploading a video somewhere so people can re-watch it”, YouTube quickly became “internet’s television” and, later on, a completely new industry of its own, offering people the chance to upload their videos on the site and become “content creators”.
It was more fun than TV because, at that point, television had become so commercialized and fatigued, that people were astonished by the new internet TV where they could watch people like themselves do silly things, real people reporting real news, and a familiar-looking guy making comedy. It was sweet times, and when the platform grew enough, it started handing out an incentive to creators who made their platform great (Broadcast Yourself era), the so-called “YouTubers” who would get a share of profit based on their views. This opened doors for so many great people like Jenna Marbles, Pewdiepie, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, Mr. Beast, and many others. In a world where we only had advertise-ridden TV series to look forward to, we suddenly had lots of videos to watch from people all over the world.
It is exactly this concept that I think is at risk of becoming extinct.
Reasons for YouTube’s Downfall
First and foremost, people nowadays have so many more things to watch, both online and on TV. Do you want to catch up with your new Netflix/Prime/Disney/Hulu show, want to scroll your life away on TikTok, or catch a soccer match on TV?
Our time is the most limited it has ever been when it comes to leisure time activities.
This means that, in the end, today, YouTube has gained many more competitors.
My second argument is the so-called “fresh blood” aspect, aka the new YouTubers. Becoming a YouTuber is harder than ever and pays off less than ever. Creators have been complaining for years about the copyright aspect and the decrease in income. If you think about how hard it is nowadays to record, edit, post, and plan for a whole YouTube channel (and don’t even get me started on how hard it is to find your “niche”), it is a crazy man’s endeavor to start a YouTube channel from scratch. On top of that, add the pressure of competition that corporations bring with million-dollar budgets and an infinite workforce behind them.
The initial premise of “real people uploading real videos” is history.
As soon as brands found out that “being on YouTube is cool”, they started swarming the platform with content they produce for their own purposes — which, can be nice at times — but it made for the “fresh blood” of beginner YouTubers’ jobs thousandfold harder.
With the OG YouTubers leaving the platform after getting fewer and fewer views, remaining YouTubers being burned out from working as a one-man for a full team’s job, and not as many new people having the strength to take on the challenge of creating their own channels, YouTube does not seem like a thriving platform anymore. If anything, it is not so different than the good old TV nowadays: You have your ads, you have the companies trying to sell you something, and you have some big names who made their place years ago who also get the biggest bucks.
My Prediction
This is not to say that the numbers can prove my point. The statistics still look very good for YouTube (just like it did for Facebook as well, for many years). The platform is growing and more people are on it these days.
However, I would argue that those numbers only show the status quo and are not a good indicator of the longevity of a social media platform. To me, that indicator is the “willingness of the younger generation to engage and create for” a platform. Sadly, this is a very difficult standard to live up to, and YouTube seems not to be doing so great at it already. What I predict of YouTube’s future is a “Wikipedia +TV” video space where we can find the information we look for, but not necessarily spend the majority of our free time in. Let’s see in a few years if I will be proven wrong.
