I assume the plan from day one was make a very appealing platform at a loss, gain a moat from a huge library of good content, then squeeze the profit out of it.
It's a deceptive business model, and people feel deceived and no longer want to do business with that company (surprise!).
The thing is video hosting at scale is still a pain, I have a YouTube account because I have a Google account so they never nagged me to create one, and almost all their content is still free in unlimited amounts. I'm not sure I've ever paid YouTube a dollar directly even though I watch it daily.
There may be some similarities (like when they used to let people upload full movies and TV shows), but it is a big stretch to paint YouTube and Medium with the same brush.
>I have a YouTube account because I have a Google account so they never nagged me to create one
hmm, not sure what you mean. I have a gmail account from early early days, and I've never created a youtube account. I would've accepted it if they forced it on me, but given the choice I've never seen a reason to create one. They nag me to create one if I forget and try to upvote, or comment, and they nag me for subscribing on the regular also.
perhaps if I created a gmail account later on it would come with youtube?
While there definitively _are_ similarities, this example (as far as I’m concerned) is a perfect illustration of a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and that Medium - as opposed to YT - unfortunately did cross.
I’m personally trying to avoid Medium links because of the 3-article-max/month paywall applied to my account, but clicking on a YT link isn’t a problem for me.
Why? Go figure! I’ll have to deal with the ad(s) - more and more so! - and a request to test YT-premium, but the net benefit is felt like positive for me at the end of the day.
And for them too I guess!
Medium should invest in UX study, get to know better their targeted users and implement a paywall that is _just_ painful enough so that it doesn’t cause the customers to associate your brand with a negative concept.
You can trick us into paying, but do it nice and sweet! We want to feel like you deserve it, not that we got forced.
"This video has been removed because of youtube policies".
This is the exact same thing: shitification.
Make a cool product at a loss then make it shitier to use to bring as much money as you can before enough users exit to break your network effect. You can even make it last longer by making it as hard as possible for your users to leave.
If the process is not entirely clear to you, look at Twitter. (Elon Musk is incredibly not-subtle at this). Everyone of those monopolies are "too big too fail" until it does. Yahoo was like this. Tumblr was like this. Facebook and Twitter were considered as indestructible gods yesterday: they look incredibly fragile now (I’m teaching to CS students and they consider facebook as "the thing used by their grandparents"). Youtube is indestructible? Every single creator is complaining about having video removed/unmonetized while every single person I know is baffle and annoyed at the number of advertising they get. Wait for the moment when people will hear about Peertube.
What most people fail to realize is that "failing" is never a big nova disappearance. It’s more subtle, becoming slightly more irrelevant. Yahoo is still there after all. Youtube/Facebook will still be there in 10 years. (while some may even wonder if Twitter will still exist next year). I keep hearing that "mastodon will never replace Twitter" while it already has: there are now more links to toot on HN homepage than links to tweets.
What few realize that it is all part of the plan when running a VC business. You have the "invest phase" (everything is free, growth at all cost) then the "cashing phase" (aka "shitification"). VC never invest without an horizon. So, sooner or later, money will flew out and the whole thing will fall. People miss it because the brand usually keep a residual value which keep the light on.
That’s why the only long-term sustainable solution is free software. Free software are the only software that can stay successful for several decades (sometimes without major changes in their architecture, which is awesome when you think about it).
That’s why, all in all, Medium must fail. It’s all part of the plan. I was lured in myself years ago but I painfully exported all my medium content to my own blog. It took me years to realize that any centralized platform is one signature away of being elon-musked.
> That’s why the only long-term sustainable solution is free software. Free software are the only software that can stay successful for several decades (sometimes without major changes in their architecture, which is awesome when you think about it).
Free software isn't enough though, we need publicly run platforms that are not driven by profit interests. I think the only way this can work long term is if those platforms are sufficiently decentralized that the damage can be "repaired" when individual instances fall.
The alternative would be government- or non-profit-run infrastructure, but I am not confident that that will hold up against money interests. See e.g. ICANN and the increasingly monetized domain name system or the sellout of Freenode how money can corrupt or take over such centralized platforms.
You are framing it as if money is the root of the problem. But it's not the case. It would be cheaper for Youtube to not ban anyone. It would be cheaper not to spend money on algorithms and people that post something they don't like. They don't make money - at least not directly - by controlling the narrative of public discussion and distorting it to their liking. They get something which is very important to somebody who already has the money - power. With power, they can ensure they keep the money, and also enjoy all the benefits of being rich and powerful. If you think getting the government to rule it would be better, you are deluded. Government is concentrated power, so it would only multiply the problems, and since the government can not be replaced by something else (at least not without very much unpleasantness and shooting and other bad things), they would have zero interest in sharing their power with anybody else. And if you think you will be able to control this power by just voting once in two years, you are double deluded.
Censorship is a different issue. It is a political/culture war related, not denying me content because they want money from me, but denying me content because they think this content should not be available to anyone. It is a horrible thing, much worse than paywalling tbh, but completely different thing.
> I’m teaching to CS students and they consider facebook as "the thing used by their grandparents"
Mostly true, but that isn't that bad tbh. Grandparents have income, grandparents have time to spend, and grandparents aren't prone as much to jump to the next new shiny thing. True, they will eventually go away, but it's not going to happen very soon. So if that is true, Facebook has at least a decade, and maybe more because my generation (which would roughly be "parents" to your students) also uses FB, though much less now.
> I keep hearing that "mastodon will never replace Twitter" while it already has: there are now more links to toot on HN homepage than links to tweets.
Is there? I see two tweets links, and none of the "toots" (I will never get over the fact that this word means "fart"). I am no fan of twitter, but I am not sure how Mastodon would be better - all censorship fans are already there. I mean, you could use it as a blog, I guess, but why not just use a blog then?
> Free software are the only software that can stay successful for several decades
I was thinking that too, for a while. Until culture warriors started attacking the free software. Now I am not so sure. I mean, they probably won't be able to take down a huge project like Linux - too many people depend on it being there - but I am pretty sure they could destroy any smaller project. Think about it - how much abuse would a person be willing to take based on something they don't even get paid for?
Youtube has amazing infotainment right now. Its a super cool emergent phenomenon that there are soo many amazing niches filled by content creators putting out information dense 45 minute+ videos. I don't mind the ads in this case (vs some short clip), and they all seem to have sponsors as well.
I'm already less likely to click Youtube links than a (usually Fediverse-hosted) webm/mp4. I think innertia will keep them going for quite a while though but hopefully more sites will start hosting their own videos. And hopefully browsers will pull their head out of their collective behinds and fix the <video> tag so you can do statically hosted adaptive streaming without bringing your own HLS/DASH implementation.
It's a deceptive business model, and people feel deceived and no longer want to do business with that company (surprise!).