YouTube vs Free Speech,

Something interesting I found…

When Google first bought out YouTube a few years ago I didn’t think much of it. But then they gradually started making YouTube more and more commercialized instead of being the user-created content network they were originally supposed to be. (Broadcast Yourself, not Watch Companies Broadcast Their Videos)

If you’ve noticed, the front page’s Featured Videos are now dominated by commercial companies’ videos, channels such as NationalGeographic, CBS, ABC, etc etc etc. Before these were all videos created by everyday users and vloggers that the staff of YouTube found interesting. Not anymore, Good Job Google, way to promote the videos of those who pay you.

The Popular category is also annoying. What’s the difference between Popular and Most Viewed or Top Rated? ‘Popular’ videos used to be the page you first got when you clicked the Video button under the search bar, and before that it was the Most Viewed videos. I’m pretty sure Popular is where all the endorsed videos go, and Most Viewed is the true ‘Popular’ category where the user-created content is. However since the Popular videos end up with many hits anyways, they’re also on the Most Viewed page and take up the space where user videos should be.

Ech. Maybe another video sharing network website will pop up some time in the future. The only problem being that YouTube pretty much dominates the videos of the Internet now..

~ by Vestrel on October 19, 2009.