Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news in the morning of August 22, Beijing time, few people know that YouTube originated from making friends online. One of the first ideas of YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Chen Shijun and Jawed Karim Karim was to provide a video site for people looking for a partner. However, the idea later gave way to home video. Now, YouTube seems to be more interested in professionally produced videos.

Many people may wonder why Google's platform needs TV channels and streaming content. The user-generated content (UGC) model has made YouTube one of the most popular websites in the world, with more than 2 billion monthly active users, far more than Netflix, Disney + and Apple TV + combined. YouTube has also attracted a large number of teenage users. According to the Pew Research Center, YouTube is the most popular social platform for American teenagers, even surpassing TikTok. In addition, the content on YouTube is free.

Television channels and streaming video services are at odds with YouTube's stated mission of "giving everyone a voice and showing them the world". However, the price of giving everyone a say has always been merciless criticism. The UGC model means that YouTube needs to maintain an impossible balance between promoting freedom of expression and censoring questionable content. In addition, the platform algorithm will also push videos containing extreme content to users. Netflix's programming may be expensive to produce, but it doesn't need to be criticized.

The problem for YouTube is that if these unpleasant videos are allowed to remain on the platform, the company will be criticized as irresponsible, and if the content is regulated, it will be accused of exceeding its authority.

YouTube has been defending auditing mechanisms and algorithms, while also reducing recommendations for content deemed to be "stepping on the line". Annie Chen of the City University of New York and other researchers have found that the viewers of most extremist content on YouTube are a small number of people who follow specific channels. In other words, these people are actually actively looking for this kind of content, rather than YouTube pushing it to users. Nevertheless, the view that YouTube encourages extremist ideas still exists.

In a new book about YouTube, like, comment, subscribe, to be published next month, Mark Bergen (Mark Bergen) explains that content censorship has been difficult from the start. It is also a painful task for YouTube employees to decide which videos to keep. When YouTube took a more aggressive stance on deleting videos in 2017, the company even allowed pet dogs to be brought to the office to reassure employees.

This year's criticism is all the more embarrassing because of the poor performance of YouTube's advertising business. Last quarter, YouTube's revenue grew by less than 5%, the lowest in two years. Advertisers are worried about the recession and market competition is intensifying. In fact, the slowdown in revenue growth is partly due to very strong performance in 2021, when the epidemic pushed up audience numbers. Other social media platforms have reported similar problems.

Compared with other big social media companies, however, YouTube's revenue doesn't look good either. If YouTube does have 2 billion monthly active users, that means revenue per user was less than $4 last quarter. The Meta index is almost twice that number.

Therefore, TV and streaming services are very attractive to YouTube. This part of the business can increase YouTube's revenue without increasing the pressure on content reviewers. So far, more than 5 million users have purchased YouTube TV paid packages. Although the monthly price of $64.99 is expensive, it includes more than 85 TV channels. There are media reports that YouTube is also developing a similar bundle for streaming services.

According to Nielsen, online streaming has become the most important way for Americans to watch TV. Not every technology company is willing to share data with YouTube, but YouTube should do well if it can integrate a variety of streaming services to solve the problem of difficult choice.

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