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Posted by geerlingguy 9/9/2025

YouTube is a mysterious monopoly(anderegg.ca)
370 points | 478 commentspage 5
xnx 9/10/2025|
YouTube is great, but most content is unwatchable at 1.0x speed. Without the Video Speed Controller extension (still better than the built-in speed controls), I doubt I'd watch at all.
whatevaa 9/9/2025||
Good luck competing with youtube. They are something called natural monopoly. Even if you get the technicals right, networks effects will kick in. You would need to bring in something revoliutonary to get people to move. Or youtube to fuck up something really badly.

And getting the technicals right won't be easy. Video delivery is not text. Will need dedicated datacenters if you ever get popular and want to keep prices under control. It's expensive.

djrj477dhsnv 9/10/2025||
TikTok and Instagram seem to be doing just fine..
bl4kers 9/10/2025||
Grayjay can neutralize the network effect
gitprolinux 9/10/2025||
I try and compete with https://UltraHotTV.com but it's not youtube in name.
mrkramer 9/10/2025||
YouTube's biggest strength is its scale; there is no web service out there that let's you upload literally unlimited amount of data for free.
baxuz 9/10/2025||
YouTube needs to be broken up and have the video hosting separate from the viewing platform itself.
MinimalAction 9/9/2025||
YouTube is a marvelous platform. I know how to live life, thanks to the innumerable passionate souls that produced relevant content and put their voice out there. This library of videos never fails to amaze me on how many weird, fun, informative tidbits of humanity it contains. As much as it is a for-profit endeavor, I wholeheartedly support this well managed space.
syncsynchalt 9/10/2025|
I watch my son grow up learning to DIY from youtube videos. I'm marveling at the wealth of instructional video he has easy access to, and I wish I had it too when I had my first home, learned to work on my first car, etc.
game_the0ry 9/10/2025||
Is it really a monopoly if alternatives like rumble and vimeo exist?
p1necone 9/10/2025||
It's a hard question to answer for products that rely on user created content like this.

Rumble and vimeo provide basically the same service, but if you got fed up with YouTube and wanted to take your money (eyeballs) elsewhere, you can't, because rumble and vimeo don't have the same content at all. And if you were a creator you can't take your content elsewhere because there's no viewers.

game_the0ry 9/17/2025||
My follow up question would be - was the content ever that good or did you need the help from the platform?

Solid content has solid fans. Solid fans follow the content creator, not the platform.

ChrisMarshallNY 9/10/2025||
I prefer Vimeo, as a content publisher, but I don’t monetize, nor have I posted many vids. I’ve simply used the “pro” option, which I have recently let lapse.

I just feel that Vimeo’s video quality is better, and it gives more direct control of the content.

But I do so little video work, that it hasn’t been worth it to maintain the subscription.

whywhywhywhy 9/10/2025||
Have you looked at Vimeo lately? It's hard to tell it even serves videos anymore, the platform part is completely hidden unless you get a direct link.
ChrisMarshallNY 9/10/2025||
No, but that doesn’t matter to me, because I only ever used it as a CDN for my videos, anyway.
Frieren 9/10/2025||
People cannot deal with today's complexity.

I have seen the argument: all my games in Steam, all my movies in Netflix, all my videos on YouTube, etc.

To have to pick and choose between different apps makes everything more complex, and it is too much for the average user that has other things to worry about.

All this is really bad for capitalism, as it creates monopolies that no competition can fight against. It concentrates power and eliminates competition.

E-mail is still alive because it is the one place that one can get registration messages, invoices, goverment communications, etc. It is based on a standard so I can use my own provider but interact with all the rest of the world without caring what do they use. This is the future of the web.

For example, I should be able to download any movie app an see all the movies from Sony Pictures and Disney, and Ghibli, and all of them. Once purchased, I should be able to see all of them in the same app. The standard offers interfaces so I can choose one provider that connects to the world. Prices are the same on all apps, but they can differentiate themselves thru localization, recommendations, etc. This is feasible but it requires strong regulatory intervention as current monopolies are the best option to maximize profit and eliminate competition.

Ads are also perfectly fine to finance on-line videos. It is the tracking and invasive privacy practices what is dystopian and horrifying. Most of the revenue of YouTubers comes anyway by paying users (Patreon, etc.) or external traditional ads (NordVPN, SkillShare, etc.) that still ask for metrics for the channel but are not individually targeted.

Standards over platforms is the only possible future, but it will require to topple down the current status quo and that is what is difficult to do.

edg5000 9/10/2025|
This. Email and text is one of those things were you are not stuck to a single provider. Anything closed and proprietary is a problem. I'd say this is also the case for banking. Banks often require Google Play or iOS, severely constraining the user. Governments somehow need to put a stop to this, especially in the EU where we are becoming a US colony due to all our IT being in the hands of US companies. We need to take back control!
Funes- 9/10/2025||
Every monopoly is predicated upon abusive, anti-competitive and unlawful practices, as well as exemptions and unearned subsidies from governments. Always. Many people aligning with megacorporations wouldn't support "capitalism" if the playing field was even.
jahooligan 9/10/2025|
YouTube is broken plain to see and simple from my pov since 2019 at least as is ggl search. It is awful.

Hijack data-centers with Gorillas. re-claim the community ...

Insanity 9/10/2025|
Have no idea what your last sentence means.. But that said - if you're claiming that YT search is broken I wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand how search on YT can be so bad given that it's owned by a search engine company.

Then again, their search engine is also subpar nowadays.. :)

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