Ehh, it was fun while it lasted

Excuse me while I channel Mark Cuban for a bit and offer an opinion on YouTube…

Reports are that YouTube are now changing the face of it’s system to accommodate the desires and wishes of it’s new content partners. (and here ‘content partners’ really means ‘plaintiffs in waiting’). The idea is to make the folks at CBS all nice and comfy with a sanitized version of the voice that is collectively known as the “YouTube user community”- a community that is often cited as YT’s most critical asset. So let’s see, you quash the voice of your greatest asset to please the sharks who don’t like how your greatest asset use or communicate about their assets. Hrmm. article here.

In other words, they’re selling out. I give YT less than a year to become exactly like every other media/content gatekeeper. They’ll still allow the posting of ‘user generated content’, but I am guessing that the halcyon days of an anonymous YT user posting a fun little clip or short film only to be discovered and feted are numbered. (man that’s an awkward sentence but i don’t know another way to say it.). OK, here’s another way to say it: if you have a short film and you want to ride the success wave of an arbitrary front page listing on YT then you better get crackin’. As time goes by you’ll see more and more corporate content and less and less user content on that front page. And with that will also go the most viewed, most favorites, etc. In other words, the chances of making a ‘hit’ are gonna go down for the average joe schmoe. YT will turn into your typical glitzy corporate storefront, just with a huge stockroom of mismatched sizes in the back.

Or maybe not. I’ve been wrong before.