Of all of the issues people have with Google, when I think about the potential they have squandered the biggest failure has to be YouTube. This thing could’ve changed video-based media industries across the world in a lot of big ways and yet here we are, no better than before.
@simonwoods Completely agree. I think one key reason for this is the lack of competition. Whatever they did, it was just enought for both creators and consumers to stay or wasn't enough for them to leave.
@simonwoods Oh absolutely. It could have been Netflix, but it’s mostly garbage instead (although to be fair, there’s a lot of good stuff on their for particular hobbies like home brewing, electronics and mini computers)
@AlanRalph It appears Google has been little more than a data-harvesting company for a long time now so I'm unsure if it was ever a good fit insofar as the cultural side of things are concerned; although I do wonder about the context, what with the whole Silicon Valley/USA socio-economic dynamic.
@amit Agreed. This is one of those subjects that always makes me think about the seemingly cattle-like behaviour of our species and then I feel disheartened and lose faith in the idea that "it can be improved from within", as some people like to claim.
@yorrike It could have fed Netflix. There is so much talent throughout all of YouTube and the people in charge appear to do their best to just make everything difficult. I agree there's lots of good stuff on there, for sure, but now I think even the most pro-YouTube publishers on the platform think of it more as a starting point rather than a reliable destination for their ambitions.