> Google has the future of video in the palm of their hands but they don't understand and don't care. Typical of a bloated empire.

A little more reasoning would be appreciated.

Maybe I'll actually write something more substantive on the subject, there's a lot of depth to it. For now I'll just point out that many young creators in video are falling into the youtube sphere of influence.

A lot of independent video producers have switched from using their own proprietary video distribution systems to merely hosting their videos on youtube. The monetization difficulties are made up by the ease of distribution, network effect, and lower costs.

Also, there are a fair number of kickstarter projects where the end result is the creation of videos on youtube (such as Tropes vs Women). Within the Film & Video category on kickstarter many projects in all sub-categories will release their content on youtube and the webseries sub-category is almost entirely youtube projects. If youtube had better monetization models and improved ability to host paid and unpaid content almost all of those projects would host on youtube.

Consider the many musical acts that have risen to fame through exposure or maturation through youtube. Walk off the Earth, Julia Nunes, Pentatonix, and of course Justin Beiber being just a few examples among many.

Consider that Bon Jovi's song "Living on a Prayer" recently made its way back to #25 on Billboard's charts (27 years after release) almost entirely due to the popularity of a viral video on youtube of a fan at a Celtic's game dancing enthusiastically to the song.

(Edit: also look at the importance of youtube in the most widely heard pop music such as Psy's Gangnam Style, LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, etc. It's clear that youtube is as culturally relevant as MTV ever was, and that's just a tiny fraction of youtube's influence on the world.)

Or consider the veritable ecosystem of new funding platforms springing up to help creators using youtube to monetize and support their work (such as subbable.com, tested.com). Google's idea along these lines is to introduce pay walls, whereas almost every creator prefers to use more of a pledge drive / premium level model.

Google has tackled the technical bits of web video quite well. They built a system that handles video uploads at greater than 6,000x real-time (over 6,000 seconds of video are uploaded to youtube every second).

Youtube alone is responsible for nearly 1/5th of all internet traffic.

Stop and read that again, it's important. 1/5th of the usage of the entire internet is being dedicated to the use of youtube. And that figure is growing by double digit percentages year over year.

Unquestionably people are increasingly spending their video viewing hours watching content on youtube. And creators are increasingly turning to youtube as their distribution platform.

So yes, I'd say it's fair to say that there's a very strong case that youtube is the future of video. And yet google still treats it as a hindrance, as a second class citizen. As mentioned above creators are desperate for tools to help them support and monetize their video making but they have to turn to 3rd party services to do so. Google has the expertise and capability to offer creators everything they need in a one stop shop. They also have the ability to invest in and support video makers to plant a seed of content creators on their site. And they did, but half-heartedly and without sufficient follow through. It's going to take years until more than a handful of people can support themselves through youtube and even longer before we can see the sort of content that a "youtube generation" of artists is capable of creating. In the meantime such creators have to contend with google making arbitrary changes to youtube for their own petty reasons with little thought for the true potential of what they control.

I'm not to sure what you're trying to say but to me it sounds like you're implying that Google owes people who want to create video content a living. That Google should supply tools and a monetisation model to people who want to make a living of making videos. I don't think it works that way. Google does what it thinks is best for them and if the current model is that, than so be it.

You rightfully pointed out some successful acts that have gained notoriety through YouTube, and good on them. They were the top content creators and were awarded for their efforts. YouTube seems to work if the quality of your work is good and outstanding. Personally I think the current model works well. Should all the crap that's being produced be monetizable?

I don't understand the Internet traffic thing. YouTube serves video which naturally takes up a lot more bandwidth than textual content, i.e. Twitter. I understand that YouTube is popular but you can't really measure popularity in bandwidth.

Owes? Hardly. But it's stupid for them not to. Someone who earns a living via their videos is someone who is able to continue to do so, which draws in more viewers and keeps the talent within youtube's purview. Also, the more tools youtube provides for monetization and the more money flowing into creators bank accounts the more money youtube can make by taking a percentage, instead of having to rely solely on ad dollars.

The ad market is huge, but the entertainment market is much larger.

Content on youtube, whether it's "crap" or not, should be monetizable if it's capable of being supported. Currently the basic tool that youtube provides for that is a crappy ad system and a tiny cut of the ad revenues. They could, and should, do so much more. They have the opportunity to make their viewers and their creators not just users but customers. They have the opportunity to take a bite out of the multi-trillion dollar worldwide entertainment budget. They have the opportunity to have works of legitimate value (not just viral videos and pop phenomena) find a home on youtube and for youtube to become to be associated with works of quality instead of works of frivolity.

There's already lots of good stuff on youtube, but most of the best stuff is made at a loss. Youtube is perhaps the foremost instructional video publisher in history already, for example, but almost nobody publishing those videos is making a decent RoI on their efforts through youtube.

Web video is a medium and youtube is the apotheosis of that medium. To downplay that medium is as short-sighted as downplaying literature or film. There will be "youtube shakespeares" in the 21st century. There will be web videos that we find as powerful and meaningful as any other form of art (if there aren't already). I can say this with certainty because it relies on the simple fact that humans will always create art in any medium. If you give a man a steel barrel he'll create a steel drum, if you give a man a plastic barrel he'll create STOMP. It's really only a matter of time.

But by the same token, the fewer tools that google puts in the hands of creators and the more difficult it is for creators to make a living off of their creations the more potential will be wasted. Imagine how different the world would be if Elvis or The Beatles couldn't have made a living off of his voice and guitar.

It's funny that you bring this up. The only reason Elvis and The Beatles were able to make money is because of the distribution format of music at the time. This distribution format has drastically changed in the past 10 years. Everyone nowadays pretty much streams (and copies) their music which means that music isn't sold in "units" anymore. Hence why the all so mighty record companies were, and are, in such an uproar.

I think it was Mick Jagger who said something like that the time we've lived in was kinda special. There has been no time in the history of humanity where musicians were able to make such amounts of money and those times are pretty much gone. If you're an emerging artist, whether a musician, movie maker or what ever, you're pretty much to par with the troubadours of the middle ages.

Going back to Google, I think Google pretty well understand the ad market more than anyone else on the planet and if there's money to be made they will and it seems that your view isn't aligned with theirs.

All of you that lift of YouTube as some foil against "the big bad evil brainwashing junk" that is mainstream media ... seem naive to me. Have you actually seen what is on YouTube? Really?

Have you seen what is in books? Really? Most of it is garbage.

Youtube is the apotheosis of the medium of web video. As a medium it will suffer from all of the usual problems. There's no avoiding Sturgeon's law in any medium. But the existence of, say, Jersey Shore doesn't undercut the existence of The Wire the same way that the existence of Danielle Steel doesn't invalidate Mark Twain or TMZ.com doesn't invalidate wikipedia.

Even today there's a lot of great material on youtube that would not have been accessible before. Especially educational material. I cannot even begin to fathom what I've learned from youtube that I would not have otherwise. And that's just a tiny fraction of its potential.

OK, you picked two TV shows in your analogy to show that one "bad" show, I guess, does not discount good shows ... Well, so that is the point I am kind of making .. TV gets berated and YouTube gets lifted up? Why, other than, Internet? This just reiterates my point.

There is a clear attitude that "TV megacorporation junk bad" in the sense that it will "rot your brain" or "it has ads" or something vague and "YouTube good" and that is just naive.