What to do about Youtube

[Matthew Jabour]

Youtube is a mess. Their new system has started flagging people left and right for seemingly no reason, and people's irritation has never been higher. So, what can you do about it? Well, it's simple, really: Start an account on Dailymotion, or Vimeo, or any other video sharing website.

Face it, Google is like a katamari: they roll up everything in front of them, and just get bigger and bigger. Of the people reading this right now, I guarantee 90% of you have three of the four following: Chrome, Youtube, Google, and Google+. (You were forced to get Google+ when Youtube's comments went down the crapper, remember?) For every user that uses these, Google gains more money. Even I, trying to use Internet Explorer just to spite them (and by the way, it is a sad day when you are karmatically below Microsoft) can't do it, because many videos glitch up or fail to start. And I don't think it's an accident.

The only real way to oppose this is to take your business elsewhere. Use Firefox and IE. Never use Google+. Search with Bing, just to show how ridiculous this has all gotten. But what about YouTube? Well, this is where they think they have the strongest foothold. After all, who could compete with them when it comes to videos? But in reality, there's plenty other websites that do just that. Dailymotion is only one alternative, but this would work best if everyone just picked one and stuck with it. Start an account there, and start uploading videos to it. If you're an old provider whose videos have been taken down, reupload them there, and tell your subscribers to support Dailymotion instead. Because, if Youtube ever does fix this copyright problem, it'll just go back to them making more money again. This, truly, is the only way to stick it to them. Youtube loses some subscribers, and Dailymotion gets used for something other than softcore porn.

But that's just my opinion. What else do you think could we do to oppose Youtube? And what other video providers would you recommend?

 

[JoJo]

I asked the same question on Tuesday's Jimquisition and got these three suggestions:

Twitch.tv
Game Anyone
Blip.tv

I haven't had time to check them out myself yet so I can't vouch for whether they're worthwhile or not. I agree with your ideas of avoiding YouTube whenever possible now due to the recent changes, although I don't see any reason to stop using Chrome, Google search or Google+ just yet since all three have served me fine so far.

 

[Wickatricka]

The fact is if one of those sites was going to get popular it would of done it years ago. I hate YouTube as much as anyone else but now its kinda of like picking up the most pretty piece of shit out of a mountain of shit. If you get my drift...

 

[Weaver]

Youtube is a mess. Their new system has started flagging people left and right for seemingly no reason, and people's irritation has never been higher.

This is not a new system and stating such is only understanding half of whats going on here.

Gaming on youtube was largely governed by Managed Content Networks or MCNs. These networks were supposed to vouch for the channels partnered with them, and monitoring them for copyright violations for a cut of their revenue. These channels were exampt from content ID matches. What happened is they got greedy and started signing on tens of thousands of channels that they had no actual way of governing in a realistic manner.

Thus youtube, realizing there was no way for these networks to actually do their job forced them to make a change; you have affiliate partners and you have managed partners. Affiliate partners would now be subject to the content ID matching they were, for years, exempt from. Managed partners would not. However, if a managed partner DOES violate copyright then youtube will put a strike against the network itself. This scared them so they essentially designated 99% of their creators as "Affilite" throwing them under the bus. Anyone newly designated affiliate had the content ID system ran on their accounts for the first time.

The content ID system is not new. I run an unpartnered channel and I've been dealing with its bullshit for years and years. I admit it's an incredibly flawed systems but the MCN's distrust in their content creators is largely to blame as well.

On the topic of youtube competition: if everyone suddenly switched over to Dailymotion or one other site, the site would buckle under the load. Youtube has 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. There are few companies in the world with such data handling capabilities.

 

[uchytjes]

I asked the same question on Tuesday's Jimquisition and got these three suggestions:

Twitch.tv
Game Anyone
Blip.tv

I haven't had time to check them out myself yet so I can't vouch for whether they're worthwhile or not. I agree with your ideas of avoiding YouTube whenever possible now due to the recent changes, although I don't see any reason to stop using Chrome, Google search or Google+ just yet since all three have served me fine so far.

Both Blip and Twitch would be amazing for reviews and gaming respectively. Idk about game anyone though.

OT: These are relevant.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Youtube is like getting punched by the guy with the smallest biceps. It's not optimal, but I'm not going to boycott. Instead, I'm going to go to Google's headquarters and stab the CEO repeatedly because the "Y" in Youtube's logo isn't 100% even. Still, some of my favourite video-makers are on Youtube. So perhaps enacting amazing OCD justice isn't the answer.

 

[Foolery]

I see plenty of people saying how this will cripple their channel and put them out of a job. I get it. It sucks. But listen, do you think it was wise for them to solely base their income on a video hosting site? I don't. Internet money has proven to be volatile in many cases, as it can basically vanish overnight.

 

[Mrkillhappy]

I personally feel sorry for the LPers as well as reviewers who quit their jobs in order to make videos due to the loss of that avenue of revenue but at the same time I view them as not thinking very long term when making the decision of putting all their eggs in one basket in terms of income due to the fact that if the channel loses enough viewers they feel a financial backlash. As Dead Century said

Internet money has proven to be volatile in many cases, as it can basically vanish overnight.

Though I feel upset due to the fact that in some games I end up looking up video walkthroughs when I am incredibly stuck and the text based walkthroughs aren't helping. As for what will I do it is simple I will fallow more twitch then youtube and chances are the LPers will find other video hosting websites to go to and raise the amount of users on those services such as dailymotion which was mentioned by the OP and Weaver.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-snip-

Lets not do anything you'll regret, Bing? Firefox?

Duckduckgo is a nice alternate to larger search engines with a policy on privacy and not using a 'filter bubble.'

Comodo Dragon is a chromium based web browser that doesn't use any form of Google tracking and additional security measures. Since its Chromium based there is very little difference between it and Chrome as well you can still use all your extensions.

https://duckduckgo.com/

http://www.comodo.com/home/browsers-toolbars/browser.php

 

[InsanityRequiem]

I'm throwing a huge made up conspiracy theory about this. Remember all the way back in May when Nintendo was throwing Copyright IDs out the wazzoo? It was all a ploy to tell the world that Youtube was going down this route! An almost entire year where people playing and showing Nintendo games were being automatically flagged by Youtube, and people gave them shit for it. But look what happened, it's spread for the rest of the industry. Nintendo was the first, a warning they wanted to give. And did we listen? No we didn't!

But seriously, most of the games publishers have been constantly saying that they were not even notified that this latest batch of Content ID notices were going out. Most of the Western publishers have been telling people that if they got flagged to immediately counter claim it. And it's hitting those that have music, cutscenes, and/or trailer material in their videos.

At this point, the only way for Youtube to stop is if all/most/good portion of the major publishers tell Youtube to stop it. Though at this point, Youtube(Google) might not, since this was really something the old media(Movies and Music Industries) have been pushing for Youtube to do.

 

[Corven]

I'm just happy this new policy doesn't apply to Mojang and really old games because my two favorite YouTube pages aren't affected: The Yogscast and Game Grumps.

It doesn't apply to mojang because they have a stated policy that anyone can monetize video footage (with a few stipulations). so mojang probably never uploaded any material to be used by the flagging program in the first place.

And game grumps isn't affected since they are currently a heavy hitter for their network Polaris, which means they are more than likely one of the "managed" partners who aren't affected by this current change (this applies to yogscast as well).

OT:
Now I'm wondering why the people who have been relegated to affiliate status are even going to stick with their networks since they are no longer under the networks protection from content claims, a plus for these people is that some others out there are compiling a list of companies that are okay with monetization of their content(with some stipulations in some cases), which is actually a pretty long list.

What pissed me off about this situation more than anything is when angry joe's content was flagged, since he is a game reviewer and not a let's player, so when his stuff got content claimed that just showed more than ever how useless youtube's automated claim program is.

 

[Something Amyss]

On the topic of youtube competition: if everyone suddenly switched over to Dailymotion or one other site, the site would buckle under the load. Youtube has 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. There are few companies in the world with such data handling capabilities.

This is the problem with going up against a company that's building their own internet[footnote]Yes, this is overly simplified[/footnote].

On a more serious note, though, I wonder how much traffic would need to be diverted for Google to feel it and how much of a load increase it would be on another site respectively. We don't need so much to shut down Google as we would need to make a statement. Ad revenue decreases might send the right message.

But I don't know the logistics well enough.

I'm also not sure why I said 'we'. I'm not sure this impacts my YouTube habits much anyway, but still.

The fact is if one of those sites was going to get popular it would of done it years ago.

YouTube didn't get popular overnight and neither will another site. This might be begging for an organic shift, however.

people watch for the games as well.

People watch to see the games pushed by the personalities, otherwise any gameplay video would do.

LPers don't have a legal leg to stand on.

[Citation needed]

It's certainly not connected to the prior sentence. It sounds like you're making scattershot claims and hoping something sticks.

 

[Foolery]

LPers don't have a legal leg to stand on.

[Citation needed]

It's certainly not connected to the prior sentence. It sounds like you're making scattershot claims and hoping something sticks.

In terms of Youtube, they don't have a legal leg to stand on. They are a private corporation that operates under its own terms and policies. They chose to share ad revenue with content creators, and have the right to modify or revoke how that is done.

 

[McKitten]

On the topic of youtube competition: if everyone suddenly switched over to Dailymotion or one other site, the site would buckle under the load. Youtube has 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. There are few companies in the world with such data handling capabilities.

But 99 of those are cat videos. If all game-related youtubers switched to some other site, they'd probably have to expand their capacity a bit, but it's not like they'd have to become as large as youtube. If they'd specialize on content, it could actually work. While the networking effect means there's little chance of several allround videosites coexisting (sites that are 1% of the size of youtube don't count) it is quite possible that twitch.tv for example could become the main video site people go to whenever they want to watch something videogame related, while they still go to youtube for cat videos.

 

[O maestre]

I am so glad that I am not the only one that is fed up with Google + and their practices in general. It is sad that for all our anti trust laws we still have ended up with a Google controlled internet, sadder still that their "Don't be evil" motto has been flushed down the toilet, they use to be the very best to come out of silicon valley. As it is now Google is damn near impossible to boycott or hurt in anyway.

I agree with the fact that Daily motion is the only "competitor". Sigh I miss the wild west days of the internet.

-snip-

Lets not do anything you'll regret, Bing? Firefox?

What's wrong with Firefox? It probably has the best add ons for privacy and security, along with ad-blockers and various script options. I also like it better than chromium based browsers due to the way it handles tabs. The only thing I dislike about Firefox is that it's sync feature is too slow to be usable.

I see plenty of people saying how this will cripple their channel and put them out of a job. I get it. It sucks. But listen, do you think it was wise for them to solely base their income on a video hosting site? I don't. Internet money has proven to be volatile in many cases, as it can basically vanish overnight.

Internet is the new TV, or at least it should. It's TV without any middle men, direct link between content provider and audience, at least that is how it should be, now it seems that it will become just like TV with large old production and distribution companies running things. The truth is that in an online culture such as ours, they are a lot like game publishers, as in that they are not necessary any longer. The ideal would be that you as an independent creative person could start making content without any need for permissions or having the right connections, all you'll need is a good enough product that word of mouth will reward you.

Think of how many internet media outlets you devote your time too, if things keep going the way they are those independent content providers will either disappear or be absorbed.

The fact is that before this policy change they were making stable income, so your point about it being to volatile is moot. They changed the rules and only now are they getting screwed. Something that can happen in any line of work where the big guys shove the little guys down the drain through lobbying.

 

[Flatfrog]

It doesn't matter who you switch to. If Vimeo became the go-to site for Lets Play videos you can be damn sure the game publishers would lean on them just as hard as they leaned on YouTube and the videos would be removed from there too.

The only thing that could potentially cause this problem to go away would be something like a concerted campaign aimed not at YouTube and Google but at the publishers. But in all honesty I'd be surprised if it would be possible to harm their sales enough to change their minds on this.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-snip-

Lets not do anything you'll regret, Bing? Firefox?

What's wrong with Firefox? It probably has the best add ons for privacy and security, along with ad-blockers and various script options. I also like it better than chromium based browsers due to the way it handles tabs. The only thing I dislike about Firefox is that it's sync feature is too slow to be usable.

There is nothing particularly wrong with it as such, but its easier for Chrome users to switch over to a chromium based browser and export their bookmarks, preferences and extensions than it is for Firefox.

 

[O maestre]

-snip-

Lets not do anything you'll regret, Bing? Firefox?

What's wrong with Firefox? It probably has the best add ons for privacy and security, along with ad-blockers and various script options. I also like it better than chromium based browsers due to the way it handles tabs. The only thing I dislike about Firefox is that it's sync feature is too slow to be usable.

There is nothing particularly wrong with it as such, but its easier for Chrome users to switch over to a chromium based browser and export their bookmarks, preferences and extensions than it is for Firefox.

Ah of course you are right about that. Unfortunately I don't know if Comodo can sync with an android device, which is the only time I use a chrome browser, to copy paste tabs from firefox, and then get it on my phone.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Youtube is a mess. Their new system has started flagging people left and right for seemingly no reason, and people's irritation has never been higher.

This is not a new system and stating such is only understanding half of whats going on here.

Gaming on youtube was largely governed by Managed Content Networks or MCNs. These networks were supposed to vouch for the channels partnered with them, and monitoring them for copyright violations for a cut of their revenue. These channels were exampt from content ID matches. What happened is they got greedy and started signing on tens of thousands of channels that they had no actual way of governing in a realistic manner.

Thus youtube, realizing there was no way for these networks to actually do their job forced them to make a change; you have affiliate partners and you have managed partners. Affiliate partners would now be subject to the content ID matching they were, for years, exempt from. Managed partners would not. However, if a managed partner DOES violate copyright then youtube will put a strike against the network itself. This scared them so they essentially designated 99% of their creators as "Affilite" throwing them under the bus. Anyone newly designated affiliate had the content ID system ran on their accounts for the first time.

The content ID system is not new. I run an unpartnered channel and I've been dealing with its bullshit for years and years. I admit it's an incredibly flawed systems but the MCN's distrust in their content creators is largely to blame as well.

On the topic of youtube competition: if everyone suddenly switched over to Dailymotion or one other site, the site would buckle under the load. Youtube has 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. There are few companies in the world with such data handling capabilities.

So if I read you right, the problem isn't YouTube (well mostly isn't), the problem is these MCNs. Well them and the dickhead companies issuing copyright claims.