Has YouTube experienced enshittification?
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Enshittification
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What is enshittification?
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
The lifecycle of Big Internet
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
Embrace, extend and extinguish
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
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I guess they really want to get rid of users huh.
I watch tech videos. If I can't see when a video is from, I'm not going to waste my time on watching it.
Conspiracy time: Google is purposely making their video platform worse because they're sacrificing it for a tax loss in 5 years when they shut it down. In those five years they're going to "ramp up" development and write off all that "work" to pay for other projects.
Their UX and design choices are amateur at best and clearly they have no interest in maintaining the product(much like all of their retired line).
No way. YouTube is such a flaghship product and a lynchpin in other businesses (like music, streaming, AI development).
I invoke Hanlon's razor.
https://killedbygoogle.com/
Chromecast was a flagship product.
Stadia was a flagship product.
YT Originals was a flagship product.
Hangouts was a flagship product.
I could go on, but I think my point has been made. Google gives zero fucks about products or consumers. They only care about money.
When they enshittify a product it's to make more money.
I'm not entirely disagreeing with Hanlon on this, but just because they're inept doesn't mean they aren't actively sabotaging themselves through corrupted negligence. Like a bank robber that didn't get an oil change in over 40k miles and goes on a high speed chase. Sure you rob the bank, but you won't get further than three blocks before your engine blows because of your negligence against your car while you planned the bank heist.
None of those were even close to flagships, they were all short term experiments.
YouTube is the basis for much of Google's portfolio and a steady moneymaker, not an upstart liek those.
Chromecast 2013-2024 (12-ish years)
Stadia 2019-2022 (4-ish years)
YT Originals 2016-2022 (7-ish years)
Hangouts 2013-2022 (10-ish years)
You must be joking. Why is YouTube a steady moneymaker? Is it perhaps the advertisements? So wouldn't that make Google ads be the "basis for much of Google's portfolio"?
What threatens the viability of an advertising company? When viewers aren't viewing ads.
YouTube is not an investment for Google. YouTube is a liability. Huge amounts of upkeep, required staff on hand. FUCKIN LAWYERS. At best YouTube is a vehicle they control to increase ad revenue.
The real money maker? Selling your personal data to other advertising networks.
Now that Khan is in the FCC and Harris is likely to win the White House, and it might be possible we have a Blue House & Senate. With the cherry on top, the anti-trust suit.
That's right, the fuckin Google Mafia Monopoly!
They're hedging their bets on the next four to five years being terrible for them and are tying to get rid of as much weight as they can. Why? Because nobody uses Google to search for content on YouTube, and if they have to split YouTube off the main company, Alphabet, will lose so much fucking money the fed couldn't print it fast enough to bail their ass out of the overextended hole they are precariously straddled over.
Google will need to buy then what they get now for free. And you know who hates Alphabet more then their competition? YouTube.
YouTube will make Alphabet pay out the nose for any ad time, so it's easier to quietly write it off now and kill it later before it becomes a threat.
Given that Tax = %rate * max(revenue-cost,0)
How can deliberately sabotaging a business make money?
They could be taking a tax write off of the development cost/efforts for increasing revenue from ad revenue.
I'm sure insurance claims are also included in that because of the efforts of ad blockers.
Overall, I doubt that they're making a profit, but I bet they're at least staying in the black.
When you take a look at the changes that they are making now, removing post dates and view counts, it could be concluded that it's an effort to stop wrappers like new pipe from displaying recent content. This could be internally tracked as improvements made to increase ad revenue, which would be tax deductible.
It's clear to me that they're willing to sabotage the entire product in order to increase ad sales, fuck their consumers in the ass, and completely obliterate any trust users will have in their platform in the future.
This is the same standard private investment strategy that's been running for the last 20 years unchecked.