If you're distributing ad supported video content where else do you go?
Vimeo is the second biggest video sharing platform. They have 200 million eyeballs they can push to your content as opposed to 2.3 billion and no ad network.
I don't think it's an enormous stretch to say that youtube own this market.
>that’s a different discussion than having a monopoly on distributing video.
I can entertain the idea that YouTube currently has a monopoly (or “owns the market”) on the service of connecting advertisers to small time content creators.
Whether or not it harms society is something I have not concluded. I am aware there are negatives for medium size content creators who lack negotiating power, but also huge upsides to individual content creators who almost always cause YouTube to lose money. And I’m not sure what any alternative is, other than a taxpayer funded version of a YouTube, but that also opens a can of worms.
> I neither stated nor implied that they did.
Sorry, I interpreted “monopolizing a distribution channel” in the context of YouTube compensating content creators to mean YouTube monopolizing distribution of videos by content creators.
>huge upsides to individual content creators who almost always cause YouTube to lose money.
Not seeing the upside nor the evidence of YouTube losing significant amounts of money.
>And I’m not sure what any alternative is
Applying antitrust laws.
We can thank the explosion of Internet startups and innovation to their judicious application to Microsoft in the late 90s (it tied their hands significantly).
Individual content creators get access to the entire world without worrying about any technical issues, and getting access to advertisers (however small it may be).
>the evidence of YouTube losing significant amounts of money.
I don't know the specifics, but I do know that hosting video is in the wheelhouse of many well endowed companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. They all (presumably) have the capability to build a Youtube competitor over the last 15 years, but the fact that they have not indicates that it is not worth it.
Which leads me to think that this business model of Youtube's where anyone can upload anything they want at any time regardless of how garbage it is and it has to be able to be served to the whole world relatively immediately, is only viable with an enormous ad company (Google) backing it.
But as a stand alone service, it would never be a viable business. The proof is that a non Youtube has never existed before and it still doesn't exist. Nobody is stopping someone from putting up data centers everywhere and offering this service that Youtube does, and not even the companies that can afford it are bothering to touch it.
The Microsoft internet browser situation is not comparable, in my opinion.
Vimeo is the second biggest video sharing platform. They have 200 million eyeballs they can push to your content as opposed to 2.3 billion and no ad network.
I don't think it's an enormous stretch to say that youtube own this market.
>that’s a different discussion than having a monopoly on distributing video.
I neither stated nor implied that they did.