Thoughts about YouTube

I always seem to find my way back to YouTube. Sometimes I realize just how much we take for granted something as amazing as YT - a virtually (and in all actuality, potentially) unlimited fountain of music (and new ideas, cultural blah blah blah, but we're talking about music here).

Honestly, it's a very nearly perfect medium for discovering music.

"But Evan, it's so full of ads. Don't you hate marketing with a passion?"

Well, yes. That is true. And I do. Very much. But I'm also a realist. (Shut up, I am.)

What people don't seem to realize is what a financial black hole YT is. Consider first the amount of memory it takes to store video files. Then consider the sheer volume of videos being uploaded onto YT. Also remember that membership (and thereby the video hosting) is free. The picture starts to come together.

A year ago, there were over 120 million videos on YT, with over 200,000 new videos being uploaded every single day. Their bandwidth alone cost $360M that year, with ads only bringing in $240M. Factor in all of the money they have to spend buying the rights to the music so widely uploaded, defending themselves in the lawsuits from the copyrights they'll inevitably be unable to secure, not to mention all the other expenses that a normal business has to worry about, and you start to understand. They lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $470M that year.

My point? Only that while ads suck, and the entire marketing business is an evil pirate ship populated by wretched, twisted souls feeding on the naivety of the innocent, YT has no choice if they want to stay afloat. In fact, they're going to have to do a whole lot more to actually make it. And honestly, I hope they do, because like I said, it's a very useful tool for finding new music.

Perhaps most importantly, it serves as a medium for artists to circumvent the giant foreboding castle on the hillside which is always mysteriously rainy that is the music "biz," and focus on their music instead of...business.

In that way, it's another avenue by which the people are unknowingly bringing about the inevitable doom of the record companies, along with home recording and indie labels, and not a moment too soon if you ask me.

And, because you've been so good and read this far, here's this.