question of the day: What do you think of the new YouTube?

I would argue that there certainly is something necessarily bad about these changes. The free-for-all that YouTube has been has been pure democracy in action. For every cute cat video or angry baby clip, there have been blows to the very notion of control and power: uploads of police brutality and public protests that mainstream media won’t cover, for instance. The Times is being disingenuous if it really expects corporate players -- who are interested only in making money -- to suddenly get more “innovative.”

More:

What isn’t being said is that the new design and the emphasis on channels isn’t only, or even primarily, about what consumers want, or what would make their time on the site more pleasant or worthwhile. Note that with all the thought and money that went into the redesign, the experience of actually watching the video player appears to be virtually the same as it was before.

The more important audience lies in the advertising, media buying and television businesses, among the executives who have been watching homemade videos accrue millions of views and crying in anguish, “Nobody’s making any money off of this!” They probably don’t even mind that they’re not making money; they just wish that someone were making money.

That last is important, though not for the reason the Times thinks. There’s a reason why those execs are anguished that no one has been making money: if the world can move, even in tiny baby steps, toward a new paradigm that doesn’t value money quite so much, they are fucked.

What do you think of the new YouTube?

Bronxbee, who suggested this QOTD, calls it “blander.” I call it an infuriating move away from what made YouTube so special in the first place. And on a smaller technical note, I hate that YouTube no longer lets a video preload to your computer, so you can watch it in one smooth go. Now, unless you’ve got perfect, glitch-free high-speed Internet access (which I do not at the moment), watching YouTube videos means annoying jerkiness and unwanted pauses.

Your turn...

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