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Did youtube revolutionize the internet?

T

The Artisan

Member
It's so mind-boggling to think about how YouTube has changed the internet, let alone what the internet has done to the world.

Anybody can start something and somewhere on youtube and everybody with access to the internet has access to youtube. same goes for twitter.

What do you think?
 
A

akira28

Member
once you've seen the internet get revolutionized a few times you tend to stop counting.

edit: and with the case of YouTube, it was a around for a long time before it became a media darling. which coincided with some monitization and commercialization of its use.

so what came first, the revolution or them figuring out how to make lots of commercial cash on youtube?
 
C

cirrhosis

Member
I remember thinking back when it launched that it was a stupid idea. Who the heck would want to upload videos? Why would I even spend time watching someone else's shitty videos on the Internet? There's not enough content or topics.
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I still remember when it launched, I thought the name was really stupid. I think it definitely did change things to a significant degree, although I wouldn't say it brought about any sort of paradigm shift like the internet or smartphones. But it might be close.

It's the source of 98% of the music I listen to these days
 
M

magnetic

Member
cirrhosis said:
I remember thinking back when it launched that it was a stupid idea. Who the heck would want to upload videos? Why would I even spend time watching someone else's shitty videos on the Internet? There's not enough content or topics.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember thinking this too. Shitty home videos, music parodies, pet videos? Okay.

I had no idea that such a vast and diverse amount of content would live on that site. Reviews, lets plays, instructional videos of all the kinds, guided meditation, fringe music stuff, rain sounds for 10 hours, animation, alt right nonsense, mst3k style commentaries, hilarious educational videos from the 50s, old ads...
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Classic Game Room
Angry Nintendo Nerd
Spoony Experiment

Those are the big 3 2006/2007 youtube game reviewers I remember. I know CGR started earlier but he got truly big on youtube.
 
J

jambo

Member
SolVanderlyn said:
I still remember when it launched, I thought the name was really stupid. I think it definitely did change things to a significant degree, although I wouldn't say it brought about any sort of paradigm shift like the internet or smartphones. But it might be close.

It's the source of 98% of the music I listen to these days
Click to expand...

I can't even remember how I watched video on the Internet before 2005...
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
If it wasn't YouTube, I'm sure someone would have been doing streaming video eventually.

But it's hard to deny they've probably had a huge influence. Only YouTube and Google seem able to do what they're doing right now, at the level they're operating.
 
Sub_Level

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
jambo said:
I can't even remember how I watched video on the Internet before 2005...
Click to expand...

Windows Media Player for music videos.

DivX website for movie trailers.

IGN and Gamespot for game videos. also there was somethin before gametrailers. Kikuzo vids, something like that. Anyone remember?

edit: http://www.kikizo.com/
found it
 
V

valeo

Member
jambo said:
I can't even remember how I watched video on the Internet before 2005...
Click to expand...

You looked for videos on websites dedicated to the topic you were searching for - i.e. Gamespot for game reviews.

Video wasn't that popular until beginning of early 2000s though I think? It simply took way too long to load them.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
I don't think I ever thought the concept was dumb, but I didn't think it would be as popular as it became, at least, based on how the website it was in its early years with its very boring, not exactly pleasant looking interface.

But then around 2006 I started noticing everybody posting links to Youtube, and by that time I realized "okay, this thing's gonna be huge".
 
F

fluffydelusions

Member
Remember this one
winamp04b.jpg
 
U

UrokeJoe

Member
Oblivion said:
I don't think I ever thought the concept was dumb, but I didn't think it would be as popular as it became, at least, based on how the website it was in its early years with its very boring, not exactly pleasant looking interface.

But then around 2006 I started noticing everybody posting links to Youtube, and by that time I realized "okay, this thing's gonna be huge".
Click to expand...

and it became a time machine for people looking for old videos.
 
V

Vulcano's assistant

Banned
I remember watching parody trailers of films and thought that was going to be the end of it, small comedic content, and memes.

But while it thought it would be akin to the comic strip section of the newspaper, it became more than the whole publication.
 
H

HMD

Member
I remember having to wait 5+ minutes for my videos to finish buffering, using it was a chore so I only used it for stuff that I really wanted to see.
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
I think so. There certainly weren't millions of kids making blog posts and IRC conversations their primary entertainment choice.

Remember watching old tv shows in three 10 minute videos because of the hard time limit? What a world.
 
TissueBox

TissueBox

Member
.JayZii said:
I think so. There certainly weren't millions of kids making blog posts and IRC conversations their primary entertainment choice.

Remember watching old tv shows in three 10 minute videos because of the hard time limit? What a world.
Click to expand...

Blast to Youtube past!
 
A

Altazor

Member
man, I still remember this layout.

kmG0voe.jpg


looks like a cluttered mess by today's standards, but it was kinda typical of the late 90s/early 00s "EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME" approach to websites.
 
A

Alfredo

Member
I remember my Internet connection originally wasn't fast enough to watch videos on YouTube, so I would go to a friend's house to watch pirated episodes of Mythbusters on Youtube.
 
M

Mammoth Jones

Member
No. It revolutionized the ability to gain exposure without going through the typical corporate middle-man to get access to a broad public audience.

I been able to see a lot of folks who never would have a platform without the internet and youtube in particular. Ain't no TV show dedicated to teaching me how to do my daughters hair, lol.

Last thing that revolutionized the internet was the smartphone as that fundamentally changed the way we used the internet.

HStallion said:
It certainly killed the idea of the comments section being worth while.
Click to expand...

Why the won't let people disable this shit on an account level is beyond me.
 
V

vatstep

This poster pulses with an appeal so broad the typical restraints of our societies fall by the wayside.
Altazor said:
I remember using this thing before YT made watching videos online easy.

z8cFgq7.png


*buffering...*
Click to expand...
The brand new Windows 10 computer I just got at work has Real Player on it. I really don't understand.
 
S

SmackDaddy

Member
Altazor said:
man, I still remember this layout.

kmG0voe.jpg


looks like a cluttered mess by today's standards, but it was kinda typical of the late 90s/early 00s "EVERYTHING ALL OF THE TIME" approach to websites.
Click to expand...

Fathers of usability would call this a pretty nice layout. Doesn't strike your pleasure center like much of today's trendy standards, but the In formation heirarchy is legit
 
A

AntoneM

Member
Not to be a cynical millenial who had a childhood pre-internet, but, no Youtube did not revolutionize the internet.

LCGeek said:
Not really. I think them fixing the tcp/ip stack and formalizing allowed for things we wouldn't have now if it hadn't been done, also the first case of bufferbloat. Aol did a ton to get the ball rolling in this country. Broadband alone has done more to revolutionize the net as you couldn't have a majority of the net now at dialup speeds.
Click to expand...

This though, the creation of the world wide web (WWW) fundamentally changed the internet.
 
H

HariKari

Member
Youtube, like Google, just did it well enough with a catchy enough brand to become the go-to place. Plenty of famous companies are essentially a story about having the right timing to go along with a good enough operation.
 
S

sir_kevith

Member
cirrhosis said:
I remember thinking back when it launched that it was a stupid idea. Who the heck would want to upload videos? Why would I even spend time watching someone else's shitty videos on the Internet? There's not enough content or topics.
Click to expand...

Yeah I remember the first vloggers and ranters and just thinking it was so stupid. The original site was pretty janky though.
 
Subpar Spatula

Subpar Spatula

Banned
AntoneM said:
Not to be a cynical millenial who had a childhood pre-internet, but, no Youtube did not revolutionize the internet.
Click to expand...

Google and YouTube did. They're the 2 most viewed websites in the world. Regardless, something was going to take YouTube's place as the big video sharing site but that site (whatever it may be) revolutionized how video sharing occurs.

Heck, YouTube is a search engine for most.
 
A

AntoneM

Member
Extra Sauce said:
I think what you meant to say was, does Google own the Internet? And the answer is yes.
Click to expand...

Google can barely even set up a network of reaching any sort of broad area within a given metro area let alone own the internet. Literally any cable broadband provider has google beat in that department.
 
A

AntoneM

Member
Subpar Spatula said:
Google and YouTube did. They're the 2 most viewed websites in the world. Regardless, something was going to take YouTube's place as the big video sharing site but that site (whatever it may be) revolutionized how video sharing occurs.

Heck, YouTube is a search engine for most.
Click to expand...

I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the internet is. YouTube is a website, and so is Google.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
Altazor said:
I remember using this thing before YT made watching videos online easy.

z8cFgq7.png


*buffering...*
Click to expand...

Memory lane. I remember having four different media players on my parents' Windows xp machine in the 2006-8 range, before i discovered vlc and shoved everything else into the ocean.
 
Subpar Spatula

Subpar Spatula

Banned
AntoneM said:
I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the internet is. YouTube is a website, and so is Google.
Click to expand...

And those websites have dramatically changed how we interact with the Internet.

You can keep passing the praise down the line until we say metal workers revitalized the Internet but from a user perspective, websites and other interactions are key. The average person isn't really going to care about the history of the WWW because it doesn't matter. What matters is how quickly they can get to A to B while receiving the most amount of information which YouTube and Google provide.
 
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