[takeda]

This is silly. You have alternatives, but you still are dismissing them. You could similarly say that if "McDonald mistreats me, where I'm going to go? Wendy? or Burger King? no one is going there"

Also your argument with electric company doesn't make sense, in this you could maybe compare it to an ISP, which I agree should be treated as an utility.

YouTube is just one of many services available. Your only argument about competitors is that not many creators are there, well, how do you think that will change? Are you expecting court to move some of YouTube users to Vimeo?

[hluska]

I’m not the person you’re replying to but can I take another shot at expressing their opinion?

Let’s take the argument away from food and move back to networks like YouTube. I’d argue that the best, most innovative thing YouTube accomplished is that they managed to solve a huge chicken or the egg problem. They managed to get enough of an audience to attract creators which has only attracted more of an audience.

How do we deal with companies like that in the context of speech? On one hand, they’re a private company and should have the right to exclude anyone they want for any reason. But what happens when they have so much attention that that exclusion deprives people of hearing right or wrong dissenting opinions?

I genuinely don’t know and my own opinion has swayed so much over the last few months that I’m either dumb or a hypocrite.

[takeda]

Well, they didn't solve the chicken & egg problem, they bought the first platform that was created.

But I don't understand how large audience matters to anyone else than to the platform.

If you're just an user, there's nothing stopping you to use all of these services. In fact given the problem mentioned no one should stick to just one, because that leads to creating a monopoly.

If you're content creator, less of other creators means less competition, your videos are more likely to be featured etc.

[whatshisface]

Well, what's the BurgerKing of YouTube? I don't think there is one. At best Google has Bing, but I think the performance gap is a lot bigger than the gap between chains.

[hervature]

I think people expect the competition to be too perfect of a substitute when it comes to the internet. You are picking the most competitive market - burger joints - in an industry that everyone is forced to partake in: food. On a calorie basis, McDonald's and Burger King actually have some of the most cost effective foods. To me, it is like asking "who is the competitor to Costco? A membership bulk-only retailer, only Sam's Club!"

If we relabel YouTube as "short segment internet video entertainment" than we have things like Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat that all compete for our attention. I would even say that Netflix, Amazon Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, etc. all compete with YouTube. Of course, they are all unique, but that shouldn't be the bar of measuring "competition". When I used to run a university bar, I would say "we aren't competing with the other bars in town, we are competing with Netflix. How do we convince people to leave their rooms and walk across campus?"

[whatshisface]

That's true from the perspective of users, but not content creators. 3Blue1Brown can't put videos on Netflix or Disney+, and I don't think Twitch would work. It's the content creators that are cornered YouTube's effective monopoly on serving user-uploaded videos with ads.

[hervature]

From the content creator viewpoint, I concede the landscape is much different. But again, is “user-uploaded videos with ads” what we are really talking about? They can sell their own ads and roll their own hosting quite easily. What you really mean is “user-uploaded videos with ads with the reach of YouTube” but of course there’s only one #1 user-uploaded video website.

[whatshisface]

>but of course there’s only one #1 user-uploaded video website.

That comment makes the issue sound a lot more slippery and ill-defined than it really is. If you're a small content creator, YouTube is your only option. It is actually quite simple; you don't have any plausible way to get people on your website, you won't get any views on Vimeo and you can't monetize it there, and Tiktok won't work unless you're running at most a few seconds. YouTube has a total sector monopoly on doing business with 3Blue1Brown.

[hervature]

> you don’t have any plausible way to get people on your website

Again, you mean “instantaneous access to millions of people who like to go to YouTube”. A website for $5/month opens you to more people than YouTube. If 3Blue1Brown has decided YouTube is best for them, then that’s great. But

> monopoly on “doing business with 3Blue1Brown.”

Sounds just as silly as Universal Pictures having a monopoly on movie series that involve bad acting and fast cars.

[koheripbal]

All you are doing there is broadening the content definition to encompass more players.

The fact that YouTube is a many billion dollar business, and has no DIRECT competition should make it a target for anti-trust action.

[hervature]

I guess we should also be concerned with Tesla’s monopoly on supercharger networks. Just because there is no perfect substitution it does not mean there is no direct competition.

[fennecfoxen]

> YouTube is just one of many services available.

With around 75% market share. Yes, competitor Vimeo exists. Without the aid of the Internet, name a second alternative.

[edoceo]

Self hosted? If you mad about centralization, de-centralize

[yissp]

Peertube

[booleandilemma]

I just visited https://joinpeertube.org/.

This doesn’t look like it’s a solid competitor to YouTube at all.

[barbacoa]

Google ensures YT is pre installed on android phones. They also bias searches towards YT in their search engine. This is classic monopoly behavior; using market dominance in one area to maintain dominance in another. People aren't using YT because they try out the alternatives and decide YT is superior, they are funneled there by google and never know alternatives exist.