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The first 20 years

On Sunday I marked a milestone.

This was the 20th anniversary of the very first video I uploaded to YouTube.

It's hard to believe that I've been doing the YouTube thing for two decades and during that time I've created over 1,700 videos, and that's just on my main channel (xjet).

Things sure have changed a lot over that period of time and I expect they'll change a whole lot more over the next 20 years.

Back in July of 2006, YouTube wasn't owned by Google and there was no way to monetize videos and earn a living. People uploaded videos just because they wanted to.

These were also pre-algorithm days, when the numbers of subscribers a channel boasted was actually a useful metric.

The only way to play a video was by using the embedded Adobe Flash player, with all its attendant security holes and risks. Videos were also of limited length and were only displayed in a maximum of SD (480p) resolution

Once Google bought YouTube however, things began to change -- albeit very slowly at first.

One of the big changes however, was the introduction of the YouTube Partner Program. This gave some creators the chance to turn their efforts into real money and I was fortunate enough to be "invited" to become one of those partners long before it was an option available to everyone.

My invitation came because I had, by the standards of the day, a big channel. At one stage it was the third most subscribed channel in New Zealand.

Of course to put that in perspective, YouTube was nowhere near as big or as important as it is today. According to Gemini, when I uploaded my first video there were only about 65,000 videos uploaded per day across the entire platform. Today there are around 20 million videos uploaded every day.

Another interesting statistic (thanks Gemini) is that there are only a few dozen channels still regularly uploading videos from those which were on the platform back in July 2006. I guess that makes me one of the very few OGs still churning out content.

Another interesting but totally useless fact is that I've been uploading vids to YouTube for 8 percent of the entire time that the USA has been an independent nation.

I was going to make a fantastic retrospective video, looking back at 20 years and 1,700 videos of work -- until I started work and realised that this was impossible. There's just no way to condense all that content and 20 years into just 20 minutes.

So, instead I shall be putting out a series of videos, each focusing on a different aspect of the past two decades and the content I've created over that period. People, places, planes, the fun, the tragedy, the joy, the drama -- you get the story.

I really don't expect these videos will get much in the way of views so my hourly rate in making them will be abysmal -- some thing that further adds to the train-wreck that has become the option of being a full-time YouTube content creator. Even the biggest "authentic" channels are reporting dire reductions in revenues and views because YouTube has begun repositioning itself as a direct competitor to Netflix.

To this end it is simply not showing the "authentic" and "original" content that made the platform what it is. Instead it is pushing AI-slop and formulaic content which I personally find incredibly boring and annoying.

They've also recently announced a new format to be added to a list that includes "Shorts", long-form video and podcasts. Yes, now they're introducing "shows". These will be episodic videos that are (we're told) designed to get people to keep coming back for a new instalment, you know, just like shows on broadcast TV; anyone remember TV?.

What YouTube's new CEO Neal Mohan seems to have completely overlooked is that YouTube became popular because people were tired of TV. Despite this, he seems hell-bent on turning the platform into exactly what people don't want -- a broadcast TV equivalent.

The optimist in me says "yay!" because this will open the door to new platforms that do understand the importance of having critical points of distinction.

The last 20 years have been a wild ride, I expect the next 20 will be even moreso and I really think YouTube will have become an also-ran within the next 10 years or so, replaced and eclipsed by a platform that is more focused on what people themselves want to see, rather on what executives and beancounters want them to see.

Carpe Diem folks!

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