When you need to rant...

[D'Snowth]

Before YouTube it really was like caveman days.

This is especially true for me. Now, there's all kinds of puppet building tutorials and such on YouTube, but back then, such resources were very scarce and so hard to come by.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I think so many people from the millenial and Gen z categories seem to not know once upon a time the internet didn’t exist it wasn’t as big as it is today. It’s like to them, it always just..... existed

 

[D'Snowth]

Like I said, I can remember a time when ads on the internet actually weren't a problem! If you saw ads on a website, it was mostly like because it was some little "free" fansite (Angelfire, Geocities, Tripod, etc.), and ads were how the servers made their money from the revenue to ensure those sites remained free for its customers . . . official websites never had ads, because everything was already paid for: the domain, the webspace, the bandwidth, and as such, it didn't need ads.

I also remember a time when your email address had to be registered from your operating system through your ISP, especially back in the days of dial-up . . . sure, the free services like Yahoo Mail and Gmail existed, but your own registered email account was more common.

 

[Any Del]

I miss the old days of YouTube.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Me too! 2009/2010 is where it just started to get worse and worse as time went on.

 

[D'Snowth]

The sad thing is . . . it's all our own fault.

The original creators of YouTube were disappointed that people were using YouTube for the exact reasons they didn't want people to use YouTube for: uploading already-existing copyrighted material like TV shows, movies, albums and singles, and the like, and they basically couldn't keep up with the constant monitoring of detecting and nuking said copyrighted material, that that's pretty much why they sold out to a company like Google in the first place; they were just two guys, but Google was a major company, so they could develop a whole system for detecting and removing copyrighted material.

So basically, YouTube is a sad, but prime example of, "Why We Can't Have Nice Things."

But yeah, despite people already doing stuff like this prior to 2009/2010, YouTube as a whole was far more community-driven up until that point - it was definitely when my best days on YouTube were.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Nowadays it’s basically a site where you only get noticed if you upload popular copyrighted material or are a partner in some way.

 

[Oscarfan]

The original creators of YouTube were disappointed that people were using YouTube for the exact reasons they didn't want people to use YouTube for: uploading already-existing copyrighted material like TV shows, movies, albums and singles, and the like, and they basically couldn't keep up with the constant monitoring of detecting and nuking said copyrighted material, that that's pretty much why they sold out to a company like Google in the first place; they were just two guys, but Google was a major company, so they could develop a whole system for detecting and removing copyrighted material.

Are you sure about that? I read that one of the founding ideas was that they couldn't find a decent website to see the Janet Jackson Super Bowl clip, so they thought of their own site where things like that could be uploaded.

 

[D'Snowth]

I hadn't heard that before, but from what I've read about what lead to YouTube being sold to Google in first place, yes, the founders were disappointed that the very purpose of YouTube had basically been defeated by the constant uploading of copyrighted material, when YouTube was intended to be a website for ordinary people to upload their own video material, hence the name YouTube. I mean, even back in those days, they always had that disclaimer whenever you uploaded a video that clearly stated that users were prohibited from uploading TV shows, movies, music videos, commercials, and the like on the grounds of copyright . . . but people clearly paid as much attention to that as they do warning labels on cigarette packs.

 

[PumpkinJ]

TBH, YouTube also wasn't meant to be a place for fan films using copyrighted characters from TV shows; for example, the most common unauthorized fan series on YouTube was Super Mario Logan, whose creator Logan Thirtyacre was very recently served with a cease-and-desist order from Nintendo for making (adult-themed) comedic skits featuring Super Mario plushies and human puppets. There's a rumor he might be getting sued by Nintendo for that as well, as he has been somehow profiting from this fan series and his channel.