1.) Is YouTube a “100% absolute must have ”, or an “I’d rather do something embarrassing than have this” response, in my POV.

The internet is full of lots of things and issues that some other people might find a problem with. I’m specifically talking about a video sharing website known as YouTube. As a YouTuber myself, what do I think about YouTube? Yes, there are things that I have mixed feelings about, however, a general answer to this kind of question is… Probably. Now, this is all on what I think, so if you get offended easily, I insist not to proceed, otherwise, this is your only warning. Here’s two reasons, both positive and negative, on why I think YouTube is more of a “probably” answer, when it comes to thinking if it’s a good site.

One major reason here is more leaning on the negativity to the site; the ads that run on YouTube. I understand that other YouTubers put ads in their videos to get money, (yes you can do that), however, YouTube has changed that, and it hasn’t gotten a lot of positivism. The site will now have ads on videos, even if content creators don’t want them. From the looks of it, it already doesn’t sound good. According to Forbes, someone who has over 3.5M subscribers claimed “That’s nuts. If you’re a small channel, struggling to grow and haven’t yet gotten monetization, YouTube will run ads now and take 100% of the profit from your own work. That’s made me feel very negative about YouTube as they’re making money off of someone else’s work, giving them no profit from the ads, especially if they’re having a difficult time growing their channel.  Despite that, YouTube hasn’t changed that, so unfortunately, I’m stuck with ads that I never wanted, nor asked to have. There’s more to the ads, in particular, the types of ads YouTube runs, not only in the videos, but in the site itself. Now, I do want to give a disclaimer that some of this stuff is going on the more inappropriate side, and I’ve encountered them. A few are so bad that I’m not gonna talk about it at all. One thing is that most of the ads on YouTube, some are decent, a few are partially interesting, and some, outright misleading, and from looking at it, makes me think, “Why is this even here?” In particular, some ads are for mobile games, specifically misleading and/or inappropriate mobile game ads. Now, this is coming out from my personal experience, so some of this may not be accurate. Now, yes you can report the ad so it gets taken down, however, there’s lots of them, maybe even mountains of them. A small percentage of mobile game ads on YouTube sometimes lean to the 18+ side (I guess that since I’ve seen ads on YT that kinda fit in that category), which I find obscure, since, imagine you’re someone who’s under 17 y/o on YouTube, and you encounter an inappropriate ad. What are your instincts? It’s most likely that now you’ve encountered it, it’ll almost never leave your memory. The question of “why are there inappropriate ads on YouTube”, may not have a clear exclamation. Despite all of that, I have no idea what the future holds for YouTube monetization.

Moving away from the negativity of YouTube, this next reason is more leaning towards a somewhat positive side. It allows people to access some form of entertainment. Now, again, this is coming from my personal experience, so some may not be accurate. Making YouTube videos not only gives the uploader something to do, but it’ll give other people something to watch, as an escape from boredom. Now, with YouTube full of hundreds of millions, maybe billions of videos, boredom is most guaranteed to be escaped. Even though there’s some videos that more lean towards annoying people/clickbaiting those who clicked on the video do exist, just keep in mind that there are other videos that are more towards giving the viewer a decent time watching the video itself, and may be interested to watch whatever else the channel itself has to offer, either large, well known YouTubers, or small, not-so well known YouTubers, they’ll offer some form of entertainment towards the viewer(s) watching it. Like, if someone were bored, I’d offer them something on YouTube, and, chances are, they might be hooked up to what they clicked on.  Regardless of what topic it is. (of course if the topic is inappropriate, then there will be severe consequences).

That’s all I pretty much know from my personal experience/perspective. There’s lots of things that make YouTube decent, and terrible, however, that’s why my answer to “Is YouTube a good site generally” is a “probably”, since the site is split 50-50 between good and bad.

2.) An explanation of what YouTube is and what it does as a website, under the rule of Google.

Some of you reading this will have heard of YouTube before. Something that’s only accessible digitally. Now, I understand that some people may not even have heard of YouTube, let alone used the website/app. I’m not saying that all of us need to know about this site. I’m just doing this for people who are interested in what YouTube is.

Beginning with the website/app’s name and where it originated. It’s likely that some people who don’t know that YouTube is a thing may ask, “Why is it called YouTube?” Well, thanks to this website called, Rewind & Capture, “The name “YouTube” is actually pretty straightforward. The “You” represents that the content is user generated, created by individual users and not the site itself and “Tube” is a nod toward an older original term for television.” In simple terms, “You” means that you’re the one who’s making the stuff on the website/app, without the website/app making it for you. “Tube” is from an older original word for TV.  That’s just one thing about what YouTube is. There’s others.

Now moving on to what even is the site/app. Well, according to GCF Global, “YouTube is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. You can even create and upload your own videos to share with others. Originally created in 2005, YouTube is now one of the most popular sites on the Web, with visitors watching around 6 billion hours of video every month.” Looking at Wikipedia, (possibly inaccurate) “In October 2006, 18 months after posting its first video and 10 months after its official launch, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion.” As a result of this purchase, Google expanded YouTube’s site business model, and was offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content from YouTube. This eventually led to the creation of YouTube Red (now known as YouTube Premium), which, for $11.99 a month (as of writing this), you’ll be able to watch YouTube videos without any ads whatsoever. Of course, I’m not trying to persuade you to buy YouTube Premium, I’m just stating facts.

The last thing I’m gonna talk about is the founders of YouTube. A total of three people founded the site back in February 14th, 2005. These people are referred to as Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, & Chad Hurley and these three individuals are actually still alive (as of writing this). Jawed Karim is also known as the first YouTuber to upload a video on the site, referred to as Me at the zoo. He’s currently 43 years old, and is of German descent, hence why his nationality is American and German. Steve Chen, currently 44 years old, is one of the co-founders, and is Taiwanese descent. He also co-founded something called AVOS Systems, Inc , and joined Google Ventures in 2014. The third founder, and full name, Chad Meredith Hurley, currently 45 years old, was actually Chief Executive Officer of YouTube, back when it was founded, and even founded MixBit. He was also voted 28th on Business 2.0’s “50 People Who Matter Now” list. All of this information basically came from Wikipedia, so some of this information may be inaccurate.

If you can understand most, if not all of this, then you’ll understand what YouTube is, and maybe join the community. Not that I’m saying you should, as that depends on you. I hope you’ve at least understood one thing in this writing.

All of this is coming from a YouTuber, ImAlexR_960, the person who wrote this.