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It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

economist.com

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Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#331

Post by brnt »

ryandrake wrote: post #300
echelon wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ought to be enough for anybody" If things stay the same as ever, this life will have been boring. I'm not cut out for another twenty years of smartphone incrementalism. Fuck the status quo. I don't live for "same". Everything in the world as it exists isn't enough. The future could be the most exciting thing if we dream and build it.

I like this vision of the future of entertainment, honestly. I like Star Trek the Next Generation... a lot! It was on when I was a teenager, and I like it because it's nostalgic and actually a pretty wholesome show compared to a lot of the shit that gets produced today. I'd love to see more than the existing 7 seasons, but they'll never make any more of them. It would be incredible if I could just ask my PC "Generate…

> "Generate a new Star Trek TNG episode with the original actors and a believable, good story"

It would be incredible, but incredibly awful.

Also, a series is going to have a (set of) formula, but what makes an episode good is if it deviates from that formula.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#332

Post by zamnos »

arcticfox wrote: post #208
JohnFen wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those synthetic voices drive me insane. Nothing makes me stop watching a video faster.

The TikTok woman voice is so grating it's oddly fascinating. It might be the most annoying voice I've ever heard but yet... edit: TIL it's a real person and she (can) sound exactly like the TTS version... I'm cracking up listening to her. Thank goodness it's something she can turn on and off.

Now you can put whatever words in her mouth you want: https://github.com/oscie57/tiktok-voice

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#333

Post by zamnos »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #277
nindalf wrote: post #115

I respect the Economist’s business columnist (Schumpeter) and tech columnist (Babbage) but this seems to be a case of Schumpeter writing about tech. Leaving aside HN loving the idea of Big Tech being weakened by becoming Relatively Small Tech, I don’t see how this is in Alphabet’s or YouTube’s interest. The article assumes that such a divorce would be simple and it would allow YouTube to focus on taking on TikTok. It…

Additionally, it's not quite right when the author compares YouTube to TikTok as direct competitors. I have used YouTube to learn an insanely great amount of new things which range from programming to car and home repairs. You cannot do this on TikTok.

Yes you can. There are tons of "home hacks" and "car hacks" videos. Hell, the whole "kia boys" auto theft phenomenon is driven by teens learning how to boost late model kias via tiktok. (https://www.inquirer.com/news/kia-boyz-challenge-tiktok-phil...) As far as programmings tips, just yesterday I learned about Python's casefold() function, which superceeds lower() for comparing internationalized strings.

    "Strasse".lower() != "Straße".lower()
    "Strasse".casefold() == "Straße".casefold()
https://www.tiktok.com/@indentlyreels/video/7200305938614586... (If you want that sort of content, watch the video in your tiktok app to prime the algorithm to surface more similar content to you.)

Also in case you weren't aware, Tiktok now also supports longer videos - https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/28/22954525/tiktok-maximum-v...

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#335

Post by scarface74 »

Retric wrote: post #319
scarface_74 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Wikipedia summary > However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor did it prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future

First they where required to change the OS in a few ways: “H. Starting at the earlier of the release of Service Pack 1 for Windows XP or 12 months after the submission of this Final Judgment to the Court, Microsoft shall: 1. Allow end users (via a mechanism readily accessible from the desktop or Start menu such as an Add/Remove icon) and OEMs (via standard preinstallation kits) to enable or remove access to each Micr…

And you are still moving the goalpost. The entire thesis was that “bundling” was considered anti competitive. Absolutely nothing you cited supports that.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#336

Post by scarface74 »

Retric wrote: post #320
scarface_74 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original poster was originally focused on bundling. If DOJ had said Bill Gates kicked a dog while dressing up as clippy it would have meant nothing since there was no proposed remedy or anything that came out of the consent decree that BG had to stop cosplaying as Clippy and kicking dogs.

No, I didn’t mention bundling you did. Also, U.S. vs Microsoft wasn’t limited to Netscape vs IE several other companies were involved. The first Prohibited Conduct was in terms of OEMs: “ A. Microsoft shall not retaliate against an OEM by altering Microsoft's commercial relations with that OEM, or by withholding newly introduced forms of non-monetary Consideration (including but not limited to new versions of existin…

Then what was the point of this?

> Microsoft for example could have spent unlimited money on IE and the justice department wouldn’t have cared as long as it was treated as a business investment. However, leveraging the ability to change windows was seen as problematic.

And how is it related to anything Google is doing?

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#337

Post by scarface74 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #304
scarface_74 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how did YouTube get founded in the first place, and become successful as a video-sharing platform for original content A "successful" business makes more than it spends so it can be an ongoing concern. Any company can sell a lot of dollars for 95 cents. Youtube was never a "successful" business with a meaningful revenue stream before being acquired by Google. > Or how did Google come to exist, when the market w…

Youtube got acquired before they monetized, but it was obvious that they would eventually do something like that. Running at a loss to gain market dominance with a distinctly different kind of service is not 'selling dollars for 95 cents'. You realize you're arguing against the need for government regulation. I'm looking at some gaps in your logic when you assert that anyone who ever wants to go public is naive; when…

How many years would YouTube run at a lost if they hadn’t gotten sued out of existence first? How much of YouTube’s profitability now is directly related to both being able to leverage Google’s infrastructure at below market cost and being able to leverage Google’s adTech?

And who was going to fund them?

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#338

Post by qwytw »

echelon wrote: post #297
qwytw wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your future sounds pretty dystopian and very lonely though....

I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. You know what really sucks? How labor intensive and capital intensive filmmaking is. How hard it is to make it into the field. How almost impossible it is to lead a production. Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Think about how many month…

> I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same.

Why? I'm not sure what are you talking about but I doubt most factory workers or butter churners were particularly excited about their jobs...

> How almost impossible it is to lead a production.

The problem I see is that if everyone is capable of making high-end movies the market will become oversaturated. There is only a limited amount of time consumers can spend watching tv so if making high quality (by current standards) content becomes trivial that will simply raise the overall "quality" bar. As long as there is money to be made it will make sense to invest into improving your content by investing into better "AI", GPUs or whatever. So we'll just end up more or less where we started.

I mean that sort of already happened didn't it? We can do things (CGI & production wise) that were impossible or even unimaginable as recently as the 80s or 90s. And things which were extremely expensive and required thousands of hours to accomplish back then are trivial now. So what? Did it become much easier to break in into the industry than before? Or did the bar just got higher?

> When the cost structures drop, people will be more creative and more cooperative

Maybe. But considering that most people and not very creative and most of their "ideas" are garbage we're just a likely to drown in a sea of technically/visually high quality content that's artistically and creatively worthless. By "garbage" I mean content that very few people will choose to willingly consume if they had alternative options.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#339

Post by dghughes »

pb7 wrote: post #129
dghughes wrote: post #63

YouTube has become horrible experience practically unwatchable unless you pay for the monthly Premium service. And this is coming from me a person who grew up watching TV stuffed with ads. I can't imagine with young people who never watched TV think of bare non-premium YouTube. Non-premium YouTube is just an ad machine that happens to show some video content between ads. It used to be the opposite of that.

So pay for premium then. It costs a lot of money to run, why do you feel entitled to get it for free with nothing monetizing it?

I do pay for premium and get YouTube Music with it too.

And I don't feel entitled to get it free never said or implied that.

Re: It’s time for Alphabet to spin off YouTube?

#340

Post by deafpolygon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #302
echelon wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine factory workers and butter churners said the same. You know what really sucks? How labor intensive and capital intensive filmmaking is. How hard it is to make it into the field. How almost impossible it is to lead a production. Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Think about how many month…

> Think about all of the great ideas that wither on the vine because the Hollywood studio system only has so much capital and can only back so many projects. Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system, which is largely about expensive packaging of low-risk ideas, not great ones.

> Very few; great ideas mostly happen outside of the Hollywood studio system

Often, "making it" in the Hollywood studio system is about being a part of an exclusive club. Very few people are allowed to proliferate their own ideas within the walled garden.

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