How YouTube won the battle for TV viewers
53 comments
·July 19, 2025radley
I feel like this is the result of the major streaming services cutting back on original content due to production costs, the 2023 strikes, and winning the broadcast fight.
Initially, streaming had to compete with broadcasting's long seasons by producing the equivalent amount of content, spread between more shows, with higher-quality production but much shorter seasons. Now streamers are providing fewer shows and only semi-annual seasons. It ends up leaving a lot of open viewing time with nothing fresh to watch.
YouTube also has the advantage of people making highlight reels of the most popular movies and series. We get out-takes, behind the scenes, bloopers, best quotes etc. Streaming services haven't figured this out (yet). I've never watched The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on TV, but I watched almost every monologue on YouTube.
Night_Thastus
Streaming services in general have become terrible.
What once was on ~3 platforms is now on ~10+ platforms. They constantly shuffle around who has what, new promising series are constantly killed because if they don't instantly become a worldwide sensation and the prices are rising non-stop.
At some point I just said screw it and left all of them.
JKCalhoun
That alternatives to YouTube have come to naught feels unfortunately like a de facto monopoly.
Certainly it's because the content creators stay on YouTube because that's "where the eyeballs are". (Or rather, the money is to be made there on ad revenue ... because that's where the eyeballs are.)
I don't know how you break that. eBay is probably in the same enviable position.
Analemma_
It’s even worse than you think, because by all accounts YouTube is absurdly expensive to operate. Some even claim to that this day it has still never turned a profit for Google. And if Google can’t make it work— with their own ad network, tons of their own fiber, their own operating system, etc.— it’s likely that nobody can. Hosting unlimited video for free is just stupefyingly expensive.
veggieroll
Ultimately, we need to convince DC to start enforcing monopoly laws again.
spwa4
That won't work, Youtube is fundamentally dependent on massive storage, massive compute and massive internet connectivity PLUS a revenue mechanism for creators. A whole lot of infrastructure.
Monopoly laws and taxes are punitive. In other words: they can only ever create a situation where there is fundamentally less available. They cannot create a second Youtube, they can only destroy Youtube. Unless the government builds the infrastructure, which is a nonstarter.
If you cannot use state power and/or resources to create a second and third Youtube, then letting Youtube be a monopoly is probably the best option. The big difference between competitors and a monopoly is that a monopolist can only improve outcomes by growing the market ... which is exactly what we want.
Unfortunately it is very much not what the government wants. Well, it is not what governments (plural) want. Governments think they're god, and of course like two people in a madhouse that both think they're god, there is a rather fundamental disagreement here. They will realize, eventually, just how stupid it would be for god to let other gods (anyone but themselves, other governments, but also private people) control mass media. This means we will get closer and closer to the situation that Youtube cannot satisfy multiple governments. This could even apply to multiple parties within one state structure. You would hope this means they'll build infrastructure, but we all know what will really happen: they'll destroy it. Youtube will end because governments will see it as a threat to them, and they just won't care how much damage they're doing. Just look at the current government.
There are a LOT of economy texts, some quite old that warn about the dangers of letting private interests control the only market for anything. They suggest the government should make sure they own or at least control the market itself, but that includes paying for infrastructure. This has it's own problems (like censorship), but there is really no alternative. Either you do that or eventually the monopolists will BE the government.
black3r
> Youtube is fundamentally dependent on massive storage, massive compute and massive internet connectivity PLUS a revenue mechanism for creators. A whole lot of infrastructure.
Yes, and YouTube essentially gets all of this infrastructure from its parent company for free and still operates at a loss. So no other company who doesn't already have such infrastructure for other purposes can effectively compete with YouTube, and all such attempts were effectively destroyed by YouTube because YouTube could offer better services while still operating at a loss.
Monopoly laws should've prevented a situation like this.
Of course YouTube wouldn't be able to provide its services at current scale if it didn't have Google backing. But perhaps that could've made the current content market better. If YouTube had to place some restrictions on uploaded content because it wouldn't afford unlimited storage and bandwidth, it wouldn't push creators to make every video 10+ minutes long, and if creators had to pay at least some minimal fees (while they could still get residuals from ads if the video was successful) to post videos, we wouldn't have so much low quality videos there. And the competition could maybe give us better features we don't even dream of today.
mike_hearn
YouTube isn't a monopoly. Quite a few creators I watch heavily promote their videos on other sites, usually targeted specifically at learning. I guess they get a better revshare there.
Unfortunately for them, I don't watch enough of their learning content to care about subscribing. But it's an option, and if I wanted to spend more time watching videos I could do so.
Operating a site with all the features and scale of YouTube is prohibitively difficult just because YouTube sets the bar so high, but operating a smaller more targeted competitor isn't. There are no barriers to entering the market. And that's largely thanks to Google and how they pushed so much video functionality into Chrome itself!
WhyNotHugo
YouTube is mostly popular, but it doesn’t really stand out in any technical way.
Content creators prefer YouTube because it has more users, and each creator is afraid that their followers wouldn’t follow them to another platform. Even content creators focused on open source or self-hosting kind of tech.
Honestly, I really wonder if users would refuse to follow creators whom they like to another platform. Are most people really that adverse to just watching videos on another website?
Dig1t
It’s also really hard to compete with YouTube simply due to the cost of compute and storage associated with serving video. The costs are way higher than most any other type of website. You have to do transcoding and also store multiple versions of videos at different resolutions.
There are few companies with the resources to create a real competitor.
RumourRider
It is partly the network effect. However all the alternatives having serious issues:
- Odysee - has performance issues and the app is crap and no discoverability. Some niche, interesting content on there but a lot of the time I only used it because someone would upload Joe Rogan stuff while he was exclusive to Spotify.
- BitChute - full of racists and not a lot else, crap discoverability. The website feels like something from the 2000s.
- Rumble - US/UK right wing slop politics and conspiracy rubbish from David Icke wannabes. I don't like the interface at all. Tends to work okay. But there is very few things I want to watch/listen to on there. Discoverability isn't great.
- Daily motion - I remember it being decent a decade ago, but it has fallen behind and turned into something else from briefly looking at the home page.
- Twitch - Streaming platform only, I think. There is a lot of slop left wing politics on it and (for want of a better term) "titty streamers". I have visited the site once, not for me.
- Kick - Basically Twitch but has more permissive T&C. Bankrolled by Stake.com IIRC. I watch one live show if I am awake to watch it. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
I spend most of my time on YouTube watching stuff either about Computers, Repairing 4x4 trucks, Weird Soviet Era vehicles, WW2 stuff by Mark Felton or some sort of Tech related stuff. None of that is catered to on the alternative sites at all. None of that is catered by TV particularly well either.
ksec
Non Youtube contents such as TV broadcast needs to get streaming done right. And they haven't done it. Apple or Google could have helped here. Where All Broadcast TV are in one place / App just like a normal TV. And the content will be streamed in decent quality. But neither are they interested as Youtube belongs to Google and Apple is going with Apple TV+ direction and wants to own TV itself.
It is such a sad state of things since Steve Jobs passed away both Apple and Google have a complete lack of taste and product sensibility to deliver something truly helps the customers. Instead every product and features are marketing or sales driven.
WhyNotHugo
In an ideal world, each streaming service would provide the service itself, users can pick whichever app they like, and connect that app to the services they use.
In the real world, each company wants to be THE number one streaming platform, and wants users to use their app above all else. So each company reinvents the same things, and users need to deal with the mess of N apps for N services.
The idea of cooperation is completely alien in big tech companies. Descentralisation is perceived as dangerous, since it doesn’t let each individual be the number one.
In the end, because everyone want to be the number one and screw the rest, they all end up sucking. This is obviously predictable, but management everywhere remains oblivious of it.
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izacus
Apple and Google tried that for years on their TV platforms and the content providers aggressively blocked them.
E.g. Netflix outright refuses any kind of integration where their content would be surfaced next to other services - their product managers DEMAND that people go to their app into their owned experience to access content.
And designers/product managers at other content providers are the same.
jppj
I wonder what it's like in various countries. I was surprised that Japan came up with that, TVer which basically all broadcast shows end up on for at least one week, shown with ads. AFAIK it's driven by a coalition of broadcasters with nothing to do with the big platforms - where there's a will there's a way I guess.
halJordan
This could easily have happened. Apple especially lets anyone fit their catalog into the TV app. It's the non-Apple and non-Google part of the equation that chose the current system.
ksec
There are additional requirements involved with getting the catalog in TV App. And Apple obviously are not willing to share accurate user count numbers as well as a lot of other data. Once they said they are Apple's customer and not those TV / Broadcasting customers that was the end of the conversation.
gnz11
> All Broadcast TV are in one place / App just like a normal TV. And the content will be streamed in decent quality.
Isn’t that what YouTube TV is? The problem with YouTube TV is that it’s essentially the old expensive cable model that everyone was trying to get away from in the first place.
ta1243
BBC has been doing streaming likely longer than you've been aware of streaming -- it left beta in 2007, same time that Netflix started streaming in the US.
The content is nowhere near as addictive as youtube though, partly because the format is still television and still built with a television executive mindset.
apricot13
TV channels have been forced to produce TV shows that will draw the biggest audiences. they've not innovated online either.
Streaming services make great shows then stop them after one season or force one episode a week. they also drop then pick back up shows constantly.
YouTube let's people watch the kinds of shows they want to watch and let's people create the kind of shows they want to create. everyone wins, including YouTube! plus they do music, smaller artists, bigger artists and mashups in between. it's all just there fairly reliably and it works on every platform.
heavensteeth
personally i havent watched tv or listened to the radio on my own accord in many years because there are too many ads. i like the idea of not being able to choose the content im engaging in but it feels like 70% ads and 30% content
al_borland
I’d say 98% of my YouTube views are on the AppleTV.
GauntletWizard
I ditched Chromecast recently. They made YouTube too heavyweight for the Chromecast Ultra, to the point it regularly crashed. The new "Chromecast With Android TV" is barely more specs and has broken the interface by being... Android TV. Rather than take a well deserved second place, they chased Apple's design and ruined their niche.
Worse still, the best replacement I could find... Was Apple TV. So now I'm on that ecosystem.
kimixa
Does it use a different app on the Ultra? I'm still using my second generation and (aside from some nonsense earlier this year about expired certificates) still going strong - can't ever remember it "Crashing".
Perhaps it's not "app weight" but more specific to the 4k video or SoC implementation?
consumer451
YouTube is apparently #1 in music streaming as well, which I found surprising.
apricot13
so did I until I found myself using YouTube music over Spotify more and more. it has all the standard music but also includes more remixes and smaller artists. the most important thing is that it doesn't mix podcasts in with music and you can easily view your own playlists!
haven't used Spotify in any meaningful way in a few years now.
al_borland
In terms of subscribers or actual use?
I have YT Premium, so I automatically get YT Music. I would much rather pay less and drop the Music app. I almost never use it and don’t like it. I can’t justify buying for another service on top of this, so I went back to managing a local library and manually syncing all my music to my phone like it’s 2007.
A side effect of YouTube treating music special is that I can’t read comments on the TV for videos that it thinks are music. I find this very annoying. The same video will have comment on mobile or the computer.
anon7000
My gripe is that when you try to sync over a library from, say, Spotify, you’ll end up subscribed to hundreds of artist’s YouTube channels in your main TV app, and playlists are basically shared too. Which I do not want at all
al_borland
Yep. This is one of the reasons I don’t really use YT Music. The shared playlists are a nightmare. If someone tells me to check out a song, I might go there to listen to it as a one-off, but that’s about it. It’s so poorly done for anyone who also uses YouTube, which I assume is everyone.
oersted
Quick tip: You can see the comments on such videos (at least on my TV), the comments button not shown but clicking on the video title to open the description also shows the comments.
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consumer451
IIRC, it was in terms of use.
JKCalhoun
Went to a wedding, 10 years ago even, and the "kids" DJ-ing the wedding party were pulling up music on YouTube.
(To be sure, this was very much a low-key affair, teens there with their parents were "DJ-ing" — but I was still surprised that is was YT. Just vanilla YT, pulling up "videos" and hitting "play".)
radley
YouTube is pretty common for in-person, social music sharing because it's the least friction. It's hard to share between Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, and personal collections from the same device. YT search will usually find pretty much everything.
pie_flavor
YT Music is a dollar cheaper than Spotify, and generally better; it's also included in YT Premium, so if you already have that, 'may as well'.
rambambram
I always wondered if this would be the case. All non-tech-nerd people I know share Spotify links that I can't open (yes, I can download another app, no I'm not going to do that).
I use Youtube extensively for discovering new music and new artists. Sometimes (1 out of 100 times) I find myself on Soundcloud for a song that's not on Youtube, but for the rest Youtube is just perfect. I always wondered how many people use Youtube for music streaming... apparently a lot.
ksec
I dont believe that is the case, and I cant any reference to it. Nearly all are pointing to Spotify as number one both in terms of revenue and market shares.
The thing I dislike about Youtube Music is how it is basically not a product the team have put any thoughts into it. It is constantly rated one of the worst in Apple Music and Spotify comparison. It has so much potential but it is just very poor done.
ddtaylor
Jellyfin is really popular in our house. Everyone associates YouTube with quick and dirty dumb content. Garbage "looping" style content is allowed in private, but long form content on a screen or playing aloud has to be something that is an actual 30+ minute thing with a point to it.
zarzavat
You need to subscribe to better YouTube channels. I stopped watching regular TV (including Netflix, etc), because YouTube is much more erudite and I actually learn things rather than passively consuming dramas.
rambambram
> actual 30+ minute thing with a point to it
Good point. I hardly see any movies anymore and lately I found that what I miss is a good story. Some Youtube channels come close, but these are all 'garden variety' stories, so to speak.
h4kunamata
TV is hot garbage now.
YT has solid channels, from DIY to black hole talks and most importantly, uncensored news.
TV is just ADs and more ADs, garbage content after garbage content. Not everything is pretty tho, YT has a complete monopoly and there is nothing anybody can do about it, the alternatives suck with some silly subscription when there is no even content.
I do pay for Youtube Premium since Youtube Music is hands down better than Spotify. I would pay for alternative services to help them out IF they were worth it. YT Premium is the only subscription I pay and happy to do so, I see value.
amelius
Is YT Premium 100% ad-free?
I get the feeling that if many users start using Premium, at some point they'll see ads again.
nickthegreek
youtube does not put ads before, during or after a video for a premium subscriber. creators are in control of the content within that video (and that could include sponsored segments). if that is an issue, you will need to skip those or use something like SponsorBlock.
fragmede
Premium has a "skip section" button for those.
RaSoJo
YT-Premium is still ad-free, though they did bump up the prices recently.
Being a monopoly gives them that kind of power, but they haven’t gone overboard—probably because they know regulators would start poking around if they did.
tietjens
very curious what is meant by uncensored news.
lowdownbutter
> uncensored news. Get a load of this guy
null
https://archive.is/Ii9n3