15 years of Youtube: From hobby filmmaker playground to video empire

It all started with a couple of elephants at San Diego Zoo. "The cool thing about these guys is that they have this really long trunk," says YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, two pachyderms in the background. The first video on the online platform was banal and unspectacular - in stark contrast to the rise of YouTube that was to follow.

The website quickly became the epitome of entertaining Internet TV and is now a superpower in the entertainment world. But as great as its success has been, so too has the criticism. On its 15th birthday on Saturday, YouTube is more controversial than ever.

Advertising revenues of 15 billion

Cute little animal films like the elephant clip still exist, but the days of innocence are long gone. The takeover by Google, the commercialization, the billions in advertising - the former "Broadcast Yourself" playground for private videos has long since become just big business for Google's parent company Alphabet. However, with the rapid growth of bandwidth, influence and responsibility have also increased massively. In the era of fake news, hate speech and filter bubbles on the internet, YouTube is a constant source of controversy.

Youtube boss Susan Wojcicki knows this too: "Everyone is angry with you all the time," she said to the New York Times in an interview last year about YouTube's controversial approach to extreme content. According to its own figures, the platform now has around two billion active monthly users. Five years ago, there were half as many.

What YouTube contributes to Alphabet's revenue has long been one of the financial markets' best-kept secrets - the company recently provided insight for the first time. In 2019, the platform already generated advertising revenue of a good 15 billion dollars.

Several scandals

The fact that YouTube boss Wojcicki has her hands full is therefore not down to finances. The main problems are offensive content and how to deal with it. Social media is coming under increasing pressure to take action against the spread of propaganda and extremism, and YouTube is no exception.

The sheer volume of videos alone - over 300 hours of material are uploaded by users every minute - makes cleaning them out a Herculean task. But can a large corporation with an annual profit of over 34 billion dollars make excuses like this?

One thing is certain: illegal clips can spread so rapidly on the platform due to constant re-uploading that YouTube can barely keep up with deleting them, despite its sophisticated algorithms. However, critics doubt that the company is doing everything in its power.

There have been a number of scandals in recent years - from suicide footage in the "trending" recommendations to paedophile clips and sex videos in the children's section to videos with Holocaust denial and other propaganda. Ex-employees accused YouTube of subordinating the control of controversial content to business benefits - i.e. advertising revenue.

Weaknesses with uploads

Of course, the company would never admit such a thing. But vis-à-vis the New York Times Wojcicki did admit to weaknesses in dealing with problematic uploads. "I know we can do better, but we're getting there," said the 51-year-old. "We are reaching a point where we have solved many of these problems and I feel that we have already made significant progress." That was in April 2019. Since then, the platform has actually become much quieter, even if there is still a lot of controversy - for example about political advertising and manipulative content.

However, it would also be unfair to reduce YouTube's 15th anniversary to discussions about controversial videos. Much of its history to date has been characterized by harmless viral phenomena - the platform is an almost inexhaustible treasure trove of clips of all kinds, with everything from music videos and recipes to historical sports broadcasts or beauty and lifestyle guides. The portal is a kind of huge archive that keeps users interested thanks to its clever recommendation system.

YouTube has permanently changed the entertainment industry and even left its mark on the professional world - hobby entertainers have become "Youtubers" who receive a share of advertising revenue and sometimes earn a lot of money with their videos. Some of them are stars that millions of fans follow. The platform has played a key role in paving the way for influencer culture. However, commercialization continues: YouTube is now also trying to gain a foothold in the streaming market dominated by Netflix with self-produced content and paid subscriptions. (SDA)