How YouTube's Domination of Streaming Clips the Market's Wings (wordpress.com) 97
New report from Midia Research firm looks at music fans' behavior in the third quarter of 2018. From the report: YouTube is the dominant music streaming platform, with 55% of consumers regularly watching music videos on YouTube, compared to a combined 37% for all free audio streaming services. YouTube usage skews young, peaking at nearly three quarters of consumers under 25. Although YouTube leads audio streaming in all markets -- even Spotify's native Sweden -- there are some strong regional variations. For example, emerging streaming markets Brazil and Mexico see much higher YouTube penetration, peaking at close to double the level of even traditional music radio in Mexico.
Indeed, radio is feeling the YouTube pinch as much as audio streaming. 68% of those under 45 watch YouTube music videos compared to 41% that listen to music radio. The difference increases with younger audiences and the more emerging the market. For example, in Mexico YouTube music penetration is 84% for 20-24 year olds, compared to 37% for music radio. Streaming may be the future of radio, but right now that streaming future is YouTube.
Indeed, radio is feeling the YouTube pinch as much as audio streaming. 68% of those under 45 watch YouTube music videos compared to 41% that listen to music radio. The difference increases with younger audiences and the more emerging the market. For example, in Mexico YouTube music penetration is 84% for 20-24 year olds, compared to 37% for music radio. Streaming may be the future of radio, but right now that streaming future is YouTube.
Why do people do this (Score:3)
Most of them on there aren't even from the band. Just crappy fan uploads.
Most have bad sound quality. The music on my system sounds a lot better.
A lot harder to create a playlist. Or at the very least, a lot slower.
Video also burns thru a lot more data than audio if that is a concern for you.
Re:Why do people do this (Score:4, Interesting)
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Because free and no advertisements.
Free, yes, but YouTube has ads.
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I've never seen an ad on Youtube. Adblockers.
Not on mobile, which is how people mostly listen to music.
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There are ads on your internet? You need a better internet!
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There are ads on your internet? You need a better internet!
If everyone blocks ads, all of the high-quality Internet services we use will go away, or become subscription services. Those who long for the pre-ad Internet do not remember the pre-ad Internet. Or have very narrow and unusual interests.
But with respect to music, most music listening is done on mobile devices, where adblockers are far less common.
FWIW, my YouTube has no ads, on any platform. I achieve this not by blocking the ads, but by paying for ad-free service. I do actually use an adblocker (ABP
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You're not much into round-trip thinking, are you?
Without the captains of industry expending all this money on advertising, the products we buy would be a lot cheaper, and the money we all save on our merchandise could be spent directly supporting the channels we most prefer, which—once adequately supported
"If you build it, they will come" (Score:2)
the observation that the peer community is too effective at getting the word out about which products suck and which products don't
Without advertising, how does the "the peer community" learn that a new product is available in the first place?
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If you have no fans, you go to open mike nights
That doesn't help once the operators of formerly open mike nights have since closed their mikes in order to "monetize" them by requiring each performer to pay to rent a stage on which to perform. "Why should we let you place free advertising?" Nor does it help a musician who is a high school student or a college underclassman or who seeks fans that are high school students or college underclassmen, as open mike nights tend to be in 21-to-enter establishments.
play in the park, or sing on a street corner
This might work when two conditions are true: 1.
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If everyone blocks ads, all of the high-quality Internet services we use will go away, or become subscription services.
And nothing of value was lost. Back in the day there was a service called Adult Check, founded on the principle that adults could pay for nice things. A subscription to Adult Check was good for hundreds of different sites. Subscribers paid a $10 per month flat fee for access to all participating publishers' sites, which got divided among their operators per page view.
Those who long for the pre-ad Internet do not remember the pre-ad Internet. Or have very narrow and unusual interests.
Slashdot caters to some of these "very narrow and unusual interests."
FWIW, my YouTube has no ads, on any platform. I achieve this not by blocking the ads, but by paying for ad-free service.
That depends on having been born, or having qualified to work on a skille
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If everyone blocks ads, all of the high-quality Internet services we use will go away, or become subscription services.
Damn it dude! You know this. I know this. But 95% of the people out there don't know it (or don't care), and of those only 10% would block the ads. Don't be spreading this fact. Before you know it the Internet will collapse.
P.S. Don't ask for references on those percentages. They're my best guess.
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No one I watch on YouTube monetizes their videos these days. Not one. It's a failed model. Patreon was the next thing, but that's apparently the new failed model. Still, crowdfunding will eventually find a proper home.
There were plenty of good ideas for how to fund content before ads took over. Ads were not the best choice.
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Re:Why do people do this (Score:4, Interesting)
For a lot of people music is a background thing. Today Internet WiFi signals are stronger then most Radio Signals especially inside a building, plus they will already have a YouTube compatible device on them most of the time.
It is just more convenient especially if you are not expecting a lot.
Re:Why do people do this (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything I could find on a streaming platform I can find on YouTube. However, the reverse is not true. There’s plenty of things I can listen to on YouTube that no streaming service offers. If your musical tastes stay outside of what’s popular, YouTube is a far better bet for finding it. Google’s algorithms might even play some other related music that you’ll really like but wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere as well. YouTube is also surprisingly good for music discovery as well.
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YouTube has almost everything and since they gave the copyright owners the ability to collect from something another person uploaded, thereâ(TM)s not much incentive to remove the so-called illegally uploaded content.
Some label still do no get this. E.g., I'm a big King Crimson fan, and they take down almost everything, including some great fan-made music videos. It's quite annoying. It's not like they're cranking out new albums and YouTube might displace some sales, and their fans already have everything on CD or vinyl. I blame the Boomers.
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By the way you fucking idiot. Price of those phones is very comparable.
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Not AC, but there are a lot of shitty cars, crappy TVs, weird fucking houses, etc. So probably, yea, he talks the shit about them too.
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These are the same kind of cheap people who buy Android phones. Some people just have no taste.
My Android phone has a headphone jack (and an audiophile DAC). You're listening on Bluetooth? Yeah.
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Welcome to the MP3 and shitty headphone/laptop speaker era. Nobody gives a damn about actual audio quality. I've tried preaching this myself over the past two decades with zero results from anyone around me. The "convenience" is more valuable than audio reproduction quality.
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I suspect that's because people no longer "come on over" to listen to the latest release from popular band, when someone has bought 'bands' new album.
I used to buy albums, 45s, cassingles and then CD singles.
None of these (except albums) seem to exist anymore, it's all online downloads, and often laden with DRM so you can pay your money and yet, one day in the future, be unable to play the music that you paid for. Or have to pay again to listen to a song you paid for on your phone, since you bought it on yo
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Most k-pop bands upload their official music videos to youtube.
Because they're good at merchandising, that's why they're more profitable (on a per-fan basis) than western music groups.
And music videos have no value. Nobody ever made a bunch of money selling DVDs of music videos. Madonna makes a bunch of money selling DVDs of concerts. But the official music videos get almost all of their value from their ability to promote the band.
Fan videos of concerts add a fantasy element, it feels more like you're at a
Animusic on PBS (Score:2)
Nobody ever made a bunch of money selling DVDs of music videos.
Except PBS, which has offered Animusic videos during pledge drives.
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If it had value, the donation wouldn't even be tax deductible. ;)
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Yes, that's what I've moved to as well. mp3s when gaming on gaming PC and YouTube music vids when relaxing in the actual house (games room is separate from house for... reasons).
At work, it's usb sticks of my mp3s, for background music.
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It's not clipping wings (Score:2, Interesting)
It's showing the market what society wants.
This is a good thing.
The title of this post is just a dog whistle calling on socialists to clamor for governmental regulation by know-nothing, paper-pushing, bureaucrats who fancy themselves to be Intelligent Designers. In our Universe, there is only Evolution by Variation and Selection, the most humane and robust form of which is voluntary interaction (i.e., a free market; i.e., a market free from the meddling of coercive, would-be central planners).
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History has often shown us in terms of products, the best product is rarely the one that wins the standard. But the one that is more accessible.
Back in the 1980s for Desktop PC you probably couldn't beat an Amiga in terms of technology and price. However the IBM PC Compatible desktop won, because with a hacked BIOS it was easy to make a fully compatible system, and sell many units all PC Compatible, with a larger selection software titles, from teams of developers who used these PC from work, and wrote so
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the IBM PC Compatible desktop won, because with a hacked BIOS it was easy to make a fully compatible system, and sell many units all PC Compatible
Well then, which computer really was "best"? I suggest that the PC's modular and somewhat open architecture made it the better product.
But GP's point is well taken - the problem to solve is how to pay content creators the royalties they deserve. Posting music without the right to do so and collecting advertising revenue from it is theft. If YouTube is the platform consumers prefer then solve the problem with compensation instead of trying to legislate streaming over YouTube.
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the problem to solve is how to pay content creators the royalties they deserve
It is quite the opposite. It's easy for copyright holders to flag content. It's a completely automated system. You can read about it here:
https://support.google.com/you... [google.com]
Platforms such as Facebook are much, much worse. Someone can steal your video from YouTube and upload it to Facebook and it'll be there for weeks before Facebook gets around to taking it down. You can learn about that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
No advertisements (Score:3)
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The reason Youtube is used is because there are no advertisements if you use an adblocker. Once Google closes that loophole it won't be as dominant. That is why Google lets people who use Adblockers use Youtube.
Please advise on how I can block ads [without dolling out cash], on Android.
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Why should it not cost cash? It takes time and money to create that app, and keep it up to date as ad tech evolves.
I do wonder if there'd be a lawsuit if someone built such an app.
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I do wonder if there'd be a lawsuit if someone built such an app.
Why should there be? What crime would such an app creator be alleged to have committed?
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Violating the TOS, so call it publishing a hacking tool, or accessory to violations of the computer fraud and abuse act.
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Why should it not cost cash? It takes time and money to create that app, and keep it up to date as ad tech evolves.
I do wonder if there'd be a lawsuit if someone built such an app.
Only if they made promises to investors about having users. ;)
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Root and hosts file.
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Please advise on how I can block ads [without dolling out cash], on Android.
1) Do not install the app at all. Just say no.
2) Use firefox
3) Install either uBlock Origin or Adblock Plus
4) Use the youtube website through the browser.
Never install apps.
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If your device is rooted, try AdAway. It uses the hosts file to block them completely, system-wide.
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A lot of people watch on a smart TV or phone where ad blocking is nearly impossible now. DNS blocking doesn't work any more, although on Android if you are feeling brave you can use a hacked YouTube app.
Smart TVs are the reason for dominance though. YouTube is right there along side Netflix and maybe Amazon, the default apps on most sets. If you app isn't available for the TV, or isn't there by default, you are not going to get views like YouTube and Netflix do.
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Regulators?
In which country/s?
Because YouTube is a global issue...
That article read like it was an ad copy (Score:2)
There wasn't any analysis of the survey, no commentary about the robustness of the numbers, just a quick blurb from the survey and how the EU Article 13 could be a good thing.
It was actively devoid of meaningful content. How the hell did this make through the queue?
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It's piles of servers. (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand the mindset - if there's no marketplace for new businesses, how do we get improvements over time?
The problem is that businesses aren't really valid laboratories for testing ideas. They fail for reasons unconnected to their base ideas more often than not, and VERY rarely engage in any actual forms of valid research anymore.
Individuals test ideas, and more specialized groups work on promoting those ideas - not really business in general.
In this case, Youtube is basically a specialized use of the very large pile of random computers Google houses en mass, in order to advertise to people.
It's like if you had a bazaar in your town, selling cheap knick-knacks at random prices - and then a big warehouse store came in, offering better quality knick-knacks for cheaper with less hassle for everyone, and less overhead waste.
It's not some great tragedy that a simplified business wipes out those businesses - perhaps a set of small regrets - but you're not going to lose much actual innovation because of that shift to better organization and efficiency.
Rather, instead of more rinky dink folks trying to hawk dodads, you get more rinky dink folks trying to band together make something that will be good enough to sell at the big store, or working at companies that already found a niche.
If you want innovation - then focus on actually rewarding innovation, not pretending like a market is going to produce it - markets only innovate on a fairly small window of short-term interests. Bring back actual research organizations as a part of the economy.
Pretending that you can innovate better than Youtube by just going back to a diaspora of yet more scammy small-scale operations - that's wishful thinking in my book.
You have to have a better idea tested and reliably scalable before it's worth crushing a working system. Youtube is horrible in some ways - but there's valid reasons folks want to use it more than most anything else.
Ryan Fenton
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It gives us all a lot to think about.
Non-"Buffering" 3rd-Party Players? (Score:3)
OK, it's 2019. I still see most competitors to YouTube stutter, break up, and lag with terrible buffering - news sites, Vimeo, VLC even, etc. Network quality simulators have been around for more than a decade; in general the pipes are plenty fast even if not uniform in capacity, and the browsers all all plenty fast now.
So, what gives? Is anybody trying? Is there anything available that can give even close to as good an experience as YouTube on a typical dodgy network connection? I'll encode the h.264 however it wants it and host it on a QUIC server if need be.
Re:Non-"Buffering" 3rd-Party Players? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Ummm...
Baird's Colin Sebastian estimated YouTube is doing around $15 billion in annual sales.
https://www.thestreet.com/inve... [thestreet.com]
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I tend to believe the financial analysts.
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I findYouTube as bad as most competitors when it comes to stuttering/needing to buffer. I mean major competitors. Startups, even ones with piles of cash, are significantly worse.
Rev up your engines! (Score:2)
What is music radio? (Score:3)
Ohhh, you mean commercial radio. Because that is all they seem to play. And when they aren't playing commercials, they are playing
1. a song I had heard 1000 times 25 years ago that I hate
2. a song I had heard 1000 times 25 years ago that I like, and I have
3. some awful dreck that makes me turn the channel or turn it off
When I listen to music, it is from my digital collection. If I want to find something new, I can find it on a few youtube channels I frequent. If I want to buy it, I will buy a digital copy - or in rare occurrences a CD - from online retailers like bandcamp, cdbaby, or from the artist directly.
I don't use any streaming services, I have no need for them beyond finding music worthy of downloading.
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Yep, that's my modus operandi as well.
The non-commercial radio stationt that I listen to (JJJ)>
I buy their best of CD every year.
It's voted on by the world.
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej... [abc.net.au]
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On the other hand, the labels in the RIAA are one tweak in US law from losing their own exclusive rights.
The trouble with 'free'... (Score:1)
Most people think that using YouTube costs them nothing. Because YouTube was first to the party, and because they offered a treasure trove for 'free', many people adopted it very quickly, and there was virtually no opportunity for competition to develop before the monopoly was established.
I think ANY monopoly is bad - but this kind of monopoly is really insidious, because it's hard to fight. People pay for it with intangibles - namely their privacy and their consumption of advertising - so they don't think
you tube (Score:1)