I won't comment on the quality of the post, obviously its a rant.
But the topic of the rant was both how "online video has been solved" and "it's such a shame that Youtube won online video". He obviously hopes for a day soon when there are 5 or more places to go for video online that have equal market share... That will never happen.
Not saying Youtube will be King forever, but fragmented markets are not stable except if there are other forces at play (like government regulation, language, or massive costs to switch providers).
It seems that we as a society like having a homogeneous environment more than a heterogeneous one for most things. I wonder if there are any academic studies that show that?
My theory is this: in this online world we live in, where there are no geographic boundaries any more, we need to have some common references when talking. Take Twitter for example - what if there were 10 other sites like Twitter and they all had equal market share? How do you get the updates from all your friends? All your friends would have to join the same one. And so worldwide, one site would grab the most market share. It HAS to be that way.
Or for video, let's say I create a short video clip, and upload it to 5 different video sites. Now my community is fragmented, and my fan base is divided. Eventually, one site gives me slightly more comments, slightly more traffic, slightly more shares, and then that becomes the best site to use for my type of video and I give more attention to that site. My fans go to that site as well because it has the best and most active conversation about my videos. So there has to be a favorite site for videos.
Not saying that you can't have a site for very specific niches. Like funny videos can be on FunnyOrDie, while Hollywood movies can use Netflix, realtime streaming can be Ustream... but people need to know where the one place to go for the content they are interested in. I think it has to be that way.
Can anyone think of a fragmented online business with no outside influence that keeps it that way? The only one I can think of is "online email", but the costs of changing your email address (time and hassle wise) is enormous so switching is not easy.
It's hard to explain, but to me it makes sense that in each market there is a clear leader and it requires a monumental effort to go to a new leader.
Hey there, thanks for what has to be the most insightful and constructive comment of the thread!
I agree with what you're saying. To me, all this is part of a bigger issue which is the "mass culture". That society is only comfortable with having one, perhaps two, providers for every kind of service is similar to the fact that apparently, society needs blockbusters and music hits to find some kind of balance. So that when you meet someone, you actually have common points to discuss.
I haven't yet taken the time to address that issue in blog form, though, because it's really complex and I don't want to half-ass it. I don't think it'll ever be completely solved in this lifetime either.
Part of the social factors that, for example, prevent a mass migration from Facebook or Twitter are the network effects you mention "People go to that site as well because it has the best and most active conversation.". In my opinion, this can be somewhat mitigated by having open protocols for everything. If the discussion happens not on a single platform, but on a set of platforms all talking the same language, you could (in theory) use any client to follow the discussion and it wouldn't even matter where the video is hosted.
Online identity and presence is very hard to define/to bound: e-mail is hard to switch because your e-mail address contains the domain name of your provider (user@provider.tld). It's easier to switch from a web hosting company to another because there you usually control the DNS (except if you're stuck with a subdomain, which sucks) - so for example, I've been able to switch amos.me from ImmediateVPS to Linode to prgmr without any downtime/relocation issues. E-mail is similarly easy to switch if you own the domain name.
But e-mail and personal websites are only part of your online identity: usually, your whole identity is spread among several services: Twitter, Tumblr, HackerNews, Reddit, Flickr. Most people use their homepage as hub/registry to list all their online accounts, but there has to be a better way.
But, again, the thing about open protocols is that reducing the switching cost from one service to another is generally not in the interest of any single provider. Only few companies have convictions strong enough to really make migrations seamless. For others, they're mostly coerced to do so because of privacy laws (example: Google's Data Liberation Front) and give you a .zip of your data, but you can't just seamlessly import it into another service.
This discussion is too vast, really. I'd love to see the death of mass culture and to see a reversal in the centralization process, but, like you, I have my doubts and questions about it.
But the topic of the rant was both how "online video has been solved" and "it's such a shame that Youtube won online video". He obviously hopes for a day soon when there are 5 or more places to go for video online that have equal market share... That will never happen.
Not saying Youtube will be King forever, but fragmented markets are not stable except if there are other forces at play (like government regulation, language, or massive costs to switch providers).
It seems that we as a society like having a homogeneous environment more than a heterogeneous one for most things. I wonder if there are any academic studies that show that?
My theory is this: in this online world we live in, where there are no geographic boundaries any more, we need to have some common references when talking. Take Twitter for example - what if there were 10 other sites like Twitter and they all had equal market share? How do you get the updates from all your friends? All your friends would have to join the same one. And so worldwide, one site would grab the most market share. It HAS to be that way.
Or for video, let's say I create a short video clip, and upload it to 5 different video sites. Now my community is fragmented, and my fan base is divided. Eventually, one site gives me slightly more comments, slightly more traffic, slightly more shares, and then that becomes the best site to use for my type of video and I give more attention to that site. My fans go to that site as well because it has the best and most active conversation about my videos. So there has to be a favorite site for videos.
Not saying that you can't have a site for very specific niches. Like funny videos can be on FunnyOrDie, while Hollywood movies can use Netflix, realtime streaming can be Ustream... but people need to know where the one place to go for the content they are interested in. I think it has to be that way.
Can anyone think of a fragmented online business with no outside influence that keeps it that way? The only one I can think of is "online email", but the costs of changing your email address (time and hassle wise) is enormous so switching is not easy.
It's hard to explain, but to me it makes sense that in each market there is a clear leader and it requires a monumental effort to go to a new leader.
[edited for bad grammar and clarification]