Big Technology Podcast - YouTube's Uneasy World Domination — With Mark Bergen

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Mark Bergen is a Bloomberg reporter and author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination. The book releases next week and Bergen joins to preview what's inside, delivering a wide range of insights on YouTube's battle with TikTok, its algorithmic programming, and its appeal (and peril) for kids. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss whether old media can cover YouTube (and its fellow digital challengers) without bias. You can find the book here.

LinkedIn Presents. Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We're joined today by Mark Bergen. He is a reporter at Bloomberg, a good friend of mine, and the author of like, comment, subscribe, inside you. YouTube's chaotic rise to world domination coming out next Tuesday, September 6. So I encourage you to pre-order it.

But if you want to hold your judgment and listen to this conversation, by all means, but I think you're going to like a lot of what Mark has to say. Mark, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Alex. I've been waiting eagerly for years to be on the show. Exactly. Well, you know, it's a long time coming. You're definitely, without a doubt, the closest friend that I've had on the show.

And it's really a thrill to be able to speak with you about the book. We've been talking about this since it was actually, you know, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but initially you're going to write a book about self-driving cars and you ended up settling on YouTube, which I'm stoked about. And I think there's so much good stuff in the book. I read it cover to cover. And YouTube is obviously a fascinating company, core to Google's revenue, competing strongly with TikTok at the moment.

And also just like this kind of massively underrated political force and also a huge presence in the life of kids, which we'll get to. It's really interesting when you talk about competing heavily with TikTok. It's just so, like, something we weren't even having a conversation about a few years ago. Yeah, I wonder if... A whole different topic. Yeah, well, actually, I think it's the topic or core of the topic because, you know, the first question I wrote off for you is, you know, basically a set looking at YouTube's

competition with TikTok and, like, what you would do differently if you were to write the book today versus, like, writing it two years. years ago and it just gives us a bit of a sense as to how fast TikTok has grown. So let's start with this. Can you give us a sense of YouTube scale? How big is this thing actually? I mean, the stat that they, I think it's stat is almost like two years, not more years old now, right? The one they've tried it out and they've tried it out every like six months or so,

updating it, you know, 500 hours are uploaded every minute to YouTube. 500 hours of video. Yeah. And I'm sure it's more. maybe close to 600, you know, I think they've, the company might sort of discontinue that stat. I'd be curious if they do. But it's just, that gives you, like, one sense of the, of the scale, like this sort of incomprehensible scale of the platform. I mean, I think, you know, that there was a Pew study that came out a few years ago, or a few weeks ago, rather, about

teens, you know, their usage of social media, you know, the big, the headlines were the that Facebook has obviously dropped off in the past seven years, and TikTok has risen, but TikTok, I think, was around 67% of teens said, yeah, we use U.S. teens. We used the TikTok all the time. 95% said they use YouTube. It's like the television, the primary screen for youth and for entire generations, right? I think that is those that we can go on with like the sense of scale platform itself. is just it just has been growing since day one

and now it's like what we're doing today right podcast going up on YouTube YouTube is leaning in the podcasts that is just hours and hours of footage and audio that is added to the platform and just continue to grow and you talk about the supply side how much video is actually added

to the platform every day but what about the demand side how much video is being watched every day there was this goal that they wanted a billion hours. It's in your book, a billion hours a day of watch time. They looked at the share of YouTube in people's day-to-day life, not in terms of how much digital video they were watching, but they called it like similar to the share of stomach that a Pepsi or Coke might, you know, figure how much, you know, not just digital video, but video in general are they being watched. So have they surpassed that billion hours a day goal? And what does the demand side of YouTube look like in

terms of watching. Yeah, that goal was set in 2012. And there's a really, like, there's a really interesting kind of chapter on that evolution. And that was a key moment, a really pivotal moment for YouTube when it switched from, you know, at its first seven years, it was measuring the key metric, which was video playback, the number of time people clicked on it on the video. And then for a variety of reasons, chiefly like, okay, this is, we see that like people, there's clickbait, right? People are sort of using the system, and they switch to watch time. We're going to measure how long people are engaged with videos. And at the time, they had this, the engineering team put together this graph trajectory of like,

okay, we're going to hit this billion hour goal in four years, billion hours consumed a day. They call it the break, the internet graph, just like the traffic will exceed the bandwidth of the internet at the time. And it's like a very Googly thing where it's like, this is, you know, the scale is so big. no one's done it before, but like, we can do it. And they did. And I, they haven't, as far as I know, I haven't updated that stat. I'm sure that like consistently still crossing a billion hours watched a day.

And part of this is, you know, we mentioned podcasts. YouTube's also like the world's biggest music service that no one talks about. And so there are people will just behind them in the background, just play music videos all day. Right. And that's just hours and hours. And when you talk about this system, they switch to watch time, that's what powers the recommendation algorithm. Everything that you see recommended is because they want you to watch more.

And that's what ended up getting them to that billion hour plus per day of watch time. And the search too, right? Which is like not just recommendations related video, but those search results on YouTube. So anything a YouTube algorithm is trying to suggest to you, it's based off of how likely you are to watch many minutes of it versus just click the title, which might be what Google wants. Yeah, that's the chief metric. I mean, they've, they've added a lot of, yeah, they've added a lot more signals and, and, uh, in most recent years with, uh,

in response to a lot of their business crises and then like, right, a lot of pressure, which we get into. But yes, that's the chief one, even on, on YouTube shorts, which is their TikTok competitor. They're still measuring like prioritizing, uh, watch time. And so let's talk a little bit. So you said about the TikTok threat. So 95% of kids are watching YouTube.

67% are watching TikTok, but a couple of years ago, zero percent, we're watching TikTok for being honest about it. So that's actually a massive threat that's coming up against YouTube. We had one of your colleagues on Shelley Banjo to come and talk about her founding TikTok podcast. And I say, okay, so tell me who does this compete with Facebook or Instagram, and her answer was YouTube. So it seems like TikTok is like this growing force and any consideration. of YouTube's power. I mean, your subtitle is, your title, I like it, like, comment, subscribe, but your subtitle is inside YouTube's chaotic rise to world domination.

And the rise of TikTok is really making you question the fact that it has this world domination anymore, given how much TikTok seems to be eating into its lead, or maybe that's just a misconception from the surface. So you've written the book. How is TikTok threatening YouTube? Yeah, yeah, I'll give two different answers. It is the first viable threat that's really coming to both sides of YouTube market, right? It is competing for eyeballs and it's competing for creators.

And Vine sort of did that, right? And there were other, you know, other threats before, remember a vessel. I don't know if anyone in the audience remembers Bessel. That was Jason E. Larson.R.S. Yeah. At the time, it was sort of, they were like this premium paid service that was going to put things behind a paywall. Well, it's sort of like a Patreon model in a way, but like exclusive footage from online creators. And this week, it's sort of funny in hindsight that people who told me about it were like

left about it in hindsight. But it was like this huge threat, right? Like YouTube sort of scrambled and started this big program because they were really worried about the vessel. And at a time, for a long time, they were chiefly worried about Facebook. And I think what TikTok has actually done is it's created a, um, a, uh, a wave to pay creators in a meaningful way that a vessel didn't do that mine didn't do that Facebook could despite multiple efforts hasn't been able to do uh you know tic Tac's sort of future there

there's been sort of fascinating stories about like how long that that like the extent of their creator strategy right like they have this big pool of money that they're paying out and the more creators that get it the smaller that pool gets or the pool isn't changed rather than the small of the amount gets right and so like you talk to a lot of creators it's like TikTok is where they get discovered. It's right now, it's where a lot of audience is. But YouTube is a reliable place to make money. And I think that, especially, you know, YouTube's about to flip the switch and turn on monetization for YouTube shorts. And who knows how that will go? But given history, like YouTube is pretty good at monetization. So I think that the, like, that's the sort of

bare case for like TikTok is this real big, strong threat. YouTube is clearly pivoting a lot of resources, shorts, same way that Instagram is putting everything behind reels. But YouTube is, you know, look at, they're also moving really aggressively on TV screens, something that TikTok is sort of trying to compete with, right? But YouTube is like, both their like streaming service and then just like people watching YouTube on their, on Roku, or Apple TV or something, right? That's a gigantic growing audience. There are places like India where TikTok has been banned that YouTube is, you know, YouTube has more users in India and TikTok has users around the globe. Sorry, that Twitter has users along the globe, right? Like, it's just massive. And if you look at the,

you know, you talk about the kids, like this is what the poll of teens. If you look at a lot of actual, like, videos, popular video footage on YouTube, it is for toddlers, for really young children that are growing up, not watching television, they're watching YouTube. And they might graduate to TikTok. And, you know, I think, It's, that's the sort of case where YouTube just has such scale and a variety of services and platforms. And it doesn't seem like, I think, like, it's more interesting like what TikTok is going to do to Instagram than I think what TikTok might sort of really like erratic like eat into YouTube share. Yeah. So you talked a little bit about like creators and of course usage, but, but is TikTok actively eating into YouTube's usage? I mean, you know, put this into.

context because we just saw that YouTube had pretty disappointing earnings results over the past couple course. I don't think that's a, I think that was an Apple's done more to damage YouTube in social media than anything. Like I don't. Right. So it hasn't been TikTok. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, that that recent, I think they're, what the company cited is like, uh, war in Ukraine. Um, they shut off their services in Russia. They got like a dip in advertising in Europe. But like Apple, as you've talked about a lot, has, you know, banned targeted advertising. That's like, Facebook has made up big stink about it publicly. I think, like, from when I talk to people inside YouTube, it's hit YouTube almost as hard.

They just are like savvier and don't talk about it. Yeah, you don't think of Google as being hit by Apple's changes, but it is clearly being hit by those changes. Yeah, I mean, Google's, their search business is not, and Google is still primarily a search business and so that's why they're like they're able to to be like largely unaffected by it but but youtube has been and i think that's probably more than say like a waning audience or something right so when we think about youtube in context of its battle with ticot everything i'm hearing from you leads me to believe that tic Tac is on the rise but it's still youtube is the Goliath YouTube is the king of this world my sense from people on youtube's advertising team is like they're still

like that you mentioned that um an anecdote in the book about the share of the stomach like they were like oh our art in that that one is like tv is like the big stomach tv is the one this was 10 years ago they're like tv has you know five hours of the average americans day like we should see heat into that i think they still think that way like their their business is still built around like tv advertising is moving online we are the like primary place for those dollars are going to go and so i think that's still the the focus, despite, like, all the attention that TikTok has. Okay.

So if I'm hearing it right, bigger than TikTok, substantially bigger than TikTok, YouTube is, but also substantially smaller than television. Yeah. Now, YouTube's growth. That's fair. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, obviously, like, oh, like, like, pay TV has been declining for a long time.

And, like, you know, that's where all the streaming, the streaming battles are going. And, um, and you think that's another interesting front, right? YouTube is sort of, like, has one foot in the, like, streaming wars. and then another foot like social media and TikTok. Yeah. Okay. And also, you know,

one of the things that struck me is that YouTube's growth is not exactly organic. It does have this algorithm that it tunes. And as I read your book, I think the tension really is, and, you know, they can decide how much they grow, but the question is how much it costs society. You know,

they can, they can, you know, start putting these like, you know, videos that end up having very destructive effects, That seems to be the thing that people are most interested in. We'll spend more time on YouTube where they can tail it back and just grow slower.

Do you think that's the right way to look at it? Like you're saying that like the right way to look at it is sort of they have this balance between the metrics they're trying to hit and like the societal impact and chaos the platform. I think that if they didn't care, maybe if they didn't care about societal impact, they would be able to grow faster. but because they do they're like trying to tune their algorithm and the content that they show up they show on on the site to try to make it you know somewhat benign but still grow yeah i think i mean there's a new the sort of new um company PR language that they've been rolling out it's like

you know our um so they've made it this this the book goes through this in like um in detail of that rocky period where they have this big advertising boycott in 2017, remember a series of boycotts, right, and like around brand safety. And they put in a bunch of a place, like they put in a bunch of safeguards there. Like, YouTube doesn't really have this brand safety problem anymore. Well, yeah. One of the things that struck me about that is, is that that actually works, those ad boycotts work, which I was, like, astonished by. Usually I think they do nothing, but in YouTube's case, they actually did. Yeah, and in that case, it did work.

I think it's hard to say how much of it was the threat of regulation, right? Because at around the same time, we were getting, especially in Europe, like Google was facing a lot more pressure. So, right, it could have been the business pressure, it could have been the regulatory issue. It could have been just the employees were starting to speak out about this. And it was just like a general sort of mayhem of the Trump era. But so the talking ways they have now is like, this is good for our business. It's like brand safety and like responsibility is good for our overall business, which I think is like partially true, right?

Like YouTube, you know, the history of like there's been this, I think what's really fascinating in the book is like this big gap between what the company sees YouTube being, what it's executive see YouTube being and what it actually is, right? And what is that? Yeah, I think like, you know, you hear like Susan Wigicki as CEO and soon as her which I is the CEO of Google. It's probably, like, you do this amazing learning platform, right? It's this, like, a cuddly fun place, sort of like a Disney channel, but like a little

bit, like, edgier, right? Like, it's the place with Mark Rover doing, like, cool. It's just sort of, it's a, if you ever seen their brand cast, right? It's their YouTube's big event and they roll out their, they're, like, star creators that they want to that are, like, really, um, that advertisers are safe and, like, have all the best parts and qualities. of YouTube. And I think, you know, it is both that and it's this like massive, like sort of all these different niches and it's like a big political mess and this like it is, you know,

their drama channels that would be really well. They're like toy and boxing. They're all these sort of, there are all these niches on YouTube that the company typically ignores. So I think to answer your question, like, yes, I think they were, they have taken, like they've chosen. to make decisions in response to whether it's like advertiser boycotts or regulatory pressure or employee pressure that have to scale back some of their like if they were just running a pure engagement right like they've made choices that it got less engagement i mean a really interesting example is their originals program

you remember that the um this was their attempt to do like a youtube version of house of cards right like youtube this was 2015 or YouTube originals, we're going to, like, come out with a bunch of shows starring some of our YouTube creators, like, they gave a show to PewDiePie Pie. They gave, like, shows, um, Cobra Kai was one that actually, like, has had, like, a life afterwards. Um, they, that, that program sort of died on the vine and eventually shut down um, earlier this year. But my sense from people was, like, those episodes, which were YouTube shows, subscriber only to, like, YouTube premium didn't drive as much watch time. Like,

When YouTube tried to feature them on, like, probably to recommend them to viewers or put them on the homepage, the watch time actually went down. And so there's this really interesting internal tension in the company, which is like, we need our chief metric, right, is to just drive more watch time. That's what, that's what sort of pays the bills. And then there are all these programs like, oh, we need to, say, respond to regulation in this way or, oh, we have this effort to do like original programming that kind of competes with, I mean, competes with the, I mean, competes with the core metric. This is like something that's interesting about Google, too, as we know, like, you know, Google has like eight different messaging apps, right? Like there are all these

different competing teams that sometimes don't work all the other. Right. And that's kind of what I was getting at earlier, which is that like you can have this like high glass produced type of video or you can have like the underbelly. And if you emphasize the high glass, you're probably going to get less watch time. And if you push the underbelly, then you'll get more. And go ahead. Oh, yeah, I think you hit on something that's been, you know, like this is, I think YouTube is sort of like YouTube creators have dealt with us for a while, but there was a period where there was this, they were like, okay, we're, in one way we're being pushed to create sort of YouTube wants us to do premium content and like daily, you know, they prioritize like daily,

daily output. So we spent a lot of money up front to like increase our production value. but on the other hand we have to like churn out more and more because the algorithm wanted like daily content and so and then this is the same time when like the for a long time TV basically wasn't on YouTube but then YouTube's business team

cut all these successful deals and so you saw like Jimmy Kimmel the Jimmy Fallon on the Jimmy's and like daytime television like the poor onto YouTube and like these were big media companies with big budgets that churned out like daily content right There's just a great video from this YouTuber named Matt Pat Game Theorist.

I think it was 2015 and he had this he did this animation, it was treadmill, right? And like, YouTubers are like sweating on the treadmill and then like Ellen DeGeneres and like Jimmy Kimmelar just easily breezing past them. And so there's a belief and I think it's like totally justified that YouTube tends to it systems and its preferences tend to like put more preference for traditional media over its online creators

right what is what is makes up the most of youtube is it traditional media or is it amateur i don't know i mean i don't know i don't know i'll ask susan that question um they've uh come on you just spent three years working on a book on this you better have a good good answer i do yeah you don't have all the answers Alex unfortunately that was that was a good question though um i mean your book dances around it the entire 400 pages so well what do you think this yeah no good good press me press me on it uh i think that well the what i believe that what jiski has said that about how that youtube calls them endemic creators right like creators that are sort of native species um about half the viewership comes from

them uh which in some ways is is pretty gigantic right um given like how popular music videos are um and and just like traditional media on um they never shared how much of their, you know, they have this big stat about like paying out $30 billion to creators over a certain, but like that creators is defined very broadly, right? It's like it is, you know, Casey Nice Dad. It is like you putting your video up there. And it's also the Jimmy's from TV. And it's also like the new Taylor Swift video, right? Like, so my sense is that it skews, I think it's, I think it's certainly like TikTok has introduced this new competition that has, and in the past few years. I mean, you have to keep in mind, too, like, in 20, it was before 2018, YouTube was sharing with millions, maybe like the closest six million different creators.

And then they, after a series of crises, dramatically cut that level down. So I think it's climbing back up. But for the past few years, it was almost certainly like, skewed towards traditional media and record labels. Right. And it's interesting, so let's say that we'll take that 50% amateur content as a jumping off point, even though we're not 100%.

Amateur's not the right word, but like, because they're professionals, but. Right. Okay. Non-studio produced, right? Let's take that as a jumping off point. It is interesting because, you know,

as I'm reading your book, you know, YouTube really does usher in this moment of anyone with a camera being able to pick up and create video and everybody got a camera with phones um and so so what do you think the implications and this is one of the questions that comes up as i read as i read through what do you think the implications are of giving everybody a camera be you know definitely rudimentary editing software comes with everything we have and then see the outlet to publish how does that change society how does that change the world uh yeah the history of youtube shows that you know we're uh pretty

we're willing to put some weird shit on there. Like, you know, YouTube is like dealt with the, the strangest things on the internet by far. Just what, what, list a few of them. Yeah, I mean, early, you know, certainly early on, like, porn was, like, you know, like YouTube has built enough skin detection algorithms now that, like, porn and. Yeah. Wait, hold on. Tell the story. There was a purse. In your book, there's a story of somebody writing to YouTube headquarter. orders being like... Oh, I think it was a voicemail. There was a voicemail, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Say, say it. Yeah. Big memo's a crass anecdote here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but at a time, I think this was early on. This was when they were, you know, this was before they were, they joined Google. And they had, like, when they bought, when Google bought them, they were a 60-person company.

There's, like, they had 10 phone lines. Like, they were using, like, one piece of sort of moderation, like, one piece of software for, like, customer response. that they all had to, like, log into. So it was, like, very, like, shoestring. Um, and, and, and someone called in and was like, when they had one of the outages, which he used to have a lot more outages, uh, and angrily berated the company because he couldn't, uh, pleasure himself to their videos.

He said something like, get your shit together. I'm trying to masturbate. Yeah. Okay. So it was obviously used for, for porn. What else? I wouldn't necessarily put porn in like the weird category because it gets a lot weird. But I was going to, that was my way of, my way of going into, like,

There was a funny, running joke about octopuses coming on the videos in Japan. And my understanding was that, like, the videos were like, you know, there's this great, sort of cat and mouse game, greatest, not the right word, but there's this fascinating cat and mouse game between the platform and the creators, right? Like, would they, like, learn the rules and then they had to go right up to them? And that happens on that, like, you've seen that happening on hate speech, right? and it originally was a written and it still does like around sexual content and so like if you show the octopus like being inserted inside a person but like you don't see the actual insertion

like is that violet the rule like these were that okay there was this great anecdote in the book about how they were like having this debate and like understanding it's like a bunch of youtube employees like looking at the screen of these octopus videos and then like like google's top lawyer walks by right and they're like like try to shield the computer being like you just paid $1.6 billion for this thing and we're looking at like kind of octopus porn. Okay. So that one was another way.

I mean, there's like an endless amount of, you know, very early on dealing with things like videos about phrenology, like the junk's pseudoscience. Like if they're shot as a documentary and like someone talking about how

it's like YouTube had this sort of of well, but it's documentary, it's fine. like is this H Beach right there were all these sort of gray areas and it was a this team that was basically building out this content moderation rulebook when it didn't there wasn't a precedence

really like it didn't exist there was the beginning of user generated content so like you know Facebook YouTube Twitter were all setting these standards at the same time YouTube had the much more complicated like not just obviously text but like video and visual

which is still something that's in like machine intelligence that's not been able to just say for like everything that happens inside the video which is like not that confident yet right so there was this you know the weird stuff but also a lot of political um content and a lot of race race uh racist content a lot of terrorist everything is on there the political content was so um some you know this don't find that's interesting but uh the political content at the at the beginning was, you know, like, you remember Ron Paul's presidential round in 2008? Like, Ron Paul was like the first sort of like had a bunch of online accolites and like Ron Paul. And so like YouTube like leaned in and they have these community managers early on and one like Steve Groh worked on news and politics and like, you know, leaned in in like this way that it's sort of crazy to think about YouTube doing this now. But like going through and like picking out the most interesting political videos and vlogs. and like service, trying to, like, service them on the homepage or service them.

And then he, like, orchestrated the partnership with CNN where in the 2008 presidential debates, like, YouTubers got to ask the Democrats questions, which was, like, I know, I mean, it's pretty funny if it happened now. I mean, YouTube carried, like, YouTube carried it on with, they have YouTubers asking Obama question, interviewing Obama the last two years of his presidency. that, as people will probably notice, did not continue with the following president. And it's, you know, the story of YouTube is kind of, you know, jumping off this, the story of YouTube is kind of the story of the internet here, which is that, you know, you can, in the mainstream, like places like CNN or, you know, the New York Times or even Fox News, right? You can, you get a certain set of perspectives.

And so because you can get those perspectives in the mainstream in the mass media, it's going to be less attractive to actually put those same perspectives up on the internet and it's going to be less attractive to watch them there because you can watch the produce stuff online or you can read it in the times or the journal and so the internet just becomes this haven for the alternative and in some ways that's good because orthodoxies should be be questioned but oftentimes it just does spin into the grotesque yes I mean yeah I do I do think YouTube's history is a really fascinating reflection of like the last 20 years of the Internet. And like one storyline that's interesting is, you know, like remember the Arab Spring, look a decade ago, right?

And that was, it was largely like Facebook and Twitter where sort of this was the moment of someone in the book calls it like the Internet of Awesome, right? like we're toppling we're toppling dictators where the sort of with in countries where there is no um like there's only like the sanctioned state media like their social media which is this power revolutionary force and then obviously that like had this dark turn for a variety of reasons and the companies and youtube included were like super naive about about that um but i think you know we still like russia is a really interesting use case right now right like so you know youtube is still operating in russia probably the only American media company doing so. It is, like, there's been plenty of report, like Russia Today, like these Kremlin back channels were before YouTube took action on them, like very popular. Russia Today was like basically thrived as a YouTube network. But also YouTube is the place where the Russian descent and a lot of, like, critics of the Kremlin have massive channels, like people in Russia can go on.

and watch them, like, it still has this sort of two sides of that equation, and I think has been something that, like, was a big part of YouTube's growth early on and probably still will be. Yeah, and it's interesting because, like, you have these, like, of course, academics that drive people to extremes, and you can watch their debates on YouTube, but there's also plenty of, and this is one of the things I kept coming back to as I was reading is there's plenty of you know, fascinating above-board academic debates that you can watch on YouTube. So many other helpful videos that you can watch on YouTube, it's pretty amazing.

You know, anything you need to do. I mean, I don't know, like, YouTube's helped me conquer fears. You know, I used to, like, worry about swimming in the ocean with sharks. And I watched enough shark encounter videos because everybody has GoPro's on now and they're showing what happens when you're in the ocean with sharks. It's actually not so bad. Like, they're just curious animals for the most part. And so, you know, there is, there is this balance between the good and the bad. I also think you're hitting on the exact reason why YouTube has not had the,

they're one of the main reasons why YouTube doesn't have the same scrutiny that Facebook has happened. Because? Because most people have, like, your experience with it, right? It's a utility. It's, it's, um, so is Facebook for many people. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I guess there's like the sense that, you know, amongst like some of my, like, I have plenty of friends.

I'm sure you do two that are like, I mean, like, I wish I wasn't using Facebook. I were like, I wish I wasn't using Instagram as much, right? Right. People love YouTube. Yeah, who's like, yeah, guy, I really got to stop watching those YouTube videos, right? Like, I think they're, for sure there's like niche. They're like corners of YouTube with people that are addicted and like it has all the sort of trappings of social media and endorphins and everything.

But, but yes, it does. I mean, like I said, it's, or like that version of YouTube that the platform likes, which is like, yes, helping you conquer your fears and hopefully not like immediately showing you videos of like sharks eating people or something, right? But there are plenty of those too. Yeah. You just learn what not to do.

Yeah, it is unleashed all sorts of new like creativity. And like if you just like I think one interesting lens I think about YouTube is like what doesn't exist on TV and like those videos about, you know, I mean, maybe except for Shark Week, right? But like those type of videos you're watching don't exist. on TV. Yeah, you have a channel like the, you have a trapter like the kite surfing channel, which has been like, it's a niche interest.

You're not going to find it on television, but you're going to be able to watch it. This is when, so that was a term of the YouTube second CEO, this sort of forgotten one seller Kamongar who has disappeared from the public. But that was like his term, and that was very much like the beginning of YouTube's like business growth was this pitching itself to, to advertisers. and so, like, media is, like, look, we can have, if you're interested in Kite serving, which is a hilarious example, but given, like, the Google executive, but he was, you know, also really in the piano playing or, like, chess, right?

Or, like, there's an endless amount of niches that people can have. And, of course, the downside of that is, like, the echo chambers, right, and filter bubbles. And, like, you get inside of a niche. And that niche has, like, you know, the book teases out. this really i thought i learned this reporting the book this world of um called youtube skeptics remember this part yeah like basically this community of atheists um that it like 10 years ago um it was the sort of beginnings of these early youtube communities uh and it was a lot of accounts that were they were really in like christopher hitchens and um burscher dockins and like

um and then they were like a lot of them started making videos that like taking down creation Right. And then a lot of them started taking them like Muslims and Jewish believers. And like sort of at the time it was like, oh, these are these are atheists just like ripping into people of faith. Right. And that sort of a lot, many of those accounts began like a few years later. It was like oh, convenient foil. A thing that got good attention was like social justice warriors. Right. And like taking on online feminists. And so you saw that sort of like that moved into the sort of. Trump era, like, All-Rite, this is really strange. And for a lot of viewers, like, unexpected way that within a few years, you went from, like, atheists talking about philosophy to, like, alt-right sort of setting the stage for Trump. Yeah. And it happens everywhere on YouTube, where you have these, like, interesting discussions about important subject matter, and they do oftentimes tend to drift into the extreme areas.

Maybe we hear about the extreme areas because they're, you know, even if one percent of the discussions go there, then that becomes a new story. But, you know, it is interesting. It's interesting how, I mean, is this the algorithm or the people, you know, that want to go from the skeptic stuff and debates about faith to, you know, rants about SJWs? And is it the algorithm or the people that take, you know, typical discussions about Islam, for instance, and potentially drive them in area? is that end up, you know, having people self-recrued to ISIS. Yeah, I'm going to give you the boring answer. Maybe it's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. I mean, like, you know, there's been, you've had some really great podcast about

and Kevin Roos, the New York Times, and that's a great story on the rabbit hole. And there's been some, like, push back on that idea. Yeah, we just had Brendan Nyhan who pushes back a bit on it. And I think the research is really fascinating. What I think that, like, what I found interesting, And I hope readers get it from the book, too, is like this sort of other side of the algorithm of the algorithmic equation. Like that, you know, the rabbit hole effect is so much, like, you know, you and I go on. And let me see one video, I least the next.

How much of like the actual programming, like the content that is made on YouTube is dictated by the company's algorithms? I think that's a really important and often overlooked thing. What do you think? I think a lot of it. Like, I think that's the, YouTube is sort of a media programmer by default. Like, they don't think of themselves consciously with being a media programmer, right? But they are, but the way that they've structured their systems. But they would say that humans are clicking, humans are watching.

Right. And so stop looking at us. So who is it? The people are the algorithm. There's a really good example sort of been way through the book about Minecraft. So Minecraft comes like, you know, Minecraft. is, I forget when Microsoft buys it, but like, that has this big explosion, right?

And some, like, it becomes, like, around the time when video game play was, like, huge on YouTube. So, like, I think it was 2014 around then. Like, there's, I'm going to go back to this YouTube or Matt Pat. People should go out and watch this video. 2014. What's that? 2014 for $2.5 billion.

Thank you. I think it was in 2014-15. He, like, goes to the YouTube logged out homepage, just sort of, like, on this barometer for, you know, what, what is sort of the YouTube serving up? And there's a lot of people that, like, don't, you know, not logged into YouTube account, Google accounts and visit YouTube. So at one point, like, I think it was, like, more than half or something.

It was an absurd amount of the videos on the homepage were Minecraft videos, right? Now it's like mostly Mr. Beast. But, like, at the time, it was like Minecraft was huge. And then, and then all of a sudden, like, within a few months, like, Minecraft just disappears from the homepage, right? and traffic on Minecraft videos on it. And there was this great, like, in YouTuber, they have this sort of, like, urban legend that, like,

some executive at YouTube walks past the screens, like, what the hell are all these Minecraft videos doing? We need to get rid of them. It turns out, at least from, like, I talked to the VP of engineering and raised this theory by him, and he's like, man, that's not how it works. But at the time, Susan would just get just taken over. YouTube was, like, looking at their staff.

and they were like, okay, we have, like, the dedicated viewers of, like, people who want to watch Minecraft play, right? But what we don't have is, like, we don't have a mainstream audience. And, like, think about the story of YouTube in many ways. It's, like, they're trying to get to the main television mainstream audience, right? Like, keep that in mind. And so, like, they're like, okay, well, if you were, you know, the VP gave the example, he's like, if you're my mom going on YouTube.com, you're like, what the hell is Minecraft?

Why I'm going to watch Minecraft videos, right? And so they, rather than, like, pulling the plug on Minecraft, they just tweak the algorithm as like, okay, we're going to start trying to push people that aren't, like, having these sort of people that are coming back on a regular basis that aren't these sort of dedicated fans. And the consequence is then that, like, fewer videos, views on Minecraft, less people start making Minecraft videos because that's where the views, right? Like, that is just a really fascinating example. It happens, like, millions of times across YouTube. It's where, like, these tweaks happen, you know, a few years later. like Spider-Man Elsa, like bad baby, like weird kids video were really popular. And like, YouTubers were like, well, I might as well jump in on this trend, right?

Like, you have some great examples of that in the book. Yeah. And like you had families that dressed up like superheroes. And they put up these blogs and were like, we don't know, not sure why we did that. And it was actually kind of weird. But like, that's what the algorithm was telling us to do. Like I think to a certain extent, like, yes, people are like, like viewers are viewers. and we'll click on things

and like content creators are not just like they're not changed to like they're not forced to do something right they make choices but this there is a system that rewards certain type of contents is like constantly changing

and I think in that way we sort of you know there was a really great this like the overwriter and talk about this term like algorithmic anxiety I thought that's like such a great term for like describing what it's like to be a YouTuber for such a long time and part of it's like the ground is like constantly shifting

within their feet. The book is like, comment, subscribed by Mark Bergen, who's here with us, joining us for a long discussion about the nature of YouTube. And why don't we take a quick break and we'll come back, talk a little bit about why an old media guy like Mark Bergen is talking about a new media company like YouTube and whether his criticism is fair or unfair. We'll be back after this. Hey, everyone.

Let me tell you about the Hustle Daily Show, a podcast, A podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now. And we're back here on big technology podcast with Mark Bergen from Bloomberg. His book, Like, Comment, Subscribe, Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination is available for pre-order and comes out next week.

So if you pre-order it today, you'll be able to get it by next Tuesday. I recommend it. It's definitely a great book. I really enjoyed it. And Mark... I can't vouch for delivery times, by the way, on Amazon, but... Mark, you're trying to sell a book here. You can get sued.

As soon as possible. Tell us about the title. Like, comment, subscribe. It seems, well, obviously, it's like the call that every creator does, you know, like, comment, subscribe if you enjoyed this video. Are you doing that somewhat mockingly or, you know, what sort of commentary are you making on YouTube? Oh, yeah.

To be very clear, I'm, like, not intent to, I'm mocking creators at all. And, like, I think, I think it's somewhat of a commentary. You're right. it's like this this um i'll give my agent credit for coming up for this one actually uh but it's like this um uh when you can in rapid succession right and like everyone it's it's become this thing that uh you know if i said that phrase to you and filled in five like it would have no meaning right and like now it like immediately shorthand uh for youtube and like the online attention economy um and so that was that was the intent and i thought it was like a great catchy phrase that

enough people know what it means and the idea is to like, oh, I understand you, like I know YouTube, but I don't really like understand what goes on behind the pixels as it were. Right. And so one of the big themes that has come up on YouTube,

one of the most popular pieces of subject matter that I see on YouTube about YouTube, because all these platforms are always self-referential, is this, you know, we've kind of been a through line through this whole discussion, but the competition between YouTube and, and mainstream media, YouTube and TV.

Your book is great. It has a lot of criticisms of YouTube, a lot of criticisms of creators. And, you know, there's been this back and forth with people like PewDie Pye in the Wall Street Journal, for instance, who point out his faults. And, you know, oftentimes the creators are like, you know, the news media is just jealous of our success

and trying to take us down a peg. So how did you think about that? know back and forth and then contextualize yourself and how you come to this given that you actually are you know a player in this discussion yeah good question i think that like you know that the puty pie thing just to do like a quick recap right so the journal writes a story that became like it started off sort of youtube's terrible year in 2017 and it's like he was making these videos on fiber that like dig for hire uh the journal discovers like oh there's this neo nazi website daily armor that's like a big fan of PewDie Pied in part because he made this video that that

he convinced these two guys to unfrored the signs of death to all Jews and then in the subsequent the melee about that like he's like you know the journal and public and media is just jealous of creators and what's the interesting context there is like by the way he's just he's the biggest YouTuber in the world at this point with 100 million subscribers he was on his way over 50 million Yeah, but still, he had the title since 2012. So, yeah, good context. And he does games and stuff? At that point, he was doing myriad.

Ridiculous stuff. But versatile YouTuber. So I think it's fair that the mainstream media had like sort of treated YouTubers as a novelty act. There was this like rubber-necking like, oh, they make, you know, the previous, he had pointed to a prior Wall Street Journal story he did that was like much more like a, it was sort of like

meet this YouTuber who makes, the headline was like, this guy plays video games, he makes four million a year, right? It's like crazy. You know, there were people, so part of the book gets into the multi-channel networks, which were these studios that came up and were on YouTube and they were like, one of the goals that they want is like, we want a YouTuber to basically be accepted as George Clooney.

Right. Like, and they think, you know, when George Clooney goes on late night TV, they're not like, how much money do you make, George, right? And yet that's like the question that every YouTuber got. And part of it was, I think, like, trying that the media was trying to process this sort of new phenomenon. And I think it's admittedly like, and I'm sure I've been guilty of this too, like disrespectful to an online creator and a professional in media of like dismissing them as sort of like, wow, you make this much money just playing video games, right? I think that's, you know, the other context here is that in the advertising, the boycotts and YouTube had a serious consequence for the company, much more serious.

I think people didn't realize it's just in the book. And also it's serious kind of like a lot of YouTubers, their incomes immediately plummeted as much as 80%. And I think they had this idea. I've talked to a lot of them like the story, which was, you know, the problem was like they were household brands sponsoring like terrorist content and neozis and you name like that stuff on YouTube and like the way that you understand but like it's yeah but sometimes like not to stand up for the you know people who they were sponsoring but oftentimes like they're going you know

let's say a P&G ad or like some sort of ad you know goes on one video that you know is is against you know, their values. But it's like, it's a fraction of assent. And this was a newspaper. Yeah, a newspaper then screenshots that. And then their company, you know, is makes this. So I think this was the reason, this is not the reason for the animosity between like myself, old media and YouTubers.

You know, I think, I know YouTube like contributed in some ways because like YouTube was like, well, you know, the reporters out there were basically hunting, right? you like go into websites, you get some cookies on your, on your browser, go, like, search on YouTube for the worst things, you take a screenshot. Like, um, yes, like that, that is a structure of the story. But, but to be like, in, in the defense here, like, the, like, the advertiser, the advertising companies could have said, like, yeah, this is like the nature of online advertising and like, I'm, they were under the impression, like, YouTube was charging them basically rates for their premium section on par with television. And there were a,

many complicated, like, this was a battle about, like, all the things we used to cover when we worked at that age, right? More so than, like, advertising agencies taking some sort of moral backbone. But, like, the point remains, like, YouTube had built this system that was no longer sustainable for their primary customer, which is advertisers. And it had, like, massive consequence for there are these millions of creators that they built this, like, pretty unstable economy around. So I think, like, yes, I think it's fair to say, like, the criticism, if you're, if the story's coverage were, like, going out and finding these needle in the haystacks and saying this is all of YouTube, I think that that's valid, but I do think the whole premise is like, oh, look, like the world's biggest advertising company does these things fairly often.

The thing about YouTube is, like, needles in the haystack. YouTube is such a big haystack that. That's scale that makes a difference. Yeah, even if you have like some needles, there's a lot of sharp needles, right? Right. But yeah, I still think that was like a really, I just, I pushed back on that idea that it was just the media gunning for old media going for new media. I think it was the media, shining a light on a very unregulated industry that had like this system where its primary customers like didn't understand how it operate. They talked to brand advertisers, and they were like, oh, my God, we, like, can't, at the time, we're like, we didn't understand YouTube, which is their own fault, too, but like, no doubt.

I just think that the stories that, that covered this stuff, like, they have, the media, journalists who cover this stuff have a response, not to lecture, and I don't think you've been guilty of this, but journalists that cover this stuff have a responsibility to put it into the proper context. Yeah. You do that in the second paragraph of the story, and these paragraphs never talk about how minuscule it was or how, you know, how infinitesimal it is, you know, versus they always say, like, you know, this shows that, you know, the devastating consequences of, you know, online advertising and stuff like that. So motivation or not, I just think they get it wrong sometimes, or at least, you know, at the press, you know, in order to have a dramatic story often over dramatize, you know, what's actually happening. I think that's, sure, that's fair. I mean, if Casey Neistad,

I didn't put in the book, but like, you know, he was also, like, advertisers. didn't fail to appreciate this sort of new and profound relationship that YouTubers have with the audience that doesn't exist on TV, which I think he's absolutely right. Like, their YouTubers have developed this really fanat, a, like, fascinating role with, like, oh, but they have, like, very loyal audience. Like, Pew, I was a canonical example of this, like, right? His audience was, like, deeply loyal and, like, tell him as being wronged and, like,

got pissed off at YouTube about it, right? And, like, I think that advertisers have, like, I think a lot of them and, like, savvy ones have, like, figured this out, right? Like, this is a different relationship than, like, a television show. But, you know, like, sure, getting, I think you're right in the sense of, like, these were relatively small, like, those were sort of brand safety problems and maybe, like, were relatively small. And, like, you know, YouTube has used his defense around. political speech too like politics is like a really small section of youtube right um but again like youtube is that i don't agree with yeah right it's so like they can constantly that can be an argument for for many things right like oh this is like this is just really small and and and i think that like

what was really telling about the brand safety crisis and maybe the reporting was a little overblown but like sure like you know that's how all my media works but like um it It was sort of exposing like, hey, this is how this business works, which is there's an automated system that like sprays P&G ads like everywhere on the internet. And like, oh, like this seems to be a broken system for the people who are spending money there. So like that'll be my line. You can lecture me some more if you want. No, no, no.

It's not not a lecture. Just pointing that out. What is the biggest scoop or bombshell from the book? The biggest scoop or bombshell. When is this coming out again? It's coming out a Wednesday. You know that YouTube, the code for YouTube was actually allegedly Steve Chen wrote according to co-founders.

There are people at Facebook. He worked at Facebook briefly before joining YouTube and he kept his corporate device. And there are people high up at Facebook at the time that thought he wrote the code for YouTube on that corporate device, which I think is really funny. the two worlds, the world's two biggest, like, social media companies may have come from the same corporate device. Or, like, the YouTube's code was written under Facebook code. That is not the biggest scoop.

That's just a fun one. Right. What about the kid stuff? The kid stuff is wild. Yeah. I think, like, the, you know, one thing I learned there and it's revealed in the book is that the crisis around, around, like, inappropriate kids video is actually pushed, like, At one point, YouTube considered pulling the plug on all grand advertising, which was like their corpics.

So they're basically, we're going to like stop shipping this product like no longer because it got like got so bad. There was meaning about that. What they ended up doing instead was dramatically you're reducing the number of channels that could make money. They like raise the threat. You had like channels before then, this was in late 2017. You know, you upload to YouTube unless you break copyright rules or like it's hate speech. or, like, sort of speech rules, you can basically monetize. And then they're like, oh, no, you have to have a certain number of hours, of watch hours

and subscribers before you even, like, in part because of just how rampant the kid's issue was. So, yeah, the short version of the kid stuff is, you know, I think what's, it's really telling is a pattern across YouTube, like YouTubers notice the weird stuff and troubling things on the platform much faster than the company. So there were, like, the YouTubers that, like, popular ones, H3H3 is a huge YouTube channel. They were making videos about these, this trend of, like, Spider-Man, Elsa, like, these trends of, like, dressing up in superhero costumes and, like, doing sort of vaudeville X for kids.

And, like, a lot of it was, like, some of it was just, like, strange. Then it got, like, sexual and, like, perverse. And they were making videos about this in 2016. And it was a new, like, a year that had been a half. have more later that the company finally acted. In part, you know, someone told me, like, it's just, like, kids, they were not, like, minding the store around, around kids. And in part was because YouTube had this for a long time, for legal reasons, like,

pretended that no one under 13 was watching a site. I guess they didn't want to buy, like, Coppoh. Yeah. Yeah, one of the notes I just wrote was, I'm never letting my kids. use YouTube. I mean, I don't have kids yet. When the day comes, they will not be on YouTube. Some of this stuff is so horrifying. I mean, so like, here's another takeaway that is interesting that maybe convince you and you're in your, the mother of your child to change your mind.

Wow, okay. Good defense. The, you know, the only, like, you know, as you've covered, like, big tech hasn't really like come after, or sorry, the government has not really come after a big tech in any whole meaningful way, except for like the FTC, which find YouTube in 2019 for violating children's online privacy act. And that has some like major consequence of the platform. The main one being like all videos if we like either marked as made for kids or not, YouTube is like dramatically like shifted resources to make sure that like none of those inappropriate kids videos

happen again. Like, I think, yes, like, YouTube's, like, kids' content on YouTube is, like, under-examine, like, no one really, like, there are not many researchers to look at it, certainly not allowed parents. It is, like, largely some, like, weird stuff is still on there, but, like, it has changed dramatically. The company is, like, so much more tuned to it now in large part because, like, it was the first time that regulators got the rack together and took action against the tech company. Interesting. So there is hope. and if you believe in power regulation. Well, we haven't had a lot of evidence to show that that power actually works.

Okay, well, the book is called Like, Comment, Subscribe. You can get it now via pre-order. I want to thank Mark for coming on the show. Appreciate you joining Mark. Thank you, Nate Gwattany, for editing the audio. Thank you, LinkedIn, for having me on your podcast network. Thanks to all of you, the listeners. Really appreciate all the five-star reviews that have come on.

They make a big difference. If you haven't done it yet, I would encourage you to do it. if it's your first time, please subscribe. And that will do it for us this week on the show. So we will see you next week on Big Technology Podcast.