Week 8: YouTube Red - changing the world of online video?

A few days ago, on October 28th, YouTube launched its new service: YouTube Red. A lot of criticism has swirled around the internet since the announcement of the new service a week before its launch, because this service might change YouTube forever. Whether this change would be for the better or worse will be explored in this blog. We will explore questions like; why did YouTube come up with Red in the first place? How does it affect users (both viewers and creators) and does it change the core, the identity of the medium itself?

Before getting all wound up in questions of identity, let’s first endeavor on a quick summary of what YouTube Red actually is. Red is a new service by YouTube which can be purchased for $9,99 per month and is an extension (definitely not a replacement) of the YouTube we already know. Most importantly, it shuts down all forms of advertisements you would normally see on videos, making subscribers less vulnerable to their influences. YouTube Red also gives the option to put videos in ‘offline playback’ mode, which allows you to watch them everywhere without ruining your data. Another new option is background playing, which enables you to multitask on your device with YouTube in the background. Perhaps a more significant aspect is the promise of new shows produced by the top content creators of the original YouTube, which will only be available to subscribers of Red. For instance, YouTube star PewDiePie (a.ka. Felix Kjellberg) is creating a new show with creators of The Walking Dead, making the television industry enter the realm of online video like it hasn’t done before.

The perks are nice, but putting a price tag on a platform known for its equal accessibility is causing some uproar. Viewers are questioning  why they would pay for Red if they could just install adblock for free instead. This is actually a kind of petty argument, because an important reason for the creation of Red seems to have been the problems YouTube is experiencing in making a profit. In 2014, YouTube made 4 billion dollars, which is close to their breakeven point. Adblockers are currently causing a 40% loss of revenue, endangering the very existence of YouTube and harming their creators. Besides the adblock discussion, users feel cheated by the fact that a part of YouTube (the new original shows) will be put behind a paywall, creating a distance of ten dollars between creators and their viewers. Creators will encounter a different and perhaps more competitive culture on the platform, as some of them will be favorited by YouTube and supported to create new high-quality shows. The big stars will be assisted in getting even bigger, which creates a more hierarchical or capitalist environment compared to the rhizomatic structure YouTube started out with. The change in YouTube’s ways of production, distribution and consumption in a way tie in with Adorno’s critique on the culture industries, especially when looking to the earlier mentioned new and exclusive shows. Adorno states that the culture industry employs the strategy of pseudo-individuality. This refers to cultural products introducing a trait that seems an optional variation of the standard product, which enables it to justify its claim to originality. An important requirement for pseudo-individuality to work is that the recipients of cultural products close their eyes to mediating agencies. When taking PewDiePie’s new show Scare PewDiePie into account, those agencies would be YouTube, Maker Studios and Skybound Entertainment. It is likely that PewDiePie’s viewers will still think about this show as being created by him alone, which would have been the case in the pre-Red era. In this old situation, viewers could almost beyond a doubt know that content they watched would be free of direct influences by other agents. With the creation of YouTube Red, this quality of the YouTube will be partly lost.

The formerly mentioned equal accessibility of YouTube has always been one of its greater advantages, and perhaps a reason for the website becoming one of the most successful websites of the Web 2.0 era. This digital era saw the emergence of virtual communities and user-generated content, making it an ideal environment for the rise of the prosumer. ‘Prosumer’ can be defined as consumers undertaking value creation activities that result in productions that can eventually be consumed and experienced (Xie, Bagozzi & Troye, 2007). YouTube offers all its users the opportunity to be a prosumer by offering them a platform, tools and guidance in their process of creating. Users that only identify as viewer can also have plenty of options to become a prosumer or co-creator, by making video responses, starting discussions and creating or contributing to fan communities. The introduction of the paid service creates a distance between non-Red users and Red users, as their access and options will differ. It could also create distance between viewers and creators, as some of the latter will turn into star producers acknowledged and employed by the company that YouTube is becoming, and will have content only available to those willing to invest. Subscribers can be sure that the content they pay for will be of quality, something the free content of YouTube could never guarantee. Another thing subscribers can be sure of, is that the creators they like and follow will be paid out of their subscription money, which might feel like a much fairer system than the annoying and unwanted advertisements that did the job before.

YouTube Red makes visible what has always been a part of YouTube: its place in a capitalist system. In the advertisement-based model, users weren’t as highly aware of the money-making processes of YouTube. Now that there has been put a pricetag on experiencing online video, the identity of YouTube is changing. YouTube Red is not a platform, but a service. The possible results of this shift are hard to predict, but we are sure that a lot of critique by both viewers and creators will help shape YouTube Red to become more valuable to all parties involved.

Thesis: Could YouTube Red ever become a success? Or is putting a pricetag on a formerly completely free medium prone to failure?

AH - SH - MS - GV - MW

Bibliography

Sarah Kember & Joanna Zylinska, ‘Remediating Creativity: Performance, Invention, Critique’, in: Life After New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012, pp. 173-200.

Raúl Rodrígez-Ferrándiz (2014), ‘Culture Industries in a Postindustrial Age: Entertainment, Leisure, Creativity, Design’, in: Critical Studies in Media Communication 31 (4), pp. 327-341.

Xie, Bagozzi & Troye. (2007). ‘Trying to prosume: toward a theory of consumers as co-creators of value’ in: Journal of Academic Marketing Science (2008). 36: 109-122.

http://download.springer.com.ru.idm.oclc.org/static/pdf/89/art%253A10.1007%252Fs11747-007-0060-2.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs11747-007-0060-2&token2=exp=1446370475~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F89%2Fart%25253A10.1007%25252Fs11747-007-0060-2.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Farticle%252F10.1007%252Fs11747-007-0060-2*~hmac=af208131f99188a0552ccd7a8451ffe4042ad1dc32015d0433975ea67f6afaaf. Accessed on: 31-10-2015.

The official YouTube partners and creators blog: ‘YouTube Red is here: Seven things you need to know about our new subscription service’:

http://youtubecreator.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/youtube-red-is-here-seven-things-to.html. Accessed on: 1-11-2015.

Gutelle, Sam. (23-10-2015). ‘Let’s debunk seven myths about YouTube Red, YouTube’s new subscription service’: http://www.tubefilter.com/2015/10/23/youtube-red-myths-subscription/

Accessed on: 1-11-2015.

‘Youtube teams with Maker Studios & the creators of “The Walking Dead” for original series “Scare PewDiePie”’. https://sites.google.com/site/ytredpress/youtube-originals/scare-pewdiepie-from-pewdiepie. Accessed on 2-11-2015