Imagine you had 100k in the bank. That would be like a $25 late payment fee.
But on top of that, it’s $200m into the black hole that is our dysfunctional and bloated federal government. How do The Impacted children whose privacy was violated actually benefit.
It’s all ridiculous.
> Imagine you had 100k in the bank. That would be like a $25 late payment fee.
No, it isn't. A company's valuation is not money in the bank. The proper comparison is to profit.
> The settlement would be the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the F.T.C. in a children’s privacy case. It dwarfs the previous record fine of $5.7 million for children’s privacy violations the agency levied this year against the owners of TikTok, a social video-sharing app.
This was a warning to YouTube, but from their perspective, there's clearly a subtext of "we're not afraid to raise the fines, next time could be a lot worse".
That’s not why they left
If you had 100k in the bank, you could write a check to someone for 100k.
Can Google write a check to someone for $800B ?
The fact is, the fine needs to be multiples of quarterly revenue. It needs to be so high not to destroy the company, but enough to make it limp and force it to borrow money to make it through. THEN these will be taken seriously. Until then, these aren't fines. These are price tags for unethical, law-breaking behavior, and these companies are more than happy to pay it.
No. It does not need to be so damn high.
YouTube is aware of the warning, and yes it likely deserves another (order of magnitude larger) fine if they do nothing. But arbitrary fines right out of the gate just hurt everyone.
0: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-go...
1: https://fortune.com/2016/10/18/youtube-profits-ceo-susan-woj...
Be interesting how the industry and various platforms navigate this whole area, but I'm mindful that they may well just cut them off period as just less hassle for them.
But the area of concern I was raising was such walls being used for no other reason other than risk liability exposure dictated by liability insurance costs. That with age verification systems that are that do credable checks being an area of growth thru demand. Such systems will become easier to implement and the ability to just lie, becomes much more complicated. Hence people being cut off, not thru legal reasons, but for effect - accountants. That's the worry I was raising.
It's almost as if they're doing it deliberately. They're begging for competition to take over their unprofitable business. Nobody wants to step up.
A whole lot of major YouTube channels who are constantly attacked by false copyright claims or have to push product placements due to no ads would love to push users to a better platform. So marketing wouldn't be impossible.
They could also push privacy and fine tuned data controls which helps with kids.
There's enough of a market for two to exist.
Maybe with some type of semi decentralized platform approach so individual hosts who deal with copyright poorly can take the hit, making the system more resilient. Chrome style apps and mobile clients could be the interface and the ad/patreon system is controlled by the primary software developer but the rest is an open protocol with a linear license for non commercial stuff (at least non commercial as far as not competing with the monetization platform). The network effects of managing the ad buyers, subscriber accounts with credit cards and one click subs could stave off the competition without fully controlling the full video network and hosts.
What in the hell is Google doing, and why do they suck at this so bad? I can imagine so many better product experiences. Why can't they get their act together?
Source?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-f...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2016/10/18/youtube-... (not sure how to un-ampify this)
As a species, humans are getting better at using our susceptibility of the short term pleasures to operate businesses, but the long term effects are probably not going to be desirable.
Why don’t we hear about their internal protests to management and sit outs, etc? If they’re getting fined, it’s more than just public opinion and advocacy it’s preventing illegal activity.
I'm guessing you're outside the US since YouTube controls the trending tab pretty closely there.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos-prob...
Beyond that, if they can type, it’s fairly trivial to find softcore porn, death, gore, and weirdness on YouTube.
You're literally talking about a video you let your child watch, while bemoaning the FCC needing to step in.
> The fact that YouTube can go here and say their platform is only intended for 13 year olds and up is a joke
The joke is that you understand YouTube is for 13 year olds and up, and you still allow your child on there. Personal responsibility needs to come first.
> They are marketing towards kids and I can’t stand it.
What kind of home router do you have. I'll show you how to block YouTube. Your mom can do similar things at home. There are plenty of blocking solutions out there. Which ones have you tried?
The comment about moms blocking YouTube is a bit ridiculous. Seems hard to believe likelihood of finding one could be higher than the likelihood of finding a kid who can work around it.
Uploading cartoon nursery rhymes and having an ad for drug trafficking come up is idiotic.
But other video providers can make sure that video and the ads placed against that video is suitable for children. I can let a 7 year old sit and watch uk ITV kids content for an hour and I know it'll be fine. I cannot do that for YouTube, because YT ignores the regulatory framework.
That framework is largely voluntary, so sure they don't _have_ to comply with it. But whenever this comes up (especially with taxes) people say "if you don't like non-compliance with voluntary regulation just change the law". And then, when the law is changed (eg, GDPR), people lose their shit and talk about how restrictive the law is.
Also is there any parental consent thing going on here as well with how YouTube words it?
I remember seeing plenty of adult ads as a kid watching TV at night time watching with my parents. The morning kids shows and kids channels always had ads for children of course. Id imagine it's in YouTubes interest not to show kids adult ads as well, most adults probably aren't sitting around watching the same shows with them to make the adult ads useful.
Also YouTube Kids has no quality controls. It uses more bandwidth, due to our hires tablet display I guess, than any other device in our household. Very annoying when on capped LTE on a trip.
We, the parents, should of course try to minimize the amount of time our kids spend with youtube or in general with phones/tablets/TVs.
EVERYTHING that deals with children whether directly or indirectly is strictly regulated, and rightly so.
Television programming as an example, for 70 years only permits certain ads to be displayed on children's shows.
YouTube should be regulated by the FCC in regards to this and very easily can have a checkbox for advertisers and providers to check that says the content is for under 13 or not.
I've complained to the UK regulator about gambling ads placed in children's content and they are paying attention.
They say it's hard because YouTube forbids (because COPPA) anyone under 13 from having an account, which means those children use their parent's accounts, and so the demographics used by the advertisers are skewed.
However, they did take action against every single gambling company I complained about because the ads were placed against children's content.
Does that still happen if you actually pay for the service via Prermium subscription? Or only if you want to use it completely free and paying nothing?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-019-01069-0
That's mostly because ITV is a television network and YT is a platform, not a publisher. ITV curates the content (and the ads), YT does not. One is meant for children, the other is not, though some third parties are putting content on the YT platform aimed at children. Those are major differences. If you want to let a child alone in front of a screen, turn to television.
> The comment about moms blocking YouTube is a bit ridiculous. Seems hard to believe likelihood of finding one could be higher than the likelihood of finding a kid who can work around it.
It is not hard to block domains at the router, and restrict the devices your child has access to. Of course they might use a friends, or find a way around it. But the OP is literally talking about overhearing the video on the couch and not doing anything about it.
That's why I asked what they tried... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOTyUfOHgas
Meanwhile, they make billions off of feeding lowest common denominator content to everyone else's children.
> We can go back to how parents blame everyone but themselves when their kid steals their credit card to buy, say, loot boxes.
This is a completely different problem. Content is made for children. Those content creators don't want unsuitable ads in the content. The children enjoy watching the content. Those children don't want unsuitable ads. The parents are happy for their children to watch the content. Those parents don't want unsuitable ads.
All YouTube has to do is give content creators a checkbox: "Is this content aimed at people under 18?", then not place ads for gambling or alcohol or horror movies etc against that content.
YouTube needs to be aware that regulation is coming, and they're not going to like what the EU will impose.
Of course. There was another submission under which the US was called out for having less of that in comparison to Europe. As I said, kids are free to be kids around here in Eastern Europe, there are lots of playgrounds being built for them, they are usually allowed to go to school and back alone, and so on. Kids' freedom is less restricted in the name of safety.
> We don't want a society where parents have to helicopter their children.
I am not sure what exactly you mean by this. What I am trying to say is that if someone's kids buy something with their credit card, then perhaps they should find a solution to that within the household (parenting) instead of asking the Government to step in.
Regarding my example, I only meant to bring up the trend which I observed lately that some parents put the blame on everyone else but themselves, that is, they do not assume parental responsibility.
> All YouTube has to do is give content creators a checkbox: "Is this content aimed at people under 18?", then not place ads for gambling or alcohol or horror movies etc against that content.
Yes, I do agree with not placing ads targeted for adults when the videos are targeted for children. There is a solution to it right now though, namely ad blockers. Parents could install or ask their kids to install, say, uBlock and perhaps even uMatrix. They do not have to wait for the regulations. :)
By your method of thinking...let's just make everything OK for babies and let the parents decide.
That makes no sense...it's why society has laws (Why can't I go buy a bazooka in Europe? Because there are laws).
What’s needed is better enforcement, not more stringent fines.
Now if the car is towed that becomes a problem because just pulling out a credit card does not fix it.
I don't. if the fine is $50 and it costs $5 to park, I will pay unless I suspect enforcement is so lax that I have a >90% chance of getting away with it.
The only way of really judging is through repeat offences which is difficult in a case like this where the judgement was that Google didn’t do enough. That line of “enough” is going to be redefined a lot as the web develops (as it should be).
That's only the case because the cost of mistakes are insignificant. Should the mistakes start costing them 5% of revenue you can bet a farm that the person would be fired.
Of course addictions are bad, but do you have any data supporting your claim that technology has increased the number of addicts? People vulnerable to be drawn to short-term dopamine hits have always existed, whether to food, gambling, or actual drugs.
As for increased number of addicts, I think the fact that there are technology addicts where there didn't used to be (before tech), should be a sufficient logical claim.
Speaking of which, do you have data on your specific claim on the resilience of human psychology against negative tech/media experiences?
No, because those people may have engaged in other unhealthy lifestyles if the technology didn't exist.
> Speaking of which, do you have data on your specific claim on the resilience of human psychology against negative tech/media experiences?
Yes, I've linked some in a comment below.
Culturally, it doesn't. There aren't famous "facebookers". It doesn't even support playlists.
These other companies can manage it.
YouTube can't, but importantly YouTube wants it both ways - they want to include content that targets children without providing any of the protection that parents expect.
And that expectation isn't unreasonable. We don't want parents who helicopter every waking hour of their children's lives, we want to give parents some freedoms to allow their children to explore and grow.
But there's no reason to include youtube in that, just like you (presumably) don't include the broader internet in that.
However, I think it's too restrictive to only consider platforms to be competitors of Youtube only when the use case is analogous, and it's incorrect to imply that Facebook can only be competing with Youtube if their users exclusively use it to watch videos.
Any platform that supports video streaming is potentially competing against Youtube. The specific use case of the platform is irrelevant, only scale and mindshare matter - the degree to which people spend time there rather than on Youtube.
That amounts to the same thing. You obey the regulations (pay for parking) except when you think it's cheaper not to. Companies do the same thing. Most of the time it works out, but sometimes there's a fine.
Want to stop it? Make this cost high enough to make it non-profitable. If a ticket for illegal double parking is $5k and not $100 then a daily ticket means $150k in fines per truck per month, which is definitely higher than the amount of money a delivery company makes per truck, so the company is going to avoid getting fines.
There's space in the market, but I don't think anyone is willing to pay for that after so many others failed.
I'm sorry to pick on you because I also disagree with the post you replied to.
In that list, didn't you forget to mention something very important that's at the heart of this discussion?
A competitor or even google should have all those things _plus_ it should be legal.
Currently, it isn't. Either change the law or change the business model, but don't implement a business model that breaks the law and hope it will turn out fine in the end.
You can't have every business breaking laws it disagrees with, not even if some or most people disagree with that law.
This is the type of hard problem I'm getting more and more interested in. Someone has to bring the future open and privacy oriented Web about some day. The current model is broken and the early Internet showed us what is possible. Web 2.0 brought none of the democratization it promised largely because of the old world model it attempted to deliver it with.
Plus none of the things you listed are hard. Technical problems are easy, it's the market and growth that's hard.
I'm personally focused on Reddit, mostly theoretically atm, but YouTube is something I've considered as well.
It introduced formula "If you're not paying for a product, you are the product", while in old world model delivery of value is more about givers/takers ratio.
A big clue exists when we look at the most viewed (and presumably most lucrative) youtube videos. What do they all have in common? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_vi...
A competitor that grows to the size of YouTube will face all the same pressures from publishers, legislators, advertisers, and malicious actors, and will almost certainly turn into something that looks a hell of a lot like YouTube does today.
Oh, and since it'll be advertising-supported (Nobody will want to pay $10/month for a significantly-worse to slightly-better YouTube alternative), it'll also be bending over backwards to make advertisers happy... Gosh, I wonder what the likely outcome of that is going to be.
Can you even imagine pitching this to a VC?
"We're going to build a YouTube alternative that doesn't suck, that will piss off major content owners[1], and will be a haven for bad actors. We're going to be amazing, give us money!"
[1] Who will sue us for every cent that we have ever, or will ever own.
I think everyone would be happy without the revenue sharing.
What we really need is a good video podcast viewer.
The remaining problems are largely due to copyright enforcement and abuse... Which don't just magically go away, just because you're not doing revenue sharing.
The chicken problem is more about the ad buyers and the users, not creators. The patreon system scales better this way but the ads are what holds most back.
I know quite a few YouTube channels who tried pushing one of those awful decentralized versions of YouTube that look like Chinese knockoffs when the either the demonetization and copyright stuff bit them hard and threatened (or simply ruined) years of their hard work, but there was never a proper alternative to offer. I'm sure they'd love a legitimate alternative designed by top tier designers and developers for once.
Otherwise the creators will have no financial incentive to route users to another platform. Which is a far higher problem than not having enough other people commenting on the same video as other users.
In-video sponsors like Skillshare, NordVPN, Dollar Shave Club or whatever don't contact channels directly. There's someone representing them.
That's 11.7M violations for fiscal 2018.
The population of New York may be only 8.5 million, but that doesn't make 11 million infractions an indicator that the majority of those people are the sorts of people to accept parking fines as the cost of owning a vehicle.
I think the mistake you're making is assuming everything is binary. "A parent either assumes parental responsibility OR they complain about how society is corrupting their child."
But why can't a parent do both?
I am not telling them to not complain. They can complain freely, just as I am allowed to point out that no amount of regulations (sometimes at the expense of other people) will replace parenting. I, for one, would totally be against camera identification prior each purchase because parents cannot keep their credit card away from their children. They are also free to complain about issues that can be easily resolved were they to care enough and put some effort into it.
Are you saying there are no ad blockers on iOS? I can think of two ways and I am not an iOS user: 1) you can use RSS and open in Safari which has full adblocking support, or 2) you can auto download the videos. No ads in downloaded videos.
What do you mean by "without root"? Could you give me a specific example?
Out of curiosity, what is the reason for you or your children not willing to give up the YouTube app so that you can use a browser with an ad blocker installed to avoid ads? What is that feature that you (for yourself and your children) or your children prefer over not having ads?
If not, maybe even if so, that might not be such a bad thing. It would mean that if you could negotiate a deal with a single media group to upload to your platform as well you get a lot of content. I don't imagine these businesses are any happier with being hostage by youtube than individual creators.
To name some of the creators: CGP Gray, Kurzgesagt, Minute Physics, Real Engineering, Philosophy Tube etc.
if they're double-parking, do they do this because there isn't a reserved dropoff space? what do USPS trucks do when they deliver to these buildings?
> if they're double-parking, do they do this because there isn't a reserved dropoff space? what do USPS trucks do when they deliver to these buildings?
USPS delivers significantly less often - typically there's going to be a single delivery vehicle for all USPS services, while FedEx/UPS/DHL will have a vehicle per class of service.
USPS also double parks, parks in a non-parking spots but they tend not to have tickets on their vehicles.
Most professional youtubers don’t seem to trust YouTube’s revenue sharing so why bother with it?
Unless that competitor adopts an extremely pro-content-owner stance (which would put them diametrically opposed to their content creators, and render this entire experiment moot), they are going to get sued out of existence.
Why do you think YouTube's copyright systems work the way they do? YouTube's incentives are aligned with content creators - or, they would be, if that pesky lawsuit thing wasn't a constant threat.
What youtube does is significantly more aggressive and automated. I think one of the most ridiculuous examples was a performance of 4'33 that had it's audio removed because their bot decided it violated copyright law.