Vevo could have been ‘an existential threat’ to YouTube, but YouTube won | Hacker News Reader

Vevo could have been ‘an existential threat’ to YouTube, but YouTube won

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90 pointsgymshoes56 comments

All that Vevo ever was for me was a quality seal that guarantees that the video from an artist is official, when searching for a song on YouTube - i.e. it had good image and sound quality and it was indeed a video clip, not just an upload of the song with the album cover or crappy collage as image.

Never thought about it as a company with ambitions to challenge YouTube.

i actually used to avoid vevo because it would usually give you the censored version of popular songs.

I came to type the same thing.

When you get big, you abandon the edge. That's just how it works.

Vevo posted the official video. Older music videos were made for play on MTV so they were censored and some one else had to edit them. I haven't run across a censored video on Vevo in a while unless I was looking for something old.

Since when is Vevo a quality seal? I see that mark plastered over 320p videos all the time. I figured it was just the "the ad money is now going to the record company" logo.

That's the way I see it. Vevo means I don't get to see lyrics, I get a video with weird intro/outro patters and instead of just the song, I get the censored and shortened radio version of the song, and I get more ads. If vevo took their content off youtube and ran, I would welcome it. Youtube should be more than MediaMegacorp advertising-disguised-as-music.

If Vevo became the place where music labels and acts -- the ones with the massive money-making audiences -- went to, Vevo would be even less tolerant of bootleg/non-official versions existing on a rival site.

This is why I always add keywords like "lyrics" or "72rpm" to my music searches. Maybe I should just exclude "vevo" though...hmmm...

I thought it's just a brand for YouTube's partnership with record labels.

Yeah, I view it like I do The Orchard and all the other upload/monetization services.

For me Vevo meant that the video would probably not play in my country and when it did, I wouldn't be able to play it with mpv and youtube-dl.

Can you clarify what you mean by this? I have never heard of any YouTube video (mp4/webm) having DRM in it.

GeoIP-based blocking, plus some techniques to detect VPN users, end up being fairly (but not 100%) effective at detecting foreign users. There's no need for DRM in the video file if you prevent most people from accessing it in the first place.

Okay, what about this: try youtube-dl on the infinitely-free 600M RAM instance you get in GCE. Upload bandwidth (what you'll use to d/l video from instance) is 1GB/mo max, but outbound to Google services is free, so transfer the videos out through gdrive.

Vevo was a partially thought-out venture, executed well but not well enough. It was always hampered by the studios' stubborn direction: licensing limitations that kept it out of lots of markets, not enough cross-promotion through sponsorships, retail channels, or advertising, and intentional lack of scope to avoid cannibalizing music sales. And they were hamstrung by the legacy of their initial decision to syndicate to YouTube: most people probably discovered the name 'Vevo' through seeing their watermark on music videos posted to YouTube, but subsequently had little reason to explore what Vevo is or does. Not that they missed anything: Vevo didn't do anything that YouTube didn't already do.

They wanted the cake both ways: leverage YouTube's audience and discovery, while running a not-at-all-captive, ad-supported competitor just for the sake of perceived control and leverage. That's cute.

If it wasn't such a half-assed venture, Vevo could've become the single most valuable subscription music streaming destination: a captive Spotify for daily use, with music videos on demand. But studios couldn't commit to the serious business decision of withdrawing their licensed content from other platforms that have already built an audience. Instead, now they've abandoned their ambition to have their own digital distribution solution, and have decided that focusing on licensing and revenue sharing is their preferred outcome.

It's interesting to compare this to TV, where the major incumbents are still interested in gating their content to their respective captive distribution portals.

When is comes to technology, the music publishing industry is like the airline business. It is more intent on protecting its current business model than innovating for the future. All it is really capable of doing is copying competitors and throwing its legal weight around a bit. Therefore it does not attract future minded people. I am not surprised that Google was able to manipulate them so well.

This can be generalized. Example: The rocket launch industry was once more intent on protecting its current business model than innovating for the future. Fortunately, what that does, is to create a market that is dramatically misaligned with what the price could be from first principles.

On the other hand, network effects with proprietary tech might be the great fatal flaw in capitalism that Karl Marx so desperately wanted to find. Once the creative destruction stops, stagnation then oppression takes over. Once capitalism no longer has sufficient advantage over the oppression of centralized control, there is no reason not to fall into centralized control. However, that result isn't utopian at all.

I happened to have a chat with someone who knows what happened first hand - between YouTube and the record labels oligopoly, they could hardly develop as a company and not a mediator, sandwiched between giants on both content production and content distribution.

I was always under the impression that Vevo was owned by YouTube/Google. I had no idea they had plans on anything other than "official music videos" on YouTube.

Alphabet does have a minority equity stake in Vevo.

The biggest threat to YouTube is YouTube. Censorship is getting out of hand and demonetizing/banning sucessful tubers is making people ask questions.

Questions like: Should I continue to invest in this platform or start moving my viewers elsewhere?

Personally, if I had a following, I’d be getting my branded media site up and running. I’d continue to post teaser content to YouTube, but host my full content on servers I control.

The hard part is that Youtube is actually really great at playing videos.

I have always found the alternatives surprisingly subpar.

It should maybe not be a surprise, after all they had all the time they needed in order to improve the experience.

Pornhub plays videos pretty well even in Mobile and they are just mp4 files. 4chan does pretty well with webm files except for the short length. Browsers can deal with video just fine and the experience is not so different from Youtube. Just serve the files in a format they can play.

There was a time where dailymotion had a shot but they missed it and failed hard on this part.

Vimeo is probably the only one that felt good (even though the average resolution being higher killed my poor old laptop)

Vimeo never streams well on any of my computers, on any of my networks. It reminds me of RealPlayer how often it buffers.

Vimeo tends to really annoys me by forcing me to go to their website if I want to see the video in high def.

This tends to make me make sure to just leave the website afterwards.

>if I had a following, I’d be getting my branded media site up and running. I’d continue to post teaser content to YouTube, but host my full content on servers I control

and you'd lose most of your audience. there's a reason that youtube's creators are still on youtube. Thinking about the people who watch a youtube channel as that channel's viewers is mostly a mistake. Some portion of a channel's subscribers would follow to a different site, but most of the audience of a YouTube channel is YouTube's audience. YouTube is sending the audience to videos via the popular feed, suggested video links, up next, the subscriptions page, and all their other discovery tools. Only the most hard-core fans will move to your branded content site.

And even when the audience moves, then you're doing ad sales yourself instead of taking advantage of all the companies doing big bulk ad buys on youtube, and paying for hosting yourself. Bandwidth isn't free, and youtube is very efficient at hosting and delivery. Other video sites tend to suck. Best case scenario, your pre-roll or banner ads pay for your hosting and ad sales work. The only profit you should expect to retain on your branded site is the in-video placements you're already doing on YouTube, and your Patreon revenue - the things YouTube demonetization can't affect anyways.

The pathway for a content creator to exit youtube is to sign a TV deal. Dedicated channel websites don't work.

While I see your point, YouTube doesn’t work if you get demonetized or banned.

I’ve played in other company’s ecosystems twice and went out of business both times when I got the boot. One doesn’t actually have a business when relying on another party’s ecosystem, it’s just an illusion. An illusion that ends suddenly and with no recourse.

This seems to be true of many social media sites now, with Digg being the old example. They don't so much lose to competitors doing better so much as the services shooting themselves in the foot with poorly thought changes and bad moderation.

I'm late to respond to this, but this sounds just like Nelk on YouTube. They are a pranking channel (ignore the immaturity), but they are banned on YouTube after barging into the Google Headquarters and recording a prank. They are now uploading "PG" content to their YouTube channel (after a serious ban from YouTube), while also branding their own media site where you pay for their "explicit" pranks.

Vevo's post [0] about stopping their service is a priceless list of bullshit bingo:

> At Vevo, our objective is to grow the commercial and promotional value of music videos, fostering deep connections between artists and fans.

> To be most effective in achieving those goals, we will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms.

> Going forward, Vevo will remain focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities.

[0]: https://hq.vevo.com/vevo-announces-changes-to-its-owned-and-...

Why does that page look so absolutely perfect on mobile? Perfect blacks, ultra crisp fonts.

It takes a good designer and a premium font: https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/avenir-next

(not that there are no quality free fonts)

I tend not to think of fonts that come with the operating system as "premium" :)

(Avenir + Avenir Next have been bundled in various Apple operating systems, and are the default font choices in a few of Keynote's built-in themes)

Since it's not on windows, linux or android, you should buy it which makes it premium despite the Mac luxury :)

The font is "Avenir Next", and its pretty cool.

https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/avenir-next

I can't see anything special about the blacks though...

I had no idea that Vevo wasn’t just a subsection of YouTube anyway, the equivalent of Twitter’s blue tick

They were formed out of a lawsuit (or thread of lawsuit). The music companies were going to sue YouTube/Google for copyright, so Google basically said, we'll provide you the infrastructure to play your Vevo songs free of charge as long as you dont sue out pants off. Worked out in the best interest for both party's

No, a reaction cobbled together to try and maintain control of a no longer releevabt business model was never a threat to anyone other than investors whose money music publishing industry is wasting.

It could only ever fail cause its real customer is music publishers and not music consumers.

How is it "no longer relevant business model"? Youtube Music would not exist if Vevo ended up being a separate destination that all the main music publishers endorsed.

Of the top 100 most viewed YouTube videos, only 6 are not music videos.

I've always doubted that the view counts on Vevo videos are real.

They might not be "views", just "listens" from people leaving on autoplay for hours.

Why? I’m curious what makes you feel they’re faking the view count?

The newest threat to Youtube is Youtube itself. Many content makers are complaining about the AI of Youtube that misunderstands text and videos and forces content makers to take down their own videos. I have also seen channels go down and the owners complaining since they cannot communicate with a real person and have no explanation why their channel is taken down.

I've always thought the music industry would be hitting this point in their life 20 years ago if not for the constant format changes. How many people replaced their collection over and over through the vinyl, 8 track, cassette and cd transformations. Now in it's final format change to downloading the replacement of collections is over and the industry is in trouble as it can't adjust to the lower gross. Depending on a single source for video, in this case Youtube, is going to be a mistake in the long run. Too much power in too few hands.

Vevo chose Youtube as a distribution channel. That was both the right and wrong move for them, but in the end it worked out pretty well for consumers, with the wider-scoped/user-driven concept winning over the media site.

Has YouTube won? Don’t they lose money?

It seems like Netflix has won. Hulu is catching up. YouTube is working hard on a distant third place.

I don't know how much youtube is losing but it seems it's the cultural cornerstone for online video.

A snail crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor.

According to YouTube they now have 1.8 billion logged in users each month. So I guess you could call that winning.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/3/17317274/youtube-1-8-billi...

As for their profitability:

https://medium.com/@intenex/where-are-you-getting-hard-data-...

Just speaking personally, I probably watch at least an hour of YouTube video daily, but I'm feeling less inclined to spend time on YouTube lately, due to all the ads and creator community hijinks. I've even considered hosting my own videos at sites like IA from now on. So while the big numbers look good, I'm personally more concerned about YouTube's future.

I wonder if this means on the backend the post production houses will just send the masters to YouTube instead of over to Vevo, only for vevo to upload them to YouTube. Would be much cheaper if vevo didn't ingest every video.

This is another clickbait variant: postmortem clickbaits.

e.g: "My startup failed", "Why I quit <company>", etc...

I am passing on this one since my common sense tells me VEVO and YouTube are vastly different services.

I thought this was talking about Vimeo.

Youtube's " 15,000-strong salesforce"

and non existent customer/producer support

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