A creator sends YouTube leadership a holiday message questioning whether the platform understands its own community. He argues that surveys aren't enough and calls for YouTube to prove it's modern and listening through actions, not blog posts, noting creators stick around despite technical problems because the core experience works.
Okay, I know it's Christmas and I know we're supposed to be like all charitable and we're supposed to be like all, you know, spirit of the season and, you know, the holidays and festival of lights and all, but I— Steve, Chad, Mary Rose, anybody else YouTube Brass people, I got a question for you. What kind of company do you want to be? What kind of company? Yeah, you can— you, can you let us know what kind of company you want to be? Because it's a little confusing right now. Let me tell you why it's a little confusing. You guys know that you got a tiger by the tail in this site, this— I don't know, did you see how I don't know what to call it? Because it's such a phenomenon that it's very difficult to know what to call this thing. 'Cause it's not a site and it's not a business. It is a business, but it's not just a business. It's something that now, hundreds of thousands, millions. I don't know how many subscribers there are. I don't know how many passionate frequent users there are. What's the stratification? Long tail, few users, a lot of— few posts, a lot of posts, few videos, a lot of videos. I don't know what the distribution of all that stuff is, but I know that there's a lot of us out here making a lot of videos, and a lot of us out here commenting back and forth on those videos. There's a lot going on in this company. You got a tiger by the tail. What do you want to be? Let me tell you what I mean. So recently, I don't know how many of us completed the survey that you, uh, presented to the community about various aspects of YouTube and various aspects of various aspects of YouTube. What about the comments? What about this? What about videos? What would you like? Would you like these tools? Would you like those tools? Would you like this? Would you like that? Okay, but it's a survey. It's a survey. You guys gave us a survey. And surveys are good, don't misunderstand me. Surveys are good. It's not that surveys are bad. Surveys are good, but surveys are so like 1958. Surveys are so like— this much of what matters to us is, is possible to express on a survey. Where's the— where's the interaction with us? Where's your videos asking us to respond to stuff that you think is cool? Where's the innovation? Where's all the smarts that you guys have? How come you're not Yeah, so that's my point. What kind of company do you want to be? You want to be a kind of company that really connects, or is this like a repository? Is this like a place where, you know, people are going to do things and you'll kind of keep an eye on it and see what's going on? But look, I know you guys respond. Steve responded to an email of mine. I promise I have the I won't show you anything. Steve responded to an email of mine, and I know that you guys are wanting to create something great, and you know that we're all putting up with a lot of technical shortcomings at the moment because the the experience of being here is powerful enough for us all and engaging enough for us all to, you know, get us to overlook it. It's like, okay, could you imagine another site where you would put up with the kind of shit that we put up with here? I can't. I mean, we'd have thrown— out of here, gone. Amazon, imagine if Amazon worked the way, the way YouTube works. Maybe you ordered, maybe you didn't order, maybe you get your stuff, maybe you don't get your stuff. You put 20 minutes into writing a comment and it disappears. You put— what? Come on, give us a little something to let us know that you're out there and you're not just some, you know, old-style 20th century company. Let us know that you're really as hip as we think you are and let the company reflect the stuff you're supposed to be standing for. If you guys are new and you want to do things in a new way, okay, do the survey, but do something cool. Do the— let us know that you're out there. Let us know that, you know, don't put it in a blog that maybe you do. Don't send an email saying, hey, we're working on the comments. Come on out here and say, hey guys, you know what? Wow! Frustrating, isn't it? It's really tough. We understand, you know, we're pedaling as fast as we can. Whatever, give us a little something. Come on, we know you're smart. Show us how smart you are by showing us what kind of company you want to be. Uh, all right, that's enough. Merry Christmas, and we'll see you. Take it easy.
