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How the big boys win the race for most popular website and rake in the dough

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nudone:
Maybe those of us in what's left of the Middle class should form a corporation so we could get better treatment in court and from the political class!
-zridling (March 18, 2010, 11:05 PM)
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great idea, that's worthy of a sci-fi short story if nothing else.

Deozaan:
I think that you can become "successful" by cheating, but eventually it will backfire. I guess you could call it Karma.

But I also believe that the truly successful people/businesses are honest.

I guess what I'm saying is this: There are good and bad people out there no matter where you go. Some big corporations are bad (cheat, steal, lie, etc.), and some are good (honest, lawful, charitable, etc.). Some rich people are bad, some are good. Some poor people are bad, some are good.

As with most things in life, only the bad are considered newsworthy, so you think there are a lot more bad than there are good.

mouser:
Betanews has more: http://www.betanews.com/article/Will-Viacoms-public-airing-of-YouTubes-dirty-laundry-change-the-Web-forever/1269029872

What makes me particularly ill about this stuff, is how much of the worst case scenario it confirms:

...
they operated YouTube with the unlawful objective of profiting from (to use their phrase) 'truckloads' of infringing videos that flooded the site," reads the opening passage of YouTube's founders single-mindedly focused on geometrically increasing the number of YouTube users to maximize its commercial value.
...
In a talking points document released today (PDF available here), Viacom cites various e-mails from various YouTube and Google executives, including YouTube founders Chad Hurley (CEO) and Steve Chen (CTO). Assuming these excerpts were not taken out of context, which is possible, they indicate that YouTube's founders were clearly building up a high-audience business with illicit files at their core, with the intention of selling out to somebody as soon as possible.
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It seems to me that the current state of the internet is increasingly looking more and more like this:

* A new idea catches on, whether it's ability for people to upload and share videos, or or whatever.
* Huge amounts of money and venture capital pour into the on or two sites that have a chance of "winning" the battle to capture the most users, and becoming dominant in this niche.
* Companies whose goal is to build a sustainable, self-funding site can be seen as laughable naive fools -- the people who win this game are not people trying to build a sustainable company -- the people who are going to win are the people who can grow at a rapid pace and have access to enough money to give everything away for free until the rest of the competition is financially exhausted.
* These sites offer everything they have for free, with absolutely no intention of building a sustainable business model -- everything is free and wonderful in a mad dash to grab as many users and eyeballs and visits as conceivably possible, as rapidly as possible.
* This frantic breathless drive to get huge numbers of visitors and publicity will be pursued at any cost, and it only has to be financed for a short period.
* Then comes the payday.  The winning company, which has succeeded at grabbing the most users, will be bought out by one of the big companies.
* After the buy out, the big company will either just use the purchased userbase to strengthen their marketshare on other projects, or will turn around and start charging for the services the site once offered for free once they have locked in users and locked in their position as the dominant market force.

app103:
After the buy out, the big company will either just use the purchased userbase to strengthen their marketshare on other projects, or will turn around and start charging for the services the site once offered for free once they have locked in users and locked in their position as the dominant market force.
-mouser (March 19, 2010, 07:32 PM)
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Or it's a pure talent grab and they eventually shut the service down.

On the one hand, I am jealous because I don't have the skills or know the right people to be able to pull something like that off, myself.

And on the other I am annoyed, because those with the talent that have made a long term commitment to what they are building get stepped on by the giants that just keep getting bigger as they buy up more stuff. Even if they have a superior product, they can't compete.

urlwolf:
@mouser: it's even worse when what they build is made by the users. Example, metadata. They do the footwork, get paid nothing, and at the of the day their work is repackaged and sold to them again.

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