Nilay Patel
Here I am on Marketplace Tech talking about YouTube, AI, and copyright law.
My three loves, all in one place. More from me about all of it in this piece!
YouTube
YouTube launched in 2005 as a video sharing platform, and was acquired by Google (now Alphabet) in 2006. It has built an entire community of creators that run channels dedicated to topics like gaming, tech reviews, and beauty. It also houses news videos and entertainment such as music videos, movie trailers, and clips from late-night TV shows.
YouTube’s rapid growth has not been without problems. YouTubers typically make money from ads that run in front of their videos, but if they break the platform’s rules, their channels and videos can be demonetized. Executives and moderators have worked to combat harassment, misinformation, terrorist propaganda, hate content, and other abuse.
The Verge runs two YouTube channels, The Verge and Verge Science.
Jacob Kastrenakes
How does Helen Mirren pronounce Helen Mirren?
Are we all saying Rihanna wrong? It’s “Louie” not “Lewis” in Julia Louis-Dreyfus, right?
I’m deeply grateful for this single-purpose YouTube channel, which is filled with hundreds of roughly four-second-long clips of celebrities saying their own names.
You will not be surprised to learn that the channel’s number one video, with 3.9 million views, is a clip of Cillian Murphy saying “Cillian.”
Jay Peters
Google is rolling out live lyrics in YouTube Music.
The live lyrics in Apple Music are pretty handy, so it’s nice to see them come to people using YouTube Music. Seems like a big improvement over the previous lyrics feature, too.
Google has made clear it is going to use the open web to inform and create anything it wants, and nothing can get in its way. Except maybe Frank Sinatra.
Nilay Patel
Jay Peters
Jacob Kastrenakes
(I guess you can skip this ad, if you really want to?)
YouTube is testing a new “skip ads” button that makes it just a bit harder to see that you’re able to skip ahead. A spokesperson confirmed the test to Search Engine Land.
Wes Davis
There’s beauty in the impractical.
YouTuber Nick Zetta decided to try to power a gaming PC with a miniature V8 engine — which I just found out is something you can buy.
It wasn’t as simple as shoving some wires in. He used pulleys, a pair of golf cart motors, a power regulator, rubber belts, an accelerator pedal, and a DIY motor mount. For his computer.
Nilay Patel
Gaze at my blissfully zen YouTube homepage.
I have had YouTube watch history off for years now, and the platform’s new attempt to get people to turn it back on by blanking out the homescreen is... well, it’s wonderful. Honestly more platforms should blank out recommendations on the homescreen and just let you search for things. Thanks, YouTube! (We have a how-to if you want to get this enabled for yourself, of course.)
David Pierce
Today on The Vergecast: the future of sports is the future of TV, and it might just all be YouTube.
College football conferences: super confusing, ultimately made up, and surprisingly important to the future of entertainment. Oh, and if you haven’t seen The YouTube Effect yet, this podcast will still make total sense, but you should add it to your watch list for sure.
Wes Davis
Planet of the Bass is good — great, even — but let us not forget Elektronik Supersonik.
For no reason other than I immediately thought of it when Planet of the Bass landed, I implore you to watch (or re-watch) Elektronik Supersonik by Santo Cilauro (AKA Zlad), a YouTube classic.
But I won’t make you watch the original 17-year-old upload — I mean, you can if you want — instead, I present it here in crispy HD.
Wes Davis
It’s Nerf (engineering) or nothin’!
Bill Hammack, AKA The Engineer Guy, explains why he calls this Nerf three-dart blaster’s cascading air mechanism “the epitome of good engineering” in this video on TikTok and YouTube.
It’s an old video, but watching his explanation of how the blaster’s series of valves trigger just one barrel at a time — and how to defeat its design to fire more than one dart — is immensely satisfying.
Jacob Kastrenakes
YouTube is still testing that ad-blocker blocker.
The crackdown is coming. Search Engine Land spotted the latest test, which tells users to unblock ads or they’ll be blocked from watching any videos. A previous test showed a warning saying people could watch three videos before being blocked.
YouTube spokesperson Oluwa Falodun previously told us:
We take disabling playback very seriously, and will only disable playback if viewers ignore repeated requests to allow ads on YouTube.
YouTube tests new anti-adblocker popup with countdown timer
[Search Engine Land]
Barbara Krasnoff
YouTube is offering you a nice, clean home page — if you’re willing to get rid of your watch history.
It’s likely that your YouTube home page has become pretty crowded with so many recommendations, ads, and other elements that you can hardly find anything. Well, now there’s a solution. If you’re willing to pause your current watch history and delete your past history, you might eventually end up with a nice, clean, even bare YouTube home page. Here’s how.
How to turn off and delete your YouTube watch history
Barbara Krasnoff
Barbara Krasnoff
Makena Kelly
The most abysmal policy debate I’ve ever seen ended with a multi-millionaire doing the worm.
Copyright law can’t seem to keep up with how fast YouTube and streaming trends evolve, so creators have long taken it upon themselves to set up industry norms for “react”-style videos.
Recently, Twitch and Kick star xQc caught a lot of heat for breaking those norms after posting what essentially amounted to reuploads of content by smaller creators.
He challenged YouTuber Ethan Klein to a debate over the merits of fair use, but the conversation devolved into... xQc doing the worm? I think there’s a real discussion to be had about copyright and content creation, but this definitely wasn’t it.
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Another Pokémon Scarlet and Violet anime series is coming to YouTube this September.
Following in the footsteps of previous Pokémon games like Sword and Shield, and Arceus, a new digital-first, animated series inspired by Scarlet and Violet is in the works.
Similar to Pokémon: Twilight Wings and Pokémon: Hisuian Snow, Pokémon: Paldean Winds introduces new trainers whose adventures are similar to those featured in the games, and the trailer makes it seem like the four-episode-long series will follow them all across Paldea when it hits the Pokémon Youtube channel on September 6th.
Ash Parrish
Feminist Frequency is going off the air.
Anita Sarkeesian has announced she’s ending her groundbreaking, pop culture criticism series after 15 years. “I’m ending Feminist Frequency because I’m extremely burnt out,” she said. After years of thoughtful critique of the way pop culture media treats women, and after the relentless and violent backlash she received for that, yeah, a break is long overdue. Read the full interview with Polygon below.
Richard Lawler
YouTube TV’s multiview feature is now live.
The feature for watching up to four feeds at once has been in testing, and now it’s officially available well ahead of this fall’s NFL Sunday Ticket streams for WNBA League Pass subscribers.
It’s no longer a sports-only affair, but YouTube TV’s FAQ notes it’s still limited to “multiple pre-selected live games simultaneously within a Primetime Channel,” and only on streaming devices or smart TVs where you can use your remote to click around to select which feed has audio.
GIF: Google
Tom Warren
This year’s Wimbledon men’s final is free on YouTube.
The Wimbledon final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic was an epic battle that cemented Alcaraz’s place as world number one. You can now watch the five-set match free on YouTube, where you can see Alcaraz secure his first Wimbledon title against seven-time champion Djokovic.
Wes Davis
I’m a sucker for re-engineering bikes.
And I’ll be keeping an eye on this newer YouTube channel, Works By Design, after a video showcasing an attempt at a more efficient bike, using CAD, a 3D object-scanning app, and pricey industrial tools. Perfect!
The goal was to get more torque throughout a pedal stroke, and maybe ironically, the maker replaced an old Biopace chainring that purported to do just that.
Allison Johnson
Deliver me from Cocomelon.
I have a vehicle-obsessed toddler, and just when I thought I couldn’t handle another viewing of Cocomelon’s Wheels on the Bus we stumbled across Twenty Trucks.
It’s a YouTube channel with songs dedicated to construction trucks and all manner of working vehicles. They’re delightfully homegrown, catchy, and feature plenty of that sweet truck footage. Check them out with the tiny vehicle-loving human in your life and thank me later — the car carrier is a big favorite in our house.