It is the most influential app in the US

(Spoiler alert: It's YouTube.)

You think you know YouTube. It's where billions of people learn how to change a tire, practice their favorite yoga practice, or watch Monday's solar eclipse.

But you might not know that YouTube is the most popular way to listen Music And one of the largest suppliers Cable TV from the country. YouTube is economy A healthy internet. And it has been a powerful fuel for artificial intelligence.

I examine the identity of YouTube because it is important to understand the impact of technologies on our lives. As popular as YouTube is, its power over the internet is underrated.

Let me try to convince you that YouTube is the most influential technology in America:

YouTube is best known for wasting a few minutes at the grocery store or on the toilet (sorry).

However, YouTube is The main streaming destination in the living room. Data from Nielsen They consistently show that Americans spend more time watching YouTube on TV than any other streaming service, including Netflix.

There is no reliable data on how much time we spend streaming on TV, phone, computer and other devices, but YouTube takes the top spot.

YouTubeTVIt is similar to cable television but accessed through the Internet One of the leading cable television providers from the country.

in music, More of us listen to songs on YouTube than SpotifyRadio or any other audio service.

In a study conducted on people from several countries Mark Mulligan, from MIDiA research, two-thirds of respondents have watched music videos on YouTube. About 43 percent have listened to music online in another way and 31 percent have a streaming music subscription such as Spotify and Apple Music.

According to PS Pew Research CenterYouTube is by far the most used social app by American adults. TikTok is not the most used app among teenagers. It's YouTube A mile again.

If you publish instagram, Facebook, TikTok, reddit One X, you're basically building those companies' products for free. YouTube doesn't work like that.

Every dollar advertisers pay for ads on millions of YouTube videos, The creator of the video gets 55 cents. Google, which owns YouTube, takes the rest.

YouTube has maintained this funding agreement for nearly 20 years. Even today, no other major app has such a consistent way for people to make money from what they create and publish online.

He The revolutionary YouTube payment method Are you interested in earning a cent for making videos on YouTube?

A A healthy internet economy, like the well-functioning U.S. economy, everyone believes it has a chance to thrive. That includes you as a viewer, the people who create the information or entertainment you view, and the companies that distribute the products.

YouTube isn't perfect in this case, but it could be The closest thing to a great online economy from a financial perspective.

By the way, if you subscribe YouTube PremiumAllowing you to watch videos without ads, YouTube pays a portion of your money to the creators of the videos in proportion to your watch time.

If you watch a lot of videos Mr. Beast And Not just bikes, those YouTube channels will get a big chunk of your subscription money. He A relatively democratic system of paying creators That's not how most music services like Spotify or Netflix work.

Even if you only listen to jazz on Spotify, Taylor Swift You still get a good portion of your subscription money.

You know an app is important when companies that capture any data become a fighting ring to “train” their AI.

According to him The New York Times, OpenAIThe owner of ChatGPT found a way Ingests over a million hours of YouTube videos and podcasts Turned spoken words into fuel. Google has also transcribed YouTube videos to train its AI software, according to the report. times.

OpenAI may violate YouTube's Terms of Service And the report suggests that what Google has done is infringing on the copyrights of people who make YouTube videos. times.

OpenAI said it “uses multiple sources, including publicly available data and links to non-public data.” Google reiterated the YouTube CEO's recent comment that the company's AI has been trained on some of YouTube's content “in accordance with our agreements with YouTube creators.”

YouTube is definitely flawed. It has been used to deceive, harass and spread propaganda. But for better or worse, YouTube is more important than you think.

(c) 2024, The Washington Post