If It Ain't Broke...

I openly admit that I am not a man who enjoys change. While I concede the occasional shock to the system is great for shaking someone out of a funk, more often than not I find it does more harm than good, especially when you start altering things which have been working well for an extended period of time just because you are bored. That is why I can never understand it when companies which have a successful business model start messing with what has been working. I tend to think all it will do is alienate the existing customers and typically I am right about this. This week the company in question is YouTube, the free video streaming site, which has announced they will begin offering a paid-subscription service for a number of channels. They have already launch a couple of channels, but plan to offer subscriptions ranging from .99 to $7.99 and the future channels will essentially be online On-Demand services, where people can watch how-to videos done by professionals as well as older episodes of shows or movies without the fear they will be yanked down due to copyright laws. This is a clear shot at the traditional cable networks and if it worked it could change the way people watch their favorite shows as well as whether or not they decide to even keep cable in their homes. Of course, all of this depends on whether or not it actually works.

I have to say I am rather skeptical about this plan. Right now YouTube can give this a shot because they are the biggest online video provider on the internet and what good is having that position if you don't use it? But even they have to know how quickly that can change. The internet is extremely volatile in that regard - Napster used to be the place you got your music and MySpace was the place you networked with friends. Now no one uses those sites as anything more than a punchline. MySpace just got run over by Facebook, but Napster died because they started charging for music and YouTube needs to know they are not immune from the same fate. Just look at their rivals over at Hulu. When they first burst onto the scene offering free shows everyone loved them and saw the site as a serious challenge to YouTube. The second they started charging for access to older shows in their library with Hulu+ their momentum died. As it is YouTube has already begun to press its luck by running longer and longer ads before popular videos. (I tried to watch a :90 second video clip. The commercial in front of it was 3:30. As you can imagine, I didn't stick around.) Sure you can skip most of them, but once advertisers start paying more money we should expect that feature to go away and that is when YouTube should expect to see a large drop in visitors. The internet will always find a way to make the things people want to see be free.

[Sidebar: My lack of faith in this plan could also stem from the channels YouTube picked to use as their flagship stations when announcing this new format. The first will be a Sesame Street channel, because finding old episodes of Sesame Street is just so damn difficult. On top of that it is not like kids need the most recent episodes of that show. Hell, they still run clips they filmed in the 1970s and most 4 year-olds don't know the difference. The second was a UFC channel. This is probably my own personal bias, but I question just how popular the UFC really is. People always say it has eclipsed boxing, but considering boxing's place in today's sports landscape that isn't all that impressive. The last was a channel centered around the show "Young Turks", which is a very left-leaning show which currently airs on Current TV. Considering the test patterns that air after network TV sign off for the night get better ratings than any show on Current TV, I don't expect this to be a major revenue stream. Reportedly YouTube has 30 channels ready to launch, but if these are the three they decided to focus on at the announcement of this plan you would assume these are their strongest offerings because normally when a company has a big press conference to announce a new initiative they lead with their best stuff. I have to say that if this is the cream of the crop they had better head back to the drawing board and do it quickly.]

Look, you're not going to hear me complain about someone who wants to take on cable companies, because those guys need to be knocked down a peg or two. I'm always complaining about the fact that companies charge extra for the channels which should be included in the basic package and that they never group the channels you want together, but they can't wait to give you all the channels you don't want and try to tell you what a great deal you're getting. If there was a way to only have to pay for the 10 channels I actually watch that would be great. Also, it would be nice to see independent artists make a little money with the viral videos they create considering they are what really lifted YouTube to its current height. (Chocolate Rain's money can stop being hypothetical and start being real.) I would just advise YouTube to not get too cocky, although it is hard to see that happening considering their CEO has already declared the site as the victors in the battle with cable. He seems to think YouTube can do to network television what cell phones did to landlines, but I would remind him that cellphones were not initially free. People have a real problem when a service which has always been free starts charging for it (if you don't believe me ask all those newspapers who now hide their content behind a pay wall). Remember, cost has a large impact on context - that random :20 second video your friend forwarded to you may be cute now, but for $1.99 it had better be damn hilarious.