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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30683
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30683
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

What distinguishes YouTube is not the number of contributors, though that is huge, and essential to its success, but the number of viewers, which is extraordinarily large. What makes a content platform is always its appeal to consumers. For any content platform, the primary appeal to producers is that it has a lot of consumers.

YouTube is a great platform for consuming short videos. There is a huge appetite for short videos, but mostly for technical communication (how to do stuff) and music. The platform for long videos is not YouTube (though they seem to by trying), it is Netflix.

Viewing YouTube is all about short experiences and frequent shifts. It works well in a browser or on a phone. Viewing NetFlix is all about sitting back on the couch with a box of popcorn to watch a movie on a big screen. It is a different experience requiring a different platform.

In the book world, the nearest equivalent platform to Netflix is Kindle. They are both about the long-form sit back and enjoy experience.

There is no market for short fiction. There hasn't been one for decades, not since the demise of the classic family magazine market. Short stories are now apprentice pieces sold for no money to enthusiast magazines and webzines that no one reads. Thus there is no role for a short-form fiction exchange the way there is a role for a short form largely non-fiction video service like YouTube. And the YouTube model is not the right one for long form content of any kind.

Finally, there is no need for a similar platform for most forms of short-form non-fiction writing (technical communication, marketing) because Google provides all the navigation you need to find that stuff.

There is, however, a platform for a particular kind of short form non-fiction: questions and answers. You are using it now. Stack Exchange is probably the closest analog we have to YouTube for textual content.

Original score: 2